3-016 - Teaching Teens Civic Knowledge: What Works and What Doesn’t

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

School is an important social context for fostering the development of adolescents’ civic competencies, including the civic knowledge necessary to be effective citizens (e.g., Torney-Purta, 2002). Until now there is a lack of insight into the relative contribution of school factors for adolescents’ civic knowledge, the conditions that optimize school effects, and the kinds of civic knowledge that are affected by these school factors. This symposium helps to fill this knowledge gap, with presenters from the USA, Germany and the Netherlands, discussing findings from four large-scale, international studies.

The first three papers discuss how adolescents’ civic knowledge is affected by aspects of the school’s pedagogical climate: practices aimed at influencing the school’s organization and atmosphere. The first paper shows that a more positive pedagogical climate in the classroom but not adolescents’ evaluation of the school’s civic education (curriculum) positively affects their political knowledge. The second paper shows that the pedagogical climate but not extra-curricular activities in the school (e.g., student council) can predict interpersonal and societal aspects of adolescents’ civic knowledge over time. The third, cross-national paper shows that more frequent classroom discussions (aspect of the pedagogical climate) are positively related to adolescents’ civic knowledge. Additionally, the magnitude of this relationship depends on the national culture and demographics and on classmates’ civic knowledge. Finally, the fourth paper shows that a civic curriculum in which adolescents have first-hand civic experiences positively affects adolescents’ knowledge on local politics and civic action but not their general political (civic) knowledge.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Anne Alice Josephus van Goethem, University of Amsterdam

Individual Presentations

• Curricular and Classroom Climate Effects on Adolescents’ Political Knowledge - Presenting Author: Katharina Eckstein, Friedrich Schiller Universität, Jena; Burkhard Gniewosz, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich; Peter Noack, University of Jena

• The Longer-term Effects of School Climate and Extra-curricular Activities on Adolescents’ Civic Knowledge Development - Presenting Author: Anne Alice Josephus van Goethem, University of Amsterdam; Ellen Geboers, University of Amsterdam

• Discussion and Civic Knowledge - Presenting Author: Daniel Hart, Rutgers University

• Developing the Knowledge and Skills for Community Participation: An Action-Based Approach to Foster Civic Development - Presenting Author: Parissa Jahromi Ballard, UC-Berkeley; Alison Cohen, UC Berkeley; Joshua Littenberg-Tobias, Boston College