PISA and equity change: a scoping review

Promoting equity has been and still is a fundamental challenge for educational systems around the world. While PISA has a stated goal of sharing information and guidance to shape national policies for achieving greater socio-economic equity, its actual role and the outcomes of the program are subject to much debate. This paper presents a scoping review of the available literature that focuses on the relationship between PISA implementation and (socio-economic educational) equity change. This review is twofold, including both (i) quantitative research aimed at gauging changes in equity indicators using PISA datasets, as well as (ii) qualitative research that discusses PISA’s impact on educational equity. Major databases were systematically searched, yielding 1180 hits. After independent assessment by different judges, a total of 51 articles met the criteria for inclusion, 27 of which qualitative and 34 quantitative. Analysis of the qualitative and quantitative literature is presented separately, both in tabular and narrative form, allowing the assessment of the amount, nature, and scope of the available literature and related gaps. Keywords: PISA; Equity; Scoping review; SES; Literature review

Active citizenship: participatory patterns of European youth

Purpose: Treating Active Citizenship as a sum of behavioural indicators requires certain prerequisites that can be difficult to meet in practice (e.g. structural validity and measurement invariance). We explore a different approach, in which we treat Active Citizenship as a categorical, rather than a linear, construct. Design: Based on longitudinal data from eight European countries, we discovered the patterns’ structure based on the first-year data and then replicated the analysis on the second-year sample to confirm it. Next, we explored the change between the years and its’ trajectories. We compared countries profiles and their change. Finally, we used multinomial logistic regression to explore the most common trajectories. Findings: We describe six patterns: fighter, activist, volunteer, backer, online and indifferent. The pattern structure is replicable and 41.8% of respondents preserve their pattern. For those respondents who changed their pattern, we identified political interest, religiosity, gender and age as the main factors behind this change. Research implications: The study contributes to the understanding of youth Active Citizenship and the factors that support and promote it

Civic and political participation of European youth: fair measurement in different cultural and social contexts

Civic and political participation (CPP) is often routinely operationalized through the same questions, as can be found in many related studies. While questions can be adapted in accordance with the research purposes, their psychometric properties are rarely addressed. This study examines the potential methodological problems in the measurement of CPP, such as the conflict between construct validity and measurement invariance, as well as unequal item functioning between some groups of people. We use the Rasch model to test 18 CPP questions for their relevance for the European youth population and to study differential item functioning between groups based on (1) age, (2) gender, (3) economic satisfaction and (4) country of living. We discovered that CPP questions are strongly connected with the cultural and social context and can discriminate against some groups of people. The results demonstrate the need to develop more culturally responsive methods to study CPP and the paper offers suggestions on how to do so

Being both – A European and a national citizen? Comparing young people’s identification with Europe and their home country across eight European countries

It is a well-established fact that forming a mature and coherent political identity is one developmental task in adolescence and young adulthood. However, given different degrees of commitment on the regional, national, and European level, the question remains whether young people’s identification varies among those spheres? Drawing on data from the European Catch-EyoU-project, it was the goal of this study to examine whether young people can be classified according to their identification toward their home country and Europe and how these types are associated with age, gender, country as well as political interest, tolerance, and political participation. The study is based on adolescents and young adults from the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden (N = 9,339; Mage=19.62; 59.1% female). Cluster analysis revealed five types of young people’s identification with country and Europe which showed significant associations between group membership and tolerance, political interest, and participation. The implications of distinguishing types of identification and their associations with political outcomes are discussed

CATCH-EyoU: Processes in Youth's Construction of Active EU Citizenship: Cross-national Wave 1 Questionnaires: Italy, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic, UK, and Estonia: EXTRACT: Identification with Europe and Home Country

It is a well-established fact that forming a mature and coherent political identity is one developmental task in adolescence and young adulthood. However, given different degrees of commitment on the regional, national, and European level, the question remains whether young people’s identification varies among those spheres? Drawing on data from the European Catch-EyoU-project, it was the goal of this study to examine whether young people can be classified according to their identification toward their home country and Europe and how these types are associated with age, gender, country as well as political interest, tolerance, and political participation. The study is based on adolescents and young adults from the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden (N = 9,339; Mage=19.62; 59.1% female). Cluster analysis revealed five types of young people’s identification with country and Europe which showed significant associations between group membership and tolerance, political interest, and participation. The implications of distinguishing types of identification and their associations with political outcomes are discussed