Language Ability and Youth Citizenship Development: Competing Educational Goals?

• In Event: 65.080 - Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: 65.080-17 - Democratic Citizenship in Education SIG Roundtable Session #1

Abstract

ABSTRACT Schools are increasingly expected to promote pupils’ citizenship outcomes. Only few school and classroom factors have been found to contribute to citizenship development of pupils, however. At the same time, schools are expected to stimulate the academic development of pupils. While these goals are often seen as competing, we question whether a trade-off between academic learning outcomes and citizenship competences exists at the individual level. Instead, we argue that language ability in particular may benefit citizenship development. Using a sample of 2011 grade 5 pupils in 138 primary schools in the Netherlands, our findings confirm that both language ability and growth in language ability are positively associated with pupils’ citizenship outcomes, in particular with citizenship attitudes and knowledge.

Authors

• Bram Eidhof, University of Amsterdam

• Geert Ten Dam, University of Amsterdam

• Anne Bert Dijkstra, University of Amsterdam

• Herman G. van de Werfhorst, University of Amsterdam