Young European citizens : An individual by context perspective on adolescent European citizenship

This study examined the effects of individual, school-level and country-level variables and their interactions on two components of adolescents’ active European citizenship: trust in European institutions and participation at the European level. For comparison, country-related institutional trust and participation were also predicted. Using multilevel regression models, we re-analysed a subsample of survey data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, collected from 14-year-old students (n = 72,466) in 22 European countries in 2009. Results showed that higher cognitive engagement with politics (e.g., political interest), more opportunities for learning about Europe at school, and country wealth and social equality were positively associated with both aspects of adolescents’ active European citizenship. In contrast to country-related participation, the participatory dimension of active European citizenship was also positively related to a higher socioeconomic status of adolescent’s classroom and family, an association that was more pronounced in less wealthy and post-communist countries

Twenty Years After the Velvet Revolution: Shifts in Czech Adolescents’ Perceptions of Family, School, and Society

Families and schools are traditionally seen as substantial socialization agents forming adolescents’ social values and their views of society. Special attention is paid to the question whether the relative importance of these influences remains stable in times of major social changes. In this study, two different generations of Czech middle adolescents are compared: (a) the “post-totalitarian” generation that grew up in the last decade of the communist regime and entered adolescence during the time of rapid political and socioeconomic changes (data collected in 1995) and (b) the current generation without personal experience with the communist regime, raised in a stable democratic society (data collected in 2010). Both groups of participants (total N = 2,127, aged from 14 to 17 years) were administered an identical questionnaire. First, we examined the changes in adolescents’ perception and evaluation of the society over the last 15 years. Today’s adolescents perceive society more as a community and their future orientations are more focused on materialistic and less on environmental values. While the emotional relationship between the children and parentsremains the same, adolescents learn a somewhat different message in the family, emphasizing self-reliance. School environment is perceived more as positive and engaging than 15 years ago. Second, we predicted adolescents’ social views and values from their assessment of family and school environment. Our results show that the effect of parental values on adolescents’ value orientations is higher in the current generation. Positive school environment contributes to the development of socially responsible orientations despite the changes in society

Understanding young people's citizenship learning in everyday life: The role of contexts, relationships and dispositions

In this article we present insights from research which has sought to deepen understanding of the ways in which young people (13-21) learn democratic citizenship through their participation in a range of different formal and informal practices and communities. Based on the research, we suggest that such understanding should focus on the interplay between contexts for action, relationships within and across contexts, and the dispositions that young people bring to such contexts and relationships. In the first part of the paper we show how and why we have broadened the narrow parameters of the existing citizenship discourse with its focus on political socialisation to encompass a more wide-ranging conception of citizenship learning which is not just focused on school or the curriculum. In the second part of the paper we describe our research and present two exemplar case studies of young people who formed part of the project. In the third part we present our insights about the nature and character of citizenship learning that we have been able to draw from our research. In the concluding section we highlight those dimensions of citizenship learning that would have remained invisible had we focused exclusively on schools and the curriculum. In this way we demonstrate the potential of the approach to understanding citizenship learning that we have adopted

The significance of trust in the political system and motivation for pupils' learning progress in politics lessons

Very little research has been conducted on the contribution of political education to learning progress in Germany. Hence, there is a need for intervention studies measuring performance against the theoretical background of a political competence model. This model comprises three constructs: subject knowledge, motivation and attitudes. According to this model, politics lessons should not only convey knowledge but also arouse subject interest, promote political attitudes and develop problem-solving skills. This study investigates how knowledge acquisition is influenced by intervention using theory-oriented teaching materials on the European Union, intervention using conventional textbooks on the European Union and politics lessons without any reference to the European Union. It further asks how the performance-related self-concept and subject interest in political issues impact political knowledge and whether civic virtue and trust in the system are related to it. The sample comprises 1071 pupils. Theory-oriented politics classes lead to greater growth of pupils’ knowledge than in the control group. As anticipated, this study proves that a positive subject-specific self-concept impacts knowledge. The examination of political attitudes reveals a positive correlation between civic virtue and knowledge. There is no connection between trust in the political system and knowledge