The Contribution of the IEA Civic and Citizenship Education Studies to Educational Research and Policy in Europe

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Reflections on IEA Civic Education Studies’ Multi-faceted Contributions to the Research, Theory and Practice of Democratic Education across Countries

Proposal

In Europe, civic and citizenship education has been the subject of growing attention and initiatives especially over the last three decades. This interest was largely motivated by several factors, which include the collapse of communism, growing concerns about the consequences of globalization and increased immigration (unwelcome in many countries), as well as anti-democratic and xenophobic movements.

Many policy actions have been taken to address these challenges. For example, European institutions such as the European Union (EU) and international organizations such as the Council of Europe (CoE) launched initiatives to promote social cohesion and active citizenship. As a result, European countries have established common policy frameworks for coordinating their efforts in promoting and evaluating their policies regarding civic and citizenship education (e.g. the Strategic Framework for European Cooperation in Education and Training (ET 2020).

These policy initiatives have provided an important context and motivation for the participation of European countries in the IEA civic and citizenship education studies. European countries have been a prominent part of CIVED 1999, ICCS 2009, and ICCS 2016; these studies have stimulated a great deal of research and reflection that is highly connected to topics of interest for European educational policy.

This paper is based on a chapter in the recently released book on the IEA civic education studies. It aims to reflect on the context and the main education research and policy priority areas regarding civic and citizenship education in Europe and to show how the participation of European countries in IEA’ studies was intertwined with growing interest in civic and citizenship education in these countries, each coping with the need for examining and enhancing civic and democratic education. Then, it highlights the main research themes and topics that were enabled by examining the IEA studies leading to conclusions that are informative for scholarly research, policy, practice and reflection about civic and citizenship education in the European context. For example, established research themes such as the development of citizenship competences (e.g. enhancing the knowledge of democracy, trust or distrust in democratic institutions, citizenship efficacy, civic engagement of several types, acceptance of those who come from diverse backgrounds) and promoting democratic school practices (e.g. school environments in which high quality dialogue and debate on political and social issues are encouraged) are identified and discussed. Moreover, several topics of interest (e.g. developing media literacy and critical thinking, preventing school violence, promoting civic and intercultural competences and encouraging practices of inclusion in schools) that could be further covered by the information collected by the IEA ICCS studies as well as by research employing secondary data analysis of these data are proposed. Lastly, the paper concludes with a deeper reflection on the meaning of these findings, on opportunities for further research as well as for increasing the impact of the IEA studies in the European and national policy and practice contexts.

Author

• Maria Magdalena Isac, KU Leuven