Fostering Democratic Citizenship: Opportunities and Challenges of Education and Assessment

In most European countries, citizenship education is an integral part of the education system, and pupils usually demonstrate extensive knowledge about democracy and citizenship, as seen in the ICCS-studies of 2016 and 2022. However, this level of knowledge does not necessarily result in young peoples’ active participation in democracy, which is essential to a sustainable development of democratic societies. In the fact the learning processes and pedagogies that develop knowledge acquisition are not the same participatory forms of learning that develop the skills and attitudes that are needed to empower students to engage in politics (Hoskins and Janmaat 2019). Attitudes like political self-efficacy and political interest that are associated with future political engagement (Kosberg and Grevle, 2022; Ecksteim, Noack and Gniewosz, 2013; Reichert, 2016; Vecchione et al., 2014; Verba et al., 1995) have been found to be developed through participatory and social learning processes such as classroom discussions, organised debates and mock elections held in schools (Hoskins and Janmaat 2024). Yet the access to these social learning opportunities is not equally available to all within European countries (Hoskins and Janmaat 2019; Hoskins et al 2021).

It is important for the legitimacy of democratic societies that democratic participation is broad and that all social groups in society are represented and heard so new methods and approaches need to be developed and tested that support all social groups to benefit from more inclusive participatory and social learning. of the skills and attitudes for democracy. Previous research has shown that learning and knowing democratic systems and principles constitute only a small part of the citizenship competencies that are needed by future citizens. Additionally, the (internal) political efficacy of the students is instrumental for active citizenship, which can only be acquired though active participation.

This special issue responses to a lack of scientific knowledge in previous research on student learning from doing/practicing democratic citizenship in schools and in classrooms where teachers’ approach of instruction is crucial in providing appropriate learning opportunities. Finally, in current times of anti-democratic movements and fake news and war (and other crises for that matter), this whole issue is as relevant as ever. We aim to bring together ongoing research on education and assessment of democratic citizenship, taking into account several different perspectives, including pupils’, university students’, teachers’ and school leaders’. Through a variety of research methods, including both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the contributions are encouraged to analyse various possibilities and challenges to the development of democratic citizenship, with particular emphasis on the role of education and assessment.

The timeline for this special issue:

First submission of papers by 1.12.2024

Publication of the special issue September/October 2025

Papers that successfully pass peer review will be published as Advance Access after their final version is available.

Guest Editors’ Biographies and Expertise

Lihong Huang is a research professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, email: lhuang@oslomet.no. She has been a research coordinator for several national and EU funded projects on youth democratic citizenship and citizenship education such as Norway participating in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016), ‘DEMOCIT – Democracy, Equality, Learning and Mobilisation’ (2020-2023) & ‘STRIDE – Strategies for achieving equity and inclusion in education, training and learning in democratic Europe’ (2024-2027). She has been an editor at YOUNG 2017-2024. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0315-4369

Bryony Hoskins is a professor of comparative social sciences at University of Roehampton, email:  bryony.hoskins@roehampton.ac.uk . She is one of the leading researchers in the EU/UKRI funded, Gender Empowerment through Politics in Classroom (G-EPIC) project and the co-lead of the Leverhulme project ‘Measuring and assessing the democratic performance of education systems’. She is one of the most published scholars in the fields of democratic citizenship education and research. She is an editor for the recent publication Northern Lights on civic and citizenship education : a cross-national comparison of Nordic data from ICCS | WorldCat.org,  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0474-4421

Jens Bruun is associate professor of comparative education at Department of Educational Sociology, Aarhus University, Email: jebr@edu.au.dk . He is the national research coordinator for Denmark participating in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS cycles of 2009, 2016 and 2022).

References

Eckstein, K., Noack, P., & Gniewosz, B. (2013). Predictors of intentions to participate in politics and actual political behaviors in young adulthood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 37(5), 428-435

Hoskins, B., Huang, L. & Arensmeier, C. (2021). Socioeconomic inequalities in civic learning in Nordic schools: Identifying the potential of in-school civic participation for disadvantaged students. In H. Biseth, B. Hoskins & L. Huang (Eds.), Northern Lights on Civic and Citizenship Education: A Cross-national Comparison of Nordic Data from ICCS (chapter 5). SpringerOpen. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66788-7_5

Hoskins, B., & Janmaat, J. G. (2024). Intergenerational transmission and the reinforcement of the political engagement gap: Identifying how university educated parents enable their children to become more politically interested during early adolescence. British Educational Research Journal. https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/berj.4002

Hoskins, B., & Janmaat, G (2019) Education, Democracy and Inequality: Political Engagement and Citizenship Education in Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-48976-0 

Kosberg, E. & Grevle, T.E. (2022). Review of International Civic and Citizenship Survey data analyses of student political efficacy. I Desjardins, R. & Wiksten, S. (red.). Handbook of Civic Engagement and Education. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Reichert, F. (2016). How internal political efficacy translates political knowledge into political participation: Evidence from Germany. Europe's journal of psychology, 12(2), 221.

Vecchione, M., Caprara, G. V., Caprara, M. G., Alessandri, G., Tabernero, C., & González-Castro, J. L. (2014). The perceived political self-efficacy scale–Short Form (PPSE-S) A validation study in three Mediterranean countries. Cross-Cultural Research, 48(4), 368-384.

Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.