Professional Documents
Culture Documents
IN DEMOCRACIES
CIVIC AND POLITICAL EDUCATION
Series Editor:
Murray Print, University of Sydney, Australia
In this series the key topic of civic and political education will be written from
multidisciplinary perspectives by groups of international scholars, representing
a range of disciplines from political science, to education, to sociology and
youth studies. The publications will present new evidence as well as reflect
and argue previous international research on civic and political education.
They will present best practices and innovations that can inform nations as
they consider how they educate their next generations of young citizens.
Murray Print
University of Sydney, Australia
and
Dirk Lange
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany
SENSE PUBLISHERS
ROTTERDAM / BOSTON / TAIPEI
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
Introduction
Murray Print and Dirk Lange
3. What Does Democracy Need from Its Citizens? Identifying the Qualities
Needed for Active Citizenship and Making the Values Explicit 23
Bryony Hoskins
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contributors 163
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The editors wish to acknowledge the significant contribution made by the authors,
first to contributing to an invited symposium in Hannover and then subsequently
reworking their papers to become chapters in this book.
We also wish to acknowledge the support from the Volkswagen Stiftung for its
assistance with this project.
The project also received support and encouragement from the AGORA
Politische Bildung at the Leibniz Universität, Hannover in Germany and from the
University of Sydney in Australia.
Murray Print
University of Sydney
Dirk Lange
Leibniz Universität Hannover
vii
MURRAY PRINT AND DIRK LANGE
INTRODUCTION
Democracy depends on all of us: the price of liberty is not just ‘eternal
vigilance’, as Abraham Lincoln said, but eternal activity. (Sir Bernard Crick,
2008)
Modern democracies face many challenges including the ability to sustain
themselves particularly in times of crises. Over the past few years Europe has faced
many challenges to sustaining democracy across a diverse range of cultures,
countries and political traditions. Yet a common theme to all democracies in
Europe is the need for active, informed citizens who will sustain democracy.
In acknowledging that the future of their democracy rests with educating the
young, European societies have engaged in some form of educative experience to
prepare their future democratic citizens. Evidence abounds that young citizens,
though generally supportive of institutions such as parliament and the courts, are
distrustful of politicians and political parties. They are supportive of the idea of and
need for government, but invariably perceive governments as unresponsive,
inflexible and ideologically driven by political party ideologies and special
interests.
Many elements of traditional representative democratic processes are ignored by
the young potentially ‘preparing’ them for poor citizenship. Young people vote less
than previously, rarely join political parties, don’t contact politicians and they don’t
support them at election times. What competences do young Europeans need to be
active citizens in the 21st Century?
An invited research symposium drew together leading civic and political
educators from Europe as well as social scientists and educational administrators to
address the above question through two key issues:
ix
INTRODUCTION
x
INTRODUCTION
REFERENCES
Crick, B. (2008). Democracy. In J. Arthur, I. Davies, & C Hahn (Eds.), The Sage handbook of education
for citizenship and democracy. London: Sage Publications.
xi
PART I
COMPETENCES FOR
DEMOCRATIC CITIZENS
GERHARD HIMMELMANN
This chapter would like to draw attention to two basic aspects addressed by the
symposium in Hannover. As such it serves as an introduction to the remaining
chapters in this book. First, the shift of concerns and concepts in the field of
citizenship education towards active democratic citizenship and second, the new
understanding of the underlying theory of democracy useful for democratic
citizenship education.
CHANGE OF EPOCH
In the last ten to fifteen years we have witnessed some remarkable efforts to
‘revise’ or ‘revitalize’ the tradition of citizenship education within schools and
education systems. There have even been demands to ‘reinvent’ or ‘recivilize’
civic education. Often they deplored the still existing neglect and disregard in the
field of citizenship education and asked for a new and specified form of
“democratic citizenship education” beyond just “civics,” for a new way of
“teaching democracy” beyond teaching institutional political settings or a new
“education of, for and through democracy” beyond mere teacher-centered
instruction in politics.
Thus, the European Union pointed out the leading term of “active citizenship,”
the Council of Europe highlighted the model of “democratic citizenship” and the
Eurydice-network pleaded for the guiding term of “responsible citizenship.” Since
1995 many countries around the world have passed new educational laws and new
national curricula confirming democratic citizenship education.
All these efforts and initiatives reflect – in each special way – the disturbing
developments in the real world of politics, economics and ethics as well as
religious fundamentalism.
The collapse of the European communist regimes set up the agenda in 1989 and
thereby deeply challenged eastern as well as western countries. Other factors were
the extension of globalization in economics and cultures, new forms of media
communication and new risks of terrorism, of social fragmentation, of racism and
of xenophobia. All these developments caused insecurities and ambiguities in the
moral, ethical and civic self-interpretation of western democracies – though they
still serve as models for democratization of the newly developing countries.
The new affirmations of democratic citizenship education claim on the one hand
to be a strong response to the far-reaching changes in politics and economics since
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 3–7.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
HIMMELMANN
1989 on the other hand they want to meet the undesired shortcomings and deficits
of our own traditional political, social and cultural life as well. In fact, the central
point is: we are in search of new forms of social cohesion – balancing
individualism and common needs, preserving individual human rights as well as
public security of the society as a whole.
The changing use of terminology in the field of citizenship education
correspond to the changes in concerns and concepts of citizenship – as conceived
to meet actual and future challenges of democratic societies. Over and beyond the
different vocabulary and approaches the focus of modern citizenship education has
shifted from mere state-centered, nation-centered or even narrow political
“instruction” to a broader “citizenship education,” more specially, to a new
“education for democratic citizenship.”
This development reflects two types of conceptual change in civic education,
firstly, the transition from an approach in which the main priority in teaching was
knowledge and instruction – particularly about local, regional or national political
institutions – to an approach that emphasizes personal attitudes and individual,
moral and social behavior as well as common values and dispositions of the
citizens themselves – showing due regard for human rights and democratic “living
together” in a world full of conflicts. Secondly, the change mentioned brings about
a considerable extension of contents in this field of education. No aspect of
community life is considered being irrelevant to citizenship education – though
political institutions and the process of democratic decision making in politics still
remain of high priority. But the call for democratic citizenship education highlights
at the same time the moral and affective approach often neglected in citizenship
education. This demand goes far beyond the school and beyond a single subject in
school to which citizenship education has traditionally been confined.
Instead of fostering passive and affirmative learning we find emphasis on active,
social, cooperative and critical learning. Instead of call for more obedience and
loyalty to the ruling powers, new concepts strive for experimental and practical, for
social, moral and responsible self-government and participation of the learners in
the society they belong to. Instead of nationalistic, patriotic, ethnic, tribal, racial or
even mono-religious learning we find the call for intercultural and environmental
education, of peace education, moral and social as well as media learning. Instead
of accumulation and testing of mere knowledge, future citizenship education
should stress equal efforts on (1) democratic knowledge and understanding, (2)
democratic values, attitudes and common awareness. These competencies should
be accompanied by (3) practical skills like problem solving, conflict solution,
service learning, entrepreneurial or project learning and civic engagement.
So we find the triplets of competences as follows:
4
COMPETENCES FOR TEACHING, LEARNING AND LIVING DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
The rising international interest in education for democracy has stimulated fresh
thinking including the question what the essential elements of good education for
democracy are.
I repeat in this paper an interpretation of democracy already published in 2001
adopted by the Council for Cultural Cooperation (CDCC) of the Council of Europe
(CE) in 2004.
The first topic of education for democracy is a systematic and continual
emphasis on teaching and learning “knowledge of democracy” set up by a
democratic constitution, confirmed by human rights and organized by a democratic
government – based on the sovereignty of the people. This includes people’s
representatives in government elected in free, fair, open, equal and competitive
elections. It includes the rule of law, the rule of majority and the protection of
minorities. And it includes the separation and the balance of powers, effective
party-system etc.
This institutional interpretation of democracy is a rather thin, a minimal or an
elementary interpretation of democracy. It concentrates – important enough – on
the “high” institutions of democracy and the democratic procedures of political
decision making on the different levels of local, regional and national politics.
It may be appropriate to describe these institutions and procedures of political
democracy by the term of “Democracy as a form of government.”
But serious interpretation cannot interpret and teach democracy without
including the broader level of society. This broader interpretation of democracy
should include the social pre-conditions underlying the institutional democracy.
These preconditions can be identified as a pluralistic system of parties, interest
groups or civic initiatives; as a free, pluralistic and manifold media-system; as a
broad public sphere of civil society activities; as a social moderated system of free
5
HIMMELMANN
market economy; as a peaceful conflict system in the industrial relations sector and
at last some self government in social security systems.
It may again be appropriate to name these social preconditions of political
democracy by the term “Democracy a form of society.” Political democracy cannot
really and enduringly function without the basis of a democratic form of society.
Effective democratic government depends on democratic society.
In third position we should remember that neither democracy as a form of
government nor democracy as a form of society will really and enduringly function
without the basic human factor that combines democracy with the personal
attitudes and relationships of the citizens themselves. In this respect civic virtues
and responsibilities come into sight. Democracy as a practical and daily “living
together” of citizens needs democratic habits and dispositions as there are
tolerance, courage, fairness, charity, compassion for others, civility and respect in
dealing with others. These characteristics of behaviour constitute the moral of
democratic citizenship and of democracy as a whole.
It may again be appropriate to characterize this third level of democracy by the
term “Democracy as a form of living.”
I should stress: none of these levels of democracy should be over- or
underestimated, none level should be isolated or separated from the others.
These three levels or forms of democracy can easily be transformed into a concept
of teaching democracy on primary, secondary I and secondary II level – with
differentiated emphasis for competencies or aims of Democracy Learning. These
competencies should combine:
REFERENCES
Duerr, K. (2004). The school – A democratic learning community. Council of Europe, DTIV/EDU/CIT
(2003) 23 Final, Strasbourg, 26 April.
Himmelmann, G. Expertise zum Thema “Was ist Demokratiekompetenz”? Ein Vergleich von
Kompetenzmodellen unter Berücksichtigung internationaler Ansätze. In ders.: Leitbild
Demokratieerziehung (pp. 120-187). Schwalbach/Ts.: Wochenschau Verlag.
Himmelmann, G., & Lange, D. (Eds.). (2005). Demokratiekompetenz. Beiträge aus Politikwissenschaft,
Pädagogik und politischer Bildung. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
APPENDIX
6
CO
OMPETENCES F
FOR TEACHING
G, LEARNING AN
ND LIVING DEM
MOCRATIC CIT
TIZENSHIP
A Form of
Government/Governance
Human Rights – Rule of Law –
Parliamentarianism – Balance of powers
A Form of Society
Pluralism – Peaceful conflict resolution
–
Civil Society
A Form of Living
Tolerance – “pursuit of happiness” –
Solidarity – Fairness – Self-
determination
7
JAN W. VAN DETH
ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP
Democracy doesn’t deserve its name without citizens’ participation. Ever since
Pericles this claim has been defended and discussed. The question is not whether
citizens should be involved in democratic decision-making processes, but how
much engagement and participation is required for a vibrant democracy. Citizens’
involvement, however, cannot be taken for granted but depends heavily on
resources, motivations, and social contacts. Orientations and activities of citizens
that strengthen democracy and which, in turn, are strengthened by democratic
experiences are summarized under the label active citizenship. The Council of
Europe defines active citizenship briefly as the power of people “… to exercise and
defend their democratic rights and responsibilities in society, to value diversity and
to play an active part in democratic life.”1 Citizens cannot fulfil these ambitious
tasks adequately without specific competences; that is, citizens need to have “… a
combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values” at their disposal enabling
them “… to become an active citizen” (Hoskins, Barber, Nijlen et al., 2011, p. 84).
Extensive programmes for “citizen education” have been developed in order to
promote these competencies in many countries in recent years.
Empirical research shows considerable distinctions between the ideals of active
citizenship and active citizens on the one hand and the political orientations and
activities of average citizens in advanced democracies on the other. In this
contribution some of these empirical findings are briefly summarized in order to
link citizenship with “the civic realities of everyday life” (Kennedy, 1997, p. 3). Of
the extensive list of political knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and activities
required for active citizens the focus here is on norms of citizenship and political
and social participation as important attitudinal and behavioural aspects of
citizenship respectively. What images do citizens have of citizenship? How are
norms of citizenship distributed in democracies? Still, not much empirical
information is available to answer these questions. The picture looks better for
social and political participation. Yet available evidence on political orientations
and behaviour is strongly focused on liberal democracies in Europe and North
America. The last part of this chapter discusses briefly the various opportunities
and challenges for “citizenship education” with respect to the empirical findings
presented.
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 9–21.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
VAN DETH
NORMS OF CITIZENSHIP
10
CITIZEN
NSHIP AND THE
E CIVIC REALIT
TIES OF EVERY
YDAY LIFE
On thee showcard ussed a number of o aspects of a ‘good citizenn’ such as “…… to show
solidarrity with peopple who are w worse off thaan yourself” oor “… to be active in
organiisations” are liisted. Responddents express their opinionn for each aspeect on an
11-poiint scale ranginng from “veryy unimportant”” (0) to “very important” (100).
Thee results obtaiined with theese questions are summarizzed in Figuree 1 for a
numbeer of Europeann countries. Inn spite of the use of differeent items and different
sets off countries thee results of thhe two studiess are remarkabbly similar. AAutonomy
and laaw obeying are unreserveedly supporteed by about 70 per cennt of the
responndents, whereaas voting and solidarity are considered to be important by about
60 perr cent. On the other hand wee see that the Tocquevilleann idea that enggagement
in volluntary associiations is an important aspect of beingg a ‘good cittizen,’ is
supporrted by about one out of eveery four respoondents only. E Even more rem markable
is the clear lack of support for thhe idea that a ‘good citizen’ should be active in
politiccs: only ten per cent of the rrespondents suupport the norm m that a ‘goodd citizen’
is – geenerally speakiing – a political active citizeen beyond votting.
Figurre 1. Aspects off being a ‘good ccitizen’ (CID annd ESS-1). Perccentages of resppondents
scoring 8, 9 orr 10. Weighted wwith design weigghts and weightts for country siize
11
VAN DETH
US-political activists give for political inactivity: the neutral response “I don’t have
enough time” is followed immediately by “I should take care of myself and my
family before I worry about the community or nation” and “the important things in
my life have nothing to do with politics” (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995, p.
129). Dalton, on the other hand, stresses the rise of “Engaged Citizenship” as
opposed to “Duty-based Citizenship” among American citizens, but his results also
clearly show the lowest levels of support for “be active in social or political
associations” and for “choose products for political, ethical or environmental
reasons” (Dalton, 2008, p. 30). All these findings suggest that many citizens
support a remarkably restricted conception of citizenship – or at least a conception
that is far away from ideas presented by political theorists from Pericles and Plato
to Benjamin Barber and officials at the Council of Europe.
PARTICIPATION
12
CITIZENSHIP AND THE CIVIC REALITIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
phenomena with only a few per cent of the citizens participating in party activities
or attending demonstrations (cf. Teorell, Torcal, & Montero, 2007, p. 349; van
Deth, 2010, 2012, pp. 118-121). The limited spread of ‘new’ modes of
participation in underlined by the fact that the percentages of people using at least
one mode of participation are only slightly higher than those who casted a vote in
the last election. Although numerous cross-national studies on political
participation are available conclusions about long-term developments are not easy
to validate empirically. Table 1 shows that between 1974 and 2002 only the use of
boycotts for political reasons has increased strongly and significantly. The recent
stabilization at a relatively high level, however, casts doubts on the expectation of a
continuous rise in the use of this kind of actions as a political activity. For all other
modes of participation the percentages of active citizens declined sharply between
1974 and 2010. Sophisticated analyses of the developments in many countries
show that especially young people nowadays participate less in ‘institutional’
(voting, party-related activities etc.) and more in ‘non-institutional’ (protesting,
political consumption etc.) modes of participation. Yet both modes of participation
display lower levels of participation among young people now as compared to the
1970s. As a result, average levels of participation are going down in many
countries since the use of ‘non-institutional’ modes of participation does not
compensate the decline in ‘institutional’ activities (García Albaceta, 2011).
Percentages ‘have done’ of the total number of respondents. ESS weighted with design
weights and weights for country size; PA not weighted. ESS-5: first release with twenty
countries (November 2011)
Following the neo-Tocquevillean revival in the last two decades the expansion
of the action repertoire also includes voluntary activities in associations, clubs or
movements (cf. Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995; Putnam, 2000; van Deth,
Montero, & Westholm, 2007). As we have seen in Figure 1 the support for
13
VAN DETH
Figuure 2. Engagem
ment in voluntaryy associations ((WVS-4). Percenntages of peoplee being
active in at lleast one volunttary associationn
Thee most recent development in the actionn repertoire off citizens conccerns the
rise off modes of paarticipation thaat are used inddividually; thaat is, without the need
for somme form of orgganisation or coordination. Refuting to buuy specific prooducts or
brandss in order to eexpress disconntent, say, with the destrucction of rain fforests as
such ddoes not requiire any organiisation or colllective action. To be effecttive, it is
certainnly helpful thaat a large num
mber of peoplee behave in a ssimilar way – but they
can alll act individuaally and separrately. Internett technologiess make these modes
m of
14
CITIZENSHIP AND THE CIVIC REALITIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
15
VAN DETH
16
CITIZENSHIP AND THE CIVIC REALITIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Firstly, we have seen that in current democracies important aspects of the image
of a ‘good citizen’ are widely shared and supported. Yet social and political
involvement beyond voting hardly belongs to this image. Only relatively small
parts of the population support the norms that a ‘good citizen’ should be politically
active or be involved in voluntary associations. Besides, individual-centred norms
seem to be more important than norms referring to social rights and duties.
Apparently, many citizens lack the competences and knowledge to deal with the
tensions between individually and socially centred norms and obligations.
“Education for democratic citizenship” should include attempts to challenge the
rather limited visions citizens have about the main characteristics of a ‘good
citizen.’ Using the terminology of the Council of Europe, especially “education,
training, awareness-raising, information, practices and activities” could be used for
this purpose:
Proposition 1: Support for norms of citizenship should be improved by
increasing the understanding of the concept, especially for (a) the importance
of forms of democratic decision-making beyond voting, and for (b) the
coherence and tensions between distinct norms.
A second point concerns the active involvement of citizens in democratic decision-
making procedures. Although many modes of political participation are available,
most citizens still rely on voting only. The rapid and extensive expansions of the
action repertoire in current democracies in the last decades hardly resulted in the
recruitment of new parts of the population to become active. This seems to apply
for many ‘new’ modes of participation. No matter how the concept “active
citizenship” is defined, it is clear that democratic political and social activities
cannot be restricted to visiting a ballot box every four or five years. Besides, a
much broader understanding of political and social engagement could provide
opportunities to evaluate advantages and disadvantages of specific modes of
participation for a democratic society. For that reason, a second proposition reads
as follows:
Proposition 2: Since political participation still is mainly restricted to voting,
available other modes should be emphasized. Besides the coherence and
tensions among distinct modes of political participation (and other forms of
engagement).
The recent rise of individualized modes of participation – especially boycotting and
buycotting – presents the third challenge for citizenship education. Since these new
forms are strongly based on ethical and moral reasoning a strengthening of
normative citizenship orientations can be expected. Yet first empirical results show
that the rise of individualized modes of participation comes with a reduction in
support for norms of citizenship. Remarkably, the normative orientations of
citizens using individualized modes of participation have more in common with
consumers than with citizens. Citizenship education should not uncritically support
new modes of participation. Instead this spread offers a unique opportunity to
strengthen important aspects of “active citizenship” by dealing with potential
17
VAN DETH
tensions between different modes of political participation and its consequences for
democracy:
Proposition 3: Stimulating individualized modes of participation should be
accompanied by attention for the potential disruptive aspects of these actions.
Individualized modes of participation are to be seen as extensions – not as
alternatives – to other modes of participation.
Fourthly, engagement in voluntary associations in democratic societies is an
important aspect of citizenship. Stressing the relevance of social engagement and
civil society conventional, institutional-oriented ideas of citizenship and politics
can be avoided. However, not many citizens attach much importance to
engagement in voluntary associations as an aspect of a ‘good citizen.’ Actual
engagement in voluntary associations appears to widely spread, but covers about
sixty per cent of the population at most. Moreover, large country differences in this
mode of participation are evident with remarkably high levels of participation in
North-western European countries and much lower levels in eastern and southern
Europe. Exploring reasons for these dramatic cross-national differences offer good
opportunities to strengthen support for social engagement and to avoid the evident
geo-political bias:
Proposition 4: Since engagement in voluntary associations varies widely
between countries not much is gained by idealizing the situation in North-
western Europe. Instead, contextual factors – cultural as well as institutional
– should be taken into account to strengthen support for social engagement.
A fifth important empirical finding has been long established. In spite of the rapid
and extensive expansions of the action repertoire of citizens it is clear that social
and political participation are still distributed unequally: less privileged groups still
lack skills, competences and networks to become active. General programmes to
reduce these inequalities have not been very successful. Citizenship education
offered without any differentiation even runs the risk of strengthening and
sanctioning these inequalities. Especially “Education for democratic citizenship”
should be based on the recognition of actual inequalities and the social and political
consequences for democracy on the one hand, and a strong focus on disadvantaged
groups in society on the other:
Proposition 5: Social and political participation are still highly biased and
reproduce social inequality. Citizenship education should emphasize the
development of special programs for disadvantaged groups (groups with low
socio-economic status, migrants, girls etc.).
A final proposition is not directly based on empirical findings on citizenship
orientations and participation. By definition, the concept of citizenship addresses
people in their role as citizen. The limited interpretations of citizenship and politics
among the populations of democratic societies underline the relevance of other
roles people perform (parent, commuter, sport fan, vegetarian, etc.). Increasingly,
people are confronted with new roles and a continuous fragmentation of societal
18
CITIZENSHIP AND THE CIVIC REALITIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
NOTES
1
Council of Europe, Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights. See
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/edc/1_what_is_edc_hre/what_%20is_edc_EN.asp.
2
Detailed information and data for the studies used in this article can be obtained from the following
sources:
ESS: http://ess.nsd.uib.no/index.jsp?year=-1&module=download&country=
CID: http://info1.gesis.org/dbksearch13/SDesc2.asp?no=4492&search=CID&search2=&db=E
PA: http://info1.gesis.org/dbksearch13/SDesc2.asp?no=0765&search=political%20action&search2
=&db=E
WVS: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org
3
Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education. Adopted in the
framework of Recommendation CM/Rec (2010) 7 of the Committee of Ministers, pp. 5-6. Notice
that concepts such as “citizen education” or “civic education” are highly contested (cf. Callan, 2004,
p. 73).
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CITIZENSHIP AND THE CIVIC REALITIES OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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BRYONY HOSKINS
INTRODUCTION
According to Putnam (1993, 2000), Almond and Verba (1963), and De Tocqueville
(1863) democracy requires active citizens to maintain the checks and balances on
democratic life. In this chapter I will focus on establishing the qualities that are
needed to be an active citizen. The term competence will be used to refer to the
qualities needed. A competence reflects the ‘complex combination of knowledge,
skills, understanding, values, attitudes and desire which lead to effective, embodied
human action in the world in a particular domain’ (Hoskins & Deakin Crick, 2010,
p. 120). In this case the domain is active citizenship.
Most inventories of civic competences have focused on knowledge, skills and
dispositions towards engagement. In this chapter, I will discuss the various aspects
of civic competence from an examination of citizenship theory with a particular
emphasis on values. I will argue that the values behind participation are crucial for
democracy and that these values need to be made self-confidently explicit. This
chapter is aimed at establishing the normative grounds for defining the values
dimension of civic competence.
The chapter begins with explaining the needs of citizens within a democracy. In
the next step, I reflect on the qualities required for active citizenship drawing from
three different theoretical models of citizenship: the Liberal, the Civic Republican
and the Critical model. At each stage I highlight the values and norms that each
model implicitly or explicitly advocates. In a final step I develop an inventory for
civic competence describing the qualities including the values that are needed for
active citizenship.
NEEDS OF DEMOCRACY
The academic literature from both theory and empirical research has highlighted
the fact that legal rights and institutions alone are rarely sufficient for a democracy
to flourish (Honohan, 2002), and that the quality of democratic governance relies
on the civic virtues and engagement of their citizens (Putnam, 1993, 2000; Almond
& Verba, 1963; De Tocqueville, 1863). Vibrant democracies require active citizens
– both inside and outside the political system – to monitor the process, and to be
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 23–35.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
HOSKINS
willing and able to act to create or resist change (Crick, 2003). Active citizens
outside the representative political system within civil society in the form of non-
governmental organisations play an important role in assuring government
accountability. They are able through their structures to mobilise citizens through
campaigns, petitions and protest activities to create change based upon social
justice aims. These activities are promoted by those who support participatory
democracy (Barber, 2003). In addition, representative democracy plays an
important role in maintaining the democratic process. Actions such as voting,
standing as candidates for elections and contacting members of parliament are
equally necessary to maintain the democratic system and to continue to maintain
laws that are just.
The term active citizenship combines the participatory and representative
elements and has been defined as follows; ‘Participation in civil society,
community and/or political life, characterised by mutual respect and non-violence
and in accordance with human rights and democracy (Hoskins, 2006). This
definition highlights an important element of active citizenship, that it is not
participation per se, as active people who do not hold democratic values or not
respect human rights can actually be harmful to the democratic institutions and to
different social groups. But instead the definition refers to participation based on a
certain set of principles based on democratic values and human rights. The quality
of active citizenship is also based on the knowledge and skills of the individual to
be able to influence a decision. The qualities of a competent active citizen are
referred to as civic competence and this will be the focus for discussion within this
chapter.
There has been a concern amongst western democracies that active citizenship is
in decline and the lack of political engagement poses a risk to democracy (Putnam,
2000). Those who participate less are usually identified as the younger generations
and they are described as no longer being ready to perform the duties that is
necessary for democracy to thrive, in particular the act of voting (Wattenberg,
2012). This story has been partly contested by Dalton (2009) who suggests that
norms of youth participation have changed with younger citizens turning away
from the older generation activities of voting, political parties and trade unions and
has moved towards volunteering and protest activities. Nevertheless both positions
suggest that young people are participating less in traditional politics and these
traditional democratic processes remain where most of the policy decisions are
taken. In addition, Wattenberg (2012) notes that as a result of the generally held
belief that young people participate less then politicians tend to ignore the needs
and political issues of the younger generations.
The difference in levels of engagement between the younger and older
generations has been exacerbated in Europe by the reduction of numbers of young
people and the decline in opportunities for young people in terms of employment,
education, health and secure retirement (Willetts, 2010). The conflict for resources
between generations has been emphasised with the economic crises and the
realisation in much of Europe that previous amounts spent on the public sector are
no longer affordable. If the state cannot afford to pay the weight on individual and
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WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY NEED FROM ITS CITIZENS?
It is relatively common place for politicians to call for the education system to be
better oriented towards the needs of the labour market and to discuss how to better
connect employers with head-teachers and with curriculum development. It is
perhaps less common, in particular within an economic crisis in 2011, to hear calls
for civil society and representatives from politics to be more involved in schools
and for them to be involved in describing the competences required for democracy.
Moreover, space in the curriculum for thinking critically about current social and
political issues is being challenged (at least in the UK and the US) with the focus
being placed on passing specific tests and qualifications for work in the knowledge
economy (Westheimer, 2008). This move has dangers for the continuation of
democracy and unless there is a desire to move towards a more authoritarian
regime action needs to be taken. Like those who are reflecting on the needs of the
labour market from its workers, this chapter will reflect on the needs of democracy
from its citizens.
Establishing and teaching civic virtues of citizens is not without controversy and
does not always sit comfortably with liberal thinking in terms of tolerance,
neutrality and diversity of values. At the same time, the teaching of knowledge,
skills and values for the labour market is, however, rarely questioned. It is less
likely, for example, to reflect on the socio-political values of PISA when
establishing the competences that should be measured. Nevertheless, such an
exercise would be interesting. For example, do such tests hold liberal market
orientated values? And if so should this be made explicit?
Establishing civic competence is contested for a number of reasons. Not least
that it can be understood to be comparatively different between countries and
‘dynamic’ and ‘evolving’ across time (Fratczak-Rudnicka & Torney Purta, 2003, p.
71). In non democratic regimes such as within the former communist countries
within Eastern Europe a different type of competence was sort that aimed towards
teaching citizens to become the building blocks of communism (Buk-Berge, 2006).
Within authoritarian regimes and some democracies a nationalistic citizenship
education agenda has been present to ensure that citizens play a patriotic role in
maintaining the nation state. However, within some liberal democracies in Western
Europe citizenship education has been more complex and has had a tendency to
explicitly state (if not actually achieve) value neutrality. Within western
25
HOSKINS
democracies there have been various attempts to define civic competence. There
have been three theoretical approaches that have underpinned the description of
competences and values required for active citizenship: liberal model, civic
republican model and critical model.
The liberal model of active citizenship is typically considered the least demanding.
In its original meaning, liberal democracy is typically considered ‘thin’ democracy.
This means that citizens’ involvement in public life is minimal, and is primarily
enacted through the vote (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996). However, even this
political activity is not an obligation and, in elections, the choice is often made
from a small number of ‘reasonably minded’ parties. The government within a
purely liberal democracy would have a mandate generally limited to the protection
of rights and property.
In such an environment, citizens are encouraged, but not obliged to vote. And
education for active citizenship is focused on creating autonomous citizens who
can act towards supporting their own self interest, and on enhancing individuals’
basic level of political knowledge and skills to be able to be able to achieve this
end (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996). One of the greatest concerns of liberal thinkers
towards allowing universal suffrage has been their concern over the lack of
capacity for citizens to understand decisions for either public or even self-interest
which is why citizenship education based on this philosophy has focused on
knowledge and skills. In addition, more recent liberal thinking has been concerned
about the uneven spread of knowledge and skills of democracy across the society
citing that this severely reduces the capability of democracy as decisions are then
rarely based on what is in the best interest for most people (Delli Carpini & Keeter,
1996).
Active citizenship within the liberal model emphasizes the right of individuals
to participate politically, or not as the case may be. But it posits that, if the state is
kept to a minimum, civil society will flourish. However, liberal ideals from the
notion of the atomized individuals have been re-interpreted in recent years. Recent
liberal thinkers have criticized the earlier liberal notions of citizenship as focusing
only on the relationship between the individual and the state, and emphasised how
such notions miss out on how humans interrelate with each other in groups built on
the foundations of trust (Norman, 2010). Hence, the liberal model has in recent
years been influenced by Putnam’s theories of social capital. Within the UK, for
example, the recent debates regarding the ‘Big Society’ can be understood as an
outcome of such reinterpretations. From the perspective of the ‘Big Society,’
citizens participate in associations, not only out of a feeling of obligation, but a
feeling of pleasure from enjoying forming relationships, and building a sense of
emotional attachment or belonging to a group (Norman, 2010). Citizenship
education from this perspective often focuses primarily on doing activities to help
others in the community including various volunteering programmes and collecting
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WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY NEED FROM ITS CITIZENS?
money for charity with less focus on developing deep reflections on society,
politics and critical thought.
The implications of the liberal approach on civic competences have been to
focus on knowledge, skills and dispositions towards engagement. In this sense
there has been an emphasis on more ‘objective’ or value neutral knowledge
(Halstead, 1996, p. 27) and engagement rather than an explicit teaching of values.
The only values explicitly stated are of conformity to the procedural rules of liberal
democracy (including acceptance/tolerance of a diversity of values) and the value
of equality before the law. The values that one could posit to be implicitly taught
through an approach that focuses on knowledge and skills to enable the
understanding of self-interest are individualism and one’s own individual human
rights. More recently there has been a greater emphasis on facilitating the learning
of dispositions towards engagement but this engagement has focused on supporting
young people to volunteer in the local community and much less on engagement in
politics or critical thought around issues of social injustice.
Research that can be argued to be positioned within the stand point of liberal
thinking has analysed the degree to which individuals can identify self-interest
within policy options of political parties (Galston, 2001; Delli Carpini & Keeter,
1996). The capabilities approach (Sen, 1980) also can be placed in the position of
advocating value neutral education emphasising equality of citizens to function
through utilising their capabilities (competences + access to resources). Perhaps
even Dewey’s work could be considered to be positioned as value neutral
education, as he suggested that it is the democratic learning process within a just
community that should be the aim of the education process, and not transmission of
certain values. Dewey stressed that instead of deciding upon which values to teach,
the importance lay with including a diversity of opinions within a democratic
decision making process.
I would argue, however, that that neither research nor education can actually be
value neutral. All choices of knowledge and skills within a curriculum and the
methods of how they are taught are based on and teach young people values
(Halstead, 1996; Sandström Kjellina, 2010). Liberal education that develops
individuals capacity to weigh up arguments based on ‘strengths, weaknesses and
reasonableness of alternatives’ develops ‘a self consciously critical individual
whose world view is indistinguishable from a comprehensive moral liberal (Parry,
2003, p. 41). Does this matter? If you come from a conservative religious position
it might. However, the main purpose of this discussion is to understand that liberal
citizenship education is not value free.
Recent debates within citizenship education have called for the normative values
behind citizenship education to be made explicit (Haste, 2010; Levine & Higgins-
D’Alessandro, 2010). National curriculums, schools (in the form of value
statements) and within inventories of key competences often explicitly state values
(Trier, 2003). Trier (2003) when summarising OECD national positions on key
competences, highlighted that many European countries including the Nordic
countries and Germany and Austria explicitly stated the values required as a part of
key competences for these countries. Haste (2010) describes the implicit attitudes
27
HOSKINS
28
WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY NEED FROM ITS CITIZENS?
The civic republican approach also highlights the need for citizens to learn civic
virtues, including emphasising the values of public spiritedness, solidarity, and the
responsibility to act for the common good (Honohan, 2002, p. 147). Honohan
(2002) asserts that, without civic virtues, too much self-interest, that is associated
with the liberal model, can lead to corruption. Putnam’s (1993) early work on
defining the competences necessary for the civic community in Italy also borrows
from civic republicanism traditions. Putnam cites Banfield’s example of a poverty
stricken village called Montegrano in which he attributes their economic situation
to the fact that the villagers were unable to work together for a common purpose,
and were unable to transcend beyond their own family interests (Putnam, 1993, p.
91). Putnam therefore uses the example to highlight the need for citizens to work
towards the common good.
Interesting some liberal scholars have also contributed to the debates on civic
virtues highlighting some of the difficulties of liberal notions of acting only in self-
interest and emphasising a need for the public to be reasonable in their demands.
For example, Galston (1991, p. 224) cites the need for the qualities that enable
citizens ‘to demand only what can be paid for’ from government highlighting the
consequences of voting for tax breaks for oneself and at the same time voting for
higher spending from government towards one’s own needs. Thus the need for
some core notions of solidarity with others seems to have resonance beyond the
civic republican model.
In contrast to the traditional liberal model, within the civic republican model
values are explicit and at the core. These values are public spiritedness, solidarity,
and the responsibility to act for the common good and a belief in the importance of
political engagement. These values can be contrasted with the implicit values of
individualism and self-interest that I argued to be implicitly behind the liberal
model. However, the conception of the value of the common good has been
critiqued and these debates will be visited within the following model on critical
citizenship.
Critical citizenship has been a ‘catch all’ title for various new theories that try to
frame active citizenship in different terms (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006), for
example, by focusing on critiquing and improving society through social and
political action based on the ideas of empowerment and social justice as expressed
by Paulo Freire, among others (Johnson & Morris, 2010). These models focus on a
more dynamic view on democracy that is grounded in critical and engaged citizens
and there is an explicit values agenda towards improving social justice
(Westheimer & Kahne, 2003) and reducing inequalities in particular power
relationships (Mouffe, 2005). The critical models are predominately, explicitly
based on values of equality and are critical of the current status quo. The ideas for
critical citizenship have been predominantly theoretical and debated in academic
literature but have yet to have an extensive influence on civic education in schools
(Abowitz & Harnish, 2006). The aspects of civic competence that are described as
29
HOSKINS
being needed for critical citizenship are the ability to critically analyse ‘social
issues and injustices,’ for example, learning to ask why people are homeless not
only collect money to feed them (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004, p. 4) and other
social values such as empathy and care (Veugelers, 2011). Within the critical
model of citizenship collective action is generally promoted but is situated in the
context of social movements to create social change rather than individualistic
action.
All these critical forms of citizenship oppose the civic republican notions of
citizenship in two ways:
First, the concept of the common good is said to promote nationalistic values
and has been used by leaders during difficult circumstances such as war to promote
loyalty whilst compromising human rights (Abowitz & Harnish, 2006). Due to the
historic use of the term there have been applications of the common good that have
supported war; however, the common good does not have to be applied in a
nationalistic manner. Equally the opposite side of the spectrum is self-interest
which can also be considered to be harmful. As was stated within the earlier
section on civic republicanism, by the common good we are referring to the
individual’s ability to see beyond their own self-interest and to be able to reflect on
the impact of decisions on other people. This type of common good does not need
to refer to geographical boundaries whether at the local, regional, national or
international level.
The second major critique of civic republicanism is that the notion of citizenship
has historically privileged the dominant group, usually white, males, and has
neglected the rights or freedom of other groups (Honohan, 2002; Abowitz &
Harnish, 2006). The Crick report (1998), that developed a concept for citizenship
education to be introduced in England, has been critiqued for failing to recognise
that representative politics is still dominated by white men, and that there is a
social justice issue in terms of creating change to greater equality (Arnot, 2003).
Thus any conception of active citizenship would also need to be critical, in that it
would need to critique existing unjust conditions, and include the need for greater
representation and engagement of women, lower social classes, and minority and
immigrant groups, within decision making and representative politics.
In the next step I will draw from these diverse models an inventory of civic
competence that explicitly states the values needed for active citizenship.
A plethora of inventories of the qualities needed for active citizenship have been
described (Hoskins, 2008; Council and European Parliament, 2006; Abs &
Veldhuis, 2006; Torney Purta, 2003; Audigier, 2000; Crick, 1998; Veldhuis, 1997),
however, from the above discussion of civic republican, liberal and critical
citizenship models I would argue that there is a basic set of values, attitudes,
dispositions, knowledge and skills that are needed. In this chapter I have focused
on values but I will also mention the other qualities where relevant. To develop this
inventory I begin by borrowing from the liberal traditions the qualities of valuing
30
WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY NEED FROM ITS CITIZENS?
equal rights for participation, human rights and respecting the democratic process
but I will add a more explicit focus on these values. Next I draw from the civic
republican perspective the need for the value given to, and interest in political
engagement and the high level qualities needed to be able to engage including the
competence to evaluate government performance, the knowledge, skills and
attitudes needed to recognise and prevent corruption and the dispositions and skills
to participate in public debates. Building from this and from a critical citizenship
model, I suggest that the value and disposition towards collective action towards
dismantling social injustice is also needed. Next, and borrowing again from the
civic republican tradition, the qualities of solidarity, awareness of others and public
spiritedness should be included within the list. This is clearly not referring to a
nationalistic concept of solidarity and the common good but more of a concern for
others and an appreciation of how your own actions will affect other people. Next,
from the critical model, there is a need for the social values that aim for social
justice and equality for all social groups and the qualities of empathy and care. And
finally, again from critical model, the qualities needed for critical reflection on
social structures and power relations.
In addition to the qualities outlined above which have been based upon theory, it
would be necessary to add the further aspects derived from empirical research and
relating to key challenges of the modern world. First, regarding empirical research
it would be necessary to add knowledge, skill, values and attitudes derived from
analysis that has shown to enhance engagement. An example of this would be, self-
efficacy/the belief that you can make a difference, which has been shown to be an
important element in facilitating engagement (Haste, 2004; Veugelers, 2011).
Second, additions would be necessary that thematically relate to the key challenges
of the modern world. These include new skills for using social media that are
crucial today towards the mobilisation of people onto the streets and informing
others about political actions. They also include thematic knowledge orientated
towards major challenges, for example, climate change. Also the economic crisis
has highlighted the economic dimension of citizenship and raised the importance of
skills to ensure the accountability of banks and individual and government
finances. This chapter and inventory of competences, however, has been based
upon theory and is a basic framework that can be built upon according to the
current socio-political context and the needs of the researchers, learners and
practitioners who choose to use it.
In the process of creating this inventory, I have deliberately not separated the
qualities of civic competence into knowledge, skills, attitudes and values as all
these aspects are complexly tied together. This also follows from the logic of this
chapter in which I have argued that it is not really possible to extract knowledge
and skills from the values and attitudes contained within them.
The proposed inventory for civic competence is given below.
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HOSKINS
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have argued that the values dimension of civic competence needs
to be highlighted and made explicit. I have critiqued the liberal model as
advocating openly cultural relativism, whilst implicitly valuing self-interest.
Neither of these values I would argue is beneficial for democracy. A culturally
relativist position does not establish the necessary and fundamental values of
democracy, human rights and public spiritedness that are required for democracy to
flourish. An implicit focus on self-interest does not promote consideration of
actions on others.
The civic republican citizenship and the critical citizenship models are more
explicit about their values. In one sense these positions are not as different as they
proclaim. Both advocate the need for active engagement of citizens in decision
making and a type of social values. Veugelers (2011) describes these social values
as being articulated in different ways: empathy, care and orientation to social
justice. The range of values he describes builds from openness to the other, through
concern for others, to realizing justice for the others. This interpretation of social
values does not indicate a very clear distinction between solidarity and social
justice. However, as has been noted earlier in the chapter, the values of solidarity
and the common good from the civic republican citizenship has been critiqued by
the critical citizenship model due to the fact civic republicanism had led to
implementation of the common good in terms of nationalistic policies. This cannot
be denied. However, the nationalistic method of applying the common good is
more of a result of the historical implementation and development of civic
republicanism that can be addressed and changed rather than an unresolvable
caveat. The critical citizenship model advocates more clearly the values of social
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WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY NEED FROM ITS CITIZENS?
justice and equality but I do not see an irreconcilable difference. The critical
citizenship model has had limited influence, to date, on the formulation of national
civic education and national inventories of civic competences (Abowitz & Harnish,
2006). To begin to address this caveat, I have made a first step by explicitly
including these values in the above inventory of civic competence. We have also
completed research using a similar inventory to create indicators to monitor the
levels of young people’s civic competence across Europe (Hoskins, Villalba, &
Saisana, 2012). The next step is to work with practitioners towards developing
methods for teaching these values.
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Rotterdam/Boston/Taipeh: Sense Publishers.
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WHAT DOES DEMOCRACY NEED FROM ITS CITIZENS?
Veldhuis, R. (1997). Education for democratic citizenship: Dimensions of citizenship, core competences,
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Wattenberg, M. (2012). Is voting for the young? New York: Longman.
Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of education of democracy.
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MURRAY PRINT
WHAT IS A COMPETENCE?
For the purposes of the symposium it was important to achieve some consensus as
to key concepts that constitute the competencies for democratic citizenship. While
achieving consensus is problematic we worked from the following definitions
taking into account variations across cultures and countries. This was somewhat
difficult though a reasonable consensus was achieved partly reflecting a sense of
agreement across European countries and partly reflecting current research in
citizenship.
A competence is a capacity, a potential and the ability or means to engage in a
phenomenon. It refers to a complex combination of knowledge, skills,
understandings, values, attitudes and desire which lead to effective, embodied
human action in a particular domain. Achievement at work, in personal
relationships or in civil society is based on a combination of this knowledge with
skills, values, attitudes, desires and motivation and its application in a particular
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 37–49.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
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COMPE
ETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC
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COMPETEN
NCES FOR ‘GO
OOD’ CITIZENS
In thiss chapter, as inn the Hannoveer symposium,, civic compettences were reeferred to
as competences foor democratic citizenshipp. The assum mption is madem that
democcracies seek ciitizens who arre ‘good’ withiin that democracy as compaared with
dysfunnctional or ‘baad’ citizens. That
T is, for dem
mocracies to work
w and to bee sustain,
as commpared with faail or become dysfunctional to citizens, thhen the citizenns need to
contribbute to that ddemocracy in positive wayys. This is ann aspiration aas not all
citizenns will contribbute in positivve ways. Nevvertheless a pprogram in deemocratic
citizennship, such as civics or citizzenship educaation for schoools, seeks to enncourage
positivve outcomes iin students soo that they maay contribute to their demoocracy in
positivve ways. Whaat might suchh citizens appeear as? Johnsson and Morriis (2010)
summaarized two appproaches to building citizzens within a citizenship eeducation
prograam. They arggue that Veuggelers (2007) conceptualizzed citizenshiip within
citizennship education as three cateegories – adappting citizens, individualisticc citizens
and crritical-democraatic citizens ass seen below. These could then
t be compaared with
the typpes of citizenns from Westtheimer and K Kahne’s (20044) research w where the
meaninng is similar thhough the labeels are differennt.
Figure 1. Conceptualizatio
C on of citizenshipp within citizensship education.
Source: Johnson & Moorris (2010)
Thee suggestion thhat democraciies need more than passive ccitizens, thosee who act
responnsibly, are obbedient and hhave good maanners resonaates in moderrn times.
Ratherr, it can be arrgued on the grounds of im mproving thee quality of life of the
peoplee, democraciess require engaaged citizens who participaate actively inn society
and whho are criticall-democratic ccitizens, motivvated to changge society for the
t better
39
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and are concerned for social justice. Westheimer and Kahn (2004) make this
argument well and in a similar way to Veugelers (2007) critical-democratic citizen.
To become such citizens, it may be further argued, young people need to acquire
the competences that will enable them to be active and participate effectively,
particularly in the adult society they experience after school. In turn, the school is a
logical, and historically experienced, source for educating the next generation of
adult citizens and hopefully the source of some form of a non-partisan, critically
reflective citizenship education program.
What then might we see as being a ‘good’ citizen? Another way of addressing
this is to identify key groups of ‘active’ behaviours:
1. Engage and participate in traditional political activities such as voting,
joining political parties and being a candidate for election.
2. Engagement in the form of voluntary community activities. This might be
working with welfare agencies such as a homeless shelter, collecting for
charities or contributing to your local community clean-up.
3. Participating in activities and movements that seek to make changes to
social and political directions. Mostly these are seen in a positive sense
such as signing petitions or joining a legal demonstration on a social issue.
Some may be ‘negative’ or illegal such as illegal demonstrations or
damaging property.
4. Participating in self-directing, beneficial behaviours such as financial self-
sufficiency and creative problem-solving such as saving water in one’s
home or being energy efficient.
Some would argue that all of the above ‘types’ make an important contribution,
that they are not mutually exclusive and that a ‘good’ citizen would reflect some
combination of these. However, a somewhat different view of a ‘good’ citizen, and
its implications for citizenship education, might be found in most Asian countries
where greater emphasis exists on a different set of understandings and behaviours
which include aspects of public order, community good, respect for older
generations, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, good manners, politeness and similar
characteristics. This approach to citizenship education, substantially different from
a more Western perspective with greater emphasis upon political education, is seen
even in democratic states such as Japan and Thailand as well as non-democratic
states across the region.
Another important dimension of the ‘good’ citizen could be how they relate to
their fellow human beings. Reviewing the literature suggests that there is strong
support for considering a ‘good’ citizen as one who displays the interest and
willingness to understand, accept, and tolerate cultural differences, the capacity to
think in a critical and systemic way, to interact with others in a cooperative manner
and to take responsibility for one’s roles and duties within society, a willingness to
adapt one’s lifestyle and consumption behaviour to protect the environment; a
preference to resolve conflict in a non-violent manner; and the ability to be
sensitive towards and to defend human rights (see ACARA, 2012). These attributes
reflect a notion of the ‘good’ citizen in the autonomy perspective of Johnson and
40
COMPE
ETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC
D C
CITIZENSHIP IN
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Morriss’ model (2010). They sugggest that suchh a citizen is ccooperative, concerned
for soccial justices annd motivated tto change society for the bettterment of people.
Using the ICCS S data Hoskiins and others created thhe Civic Com mpetence
Compoosite Indicator 2 (Hoskins et al., 2011) in presenting another view w of civic
compeetences. Contaaining 15 scalees (see Figure 2) the model emphasizes vaalues and
attituddes, with identtified emphasiis on social juustice as a keyy organizing iindicator.
This w work reinforcees the argumeents above annd further suppports the nottion of a
‘good’’ citizen by premising
p its structure on tthree affective dimensions of civic
compeetence.
How wever the funndamental weaakness of thiss approach is the database used for
analyssis. The ICCS S data set, likke the earlier CivicEd dataa set, is based on the
knowledge and attittudes of 14 yeear old studennts. While thee statistical annalysis of
the datta is sophisticaated and validd it does not ovvercome the fu
fundamental cooncern of
taking too much creedence of the views of 14 yyear olds andd extrapolatingg to adult
level ddata (apart froom the observaation of what 14 year olds ssay). If one w was to use
the ISS SC data as a bbaseline for comparing lateer changes in yyouth civic beehaviour,
such aas civic engageement, then thhe data would be b more valuaable.
F
Figure 2. Civic Competence Coomposite Indicaator. Source: Hooskins et al. (20011)
41
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To clarify key concepts and identify the competencies needed for active citizenship
that could be addressed through citizenship education in schools it was essential to
have a starting point. While both ‘good’ citizens and ‘competence’ are contested
concepts there is significant consensus that civic competencies, those needed to be
an active and effective citizen in a democracy, and those that should therefore be
addressed in schools are drawn from a base of four or five categories. In a recent
study completed for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education
and Culture on this subject (Regioplan, 2005) some of the knowledge, skills and
competencies for active citizenship have been identified as:
– Knowledge: background, factual and functional knowledge;
– Skills: critical reading, debating, writing, critical listening, empathic and social
skills;
– Values: tolerance, non-violence, acknowledgement of human rights and
acknowledgement of rule of law;
– Attitudes: political efficacy, political trust and political interest.
There is also discussion that civic competences, particularly in the context of civic
and citizenship education, should include the dimension of intended behaviour/
dispositions. These consist of a distinct intention (as compared with a vague idea)
to be active within society in some acceptable ways in order to nourish and sustain
democracy. Such a person would be considered as an active citizen as distinct from
a passive citizen.
In developing a new civics and citizenship curriculum for all Australian schools
as part of the Australian Curriculum, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and
Reporting Authority (ACARA) has recently identified two key areas for students to
learn – knowledge and skills, both underpinned by values, attitudes and
dispositions (2012). The Australian curriculum for citizenship is particularly
appropriate for consideration in this analysis as it reflects the most developments in
the field and represents a successful, highly multicultural society and as such
provides valuable guidelines and opportunities for insights for the demographically
changing countries of Europe.
The well established and recognized CRELL Research Network on Active
Citizenship for Democracy (Hoskins et al., 2006, 2008), with funding support from
the European Commission, has proposed the following list of knowledge, skills and
competences, attitudes and values as necessary for active citizenship:
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action. The core competences associated with democratic citizenship are those
called for by the construction of a free and autonomous person, aware of one’s
rights and duties in a society where the power to establish the law, i.e. the rules of
community life which define the framework in which the freedom of each is
exercised, and where the appointment and control of the people who exercise this
power are under the supervision of all the citizens.
1. Cognitive competences:
1.1. competences of a legal and political nature (knowledge concerning the rules
of collective life and democratic conditions of their establishment; knowledge
concerning the powers in a democratic society, at all levels of political life; in
other words, knowledge about democratic public institution and the rules
governing freedom and action …)
1.2. knowledge of the present world (… to be able to take part in the public debate
and make valid decision on choices offered in a democratic society, it is
necessary to know what is being talked about … incl. the capacity for critical
analysis of society …)
1.3. competences of a procedural nature (… ability to argue … and the ability to
reflect … in the light of principles and values of human rights … on conflict of
values and of interests, etc.)
1.4. knowledge of principles and values of human rights and democratic
citizenship (… conception of the human being based on freedom and equal
dignity of each individual).
2. Affective competences:
ethical competences and value choices (… citizenship cannot be reduced to a
catalogue of rights and duties … (it) includes a personal and collective emotional
dimension … the values involved are centered on freedom, equality and solidarity.
They imply the recognition and respect of oneself and others, the ability to listen,
reflection on the place of violence in society and how to control it (by) the
resolution of conflicts …).
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COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP IN EUROPE
Reviewing the above contributions to the debate, set within the parameters
identified by the literature (Veldhuis, 1997; Audigier, 2000; Westheimer & Kahn,
2004; Abs & Veldhuis, 2006; Johnson & Morris, 2010, Hoskins et al., 2011) we
might argue that civic competences, those important to being an active citizen,
could be tentatively identified within five dimensions. These dimensions could
then become the basis of an integrated approach to education for democratic
citizenship that aims to encourage active citizenship in a European context. As
such the competences identified would logically form a basis for education for
democratic citizenship within schools, particularly through the formal and informal
school curriculum. These dimensions would tentatively, given they are subject to
debate and contestation, include:
Knowledge of:
– Key elements of the political and legal system (parliamentary government, the
importance of voting; local, national, European, international levels)
– Basic institutions of democracy, political parties, election programs, and the
proceedings of elections
– Rights and responsibilities of citizens (incl. human rights, social rights and
duties)
– Media literacy and the role of the media in personal and social life
– Social relationships between groups in society (e.g., social class)
– History and cultural heritage of own country; predominance of certain norms
and values
– Different cultures that exist in the local, regional, and national context
– Knowledge of current political issues
– Main events, trends, and change agents of national, European, and world history
– The function and work of voluntary groups and civil society
– Key financial matters and associated economic literacy
– Sustainable development locally and internationally
Skills:
– To be able to evaluate a position or decision, take a position, and defend a
position
– To distinguish a statement of fact from an opinion
– To resolve conflicts in a peaceful way
– To interpret media messages (interests and value systems that are involved, etc.;
critical analysis of the media)
– To be capable to critically examine information including financial information
– To possess communication skills (to be able to present in verbal and/or written
manner your ideas)
– To be able to monitor and influence policies and decisions, including through
voting
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– To use the media in an active way (not as consumer but as a producer of media
content)
– To build coalitions and to cooperate
– To be able to live and work in a multicultural environment
Attitudes:
– To feel responsible for your decisions and actions, in particular, in relationship
to other citizens
– To feel confident to engage politically
– To trust in and have loyalty toward democratic principles and institutions
– To be open to difference, change of own opinion, and compromise
Values:
– Acceptance of the rule of law
– A belief in social justice and the equality and equal treatment of citizens
– Respect for differences including gender and religious differences
– Reject prejudice, racism and discrimination.
– Respect for human rights (equality, dignity and freedom)
– Tolerance towards difference
– A belief in the importance of democracy
– A belief in the need to preserve the environment and sustainable development
Intended behaviour/dispositions
– The intention to participate in the political community
– The intention to be active in the community
– The intention to participate in civil society
TEACHING CITIZENSHIP
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COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP IN EUROPE
the symposium were asked, in the context of the emerging competences, to review
how citizenship education and the competencies for active citizens may be
addressed through the school curriculum.
There are many studies that examine aspects of democratic citizenship within
the school curriculum including the longitudinal study of citizenship education in
England (Keating et al., 2009), the IEA Civics study (1995-2002) and the current
ICCS research by the IEA which has recently released preliminary findings (Kerr
et al., 2010; Schulz et al., 2010). There are also studies that examine the impact of
the informal curriculum on building young citizens and included in these studies
are links with competences for active citizens (Print, 2008; Saha & Print, 2010).
In teaching democratic citizenship various pedagogical approaches exist, and
many have been studied, though the depth and rigour of that research is
problematic. These include (but are not limited to) project-based learning,
community service learning, simulations and workshops, exposure to activist role
models, developing communities of support and of civic practice, and examining
contemporary social problems and conflicts or controversial issues. Considerable
literature from the United States has argued this last example has been shown to be
particularly effective and yet is often the least pursued in schools. Two of several
reasons why teachers avoid a pedagogy that credits political conflict and problem-
solving is its potential to create division and discord in the classroom, and the
complexity of such teaching strategies. Another reason is that teachers report
deficits in their own knowledge base of political process and pedagogy. Clearly,
both pre- and in-service teacher education is an important site for the improvement
of instructional practices, deserving further attention by government, the academic
community and, very importantly, teachers’ associations.
CONCLUSIONS
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ways and to this end the school can play a significant role in building active,
engaged citizens.
NOTES
1
The author wishes to thank the Volkswagen Stiftung for the funding to conduct the invited
symposium. A group of experienced and expert civic educators, political scientists and social
scientists were invited to Hannover through the support of Professor Dirk Lange and his group at
AGORA at the Leibniz University of Hannover. He also acknowledges the work of Bryony Hoskins
upon which much of this chapter is based.
REFERENCES
Abs, H. J., & Veldhuis, R. (2006). Indicators on active citizenship for democracy – The social, cultural,
and economic domain. Paper for the CRELL-Network on Active Citizenship for Democracy at the
European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. Ispra, Italy.
Audigier, F. (2000). Basic concepts and core competencies for education for democratic citizenship.
Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (2012) Civics and citizenship. Draft Shape
Paper. http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/civics_and_citizenship_1.html.
CRELL Research Network on Active Citizenship for Democracy including multiple research papers by
Hoskins et al. (2006, 2008).
Crick, B. (1998). Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools. London: QCA.
Dalton, R. (2008). The good citizen: How a younger generation is reshaping American politics.
Washington: CQ press.
Eurydice (2005). Citizenship education at school in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice.
Fratczak-Rudnicka, B., & Torney-Purta, J. (2003). Competencies for civic and political life in a
democracy. In D. Rychen, L. Salganik, & L. McLaughlin, Contributions to the second DeSeCo
Symposium. Neuchâtel: Swiss Federal Statistical Office.
Hoskins, B. (2006). Active citizenship for democracy. Ispra: CRELL.
Hoskins, B., Villalba, E., Van Nijlen, D., & Barber, C. (2008). Measuring civic competence in Europe:
A composite indicator based on IEA civic education study 1999 for 14 years old in school. CRELL
Research Paper, EUR 23210. Ispra: European Commission.
Hoskins, B., & Deakin-Crick, R. (2010). Competences for learning to learn and active citizenship:
Different currencies or two sides of the same coin? European Journal of Education, 45(1), Part II. e
Hoskins, B., Barber, C., Van Nijlen, D., & Villalba, E. (2011). Comparing civic competence among
European youth: Composite and domain-specific indicators using IEA civic education study data.
Comparative Education Review, 55(1). http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/656620.
Johnson, L., & Morris, P. (2010). Towards a framework for critical citizenship education. Curriculum
Journal, 21(1), 77-96.
Keating, A., Kerr, D., Lopes, J., Featherstone, G., & Benton, T. (2009). Embedding citizenship
education in secondary schools in England (2002-08): Citizenship education longitudinal study
seventh annual report. DCSF Research Report 172. London: DCSF.
Kerr, D., Sturman, L., Schulz, W., & Burge, B. (2010). Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement
among lower-secondary students in 24 European countries. ICCS 2009 European Report.
Amsterdam: IEA.
Norris, Pippa (2002). Democratic phoenix. Reinventing political activism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Print, M. & Milner, H. (Eds.) (2009). Civic education and youth political participation. Rotterdam:
Sense Publishers.
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COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP IN EUROPE
Print, M., Saha, L., & Edwards, K. (Eds.) (2007). Youth participation in democracy. Rotterdam: Sense
Publishers.
Regioplan (2005). Indicators for monitoring active citizen ship and citizenship education. Amsterdam:
Regioplan.
Saha, L., & Print, M. (2010). Student school elections and political engagement: A cradle of
democracy? International Journal of Educational Research, 49(1), 22-32.
Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2010). Initial findings from the IEA
international civic and citizenship education study. Amsterdam: International Association for the
Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
van Deth, Jan W. (2007). Norms of citizenship. In Russell J. Dalton & Hans-Dieter Klingemann (Eds.),
The Oxford handbook of political behavior (pp. 402-417). Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Veldhuis, R. (1997). Education for democratic citizenship: Dimensions of citizenship, core
competencies and international activities. Strasbourg: Council of Europe
Veugelers, W. (2007). Creating critical-democratic citizenship education: Empowering humanity and
democracy in Dutch education. Compare, 37(1), 105-119.
Westheimer, J., & Kahne, J. (2004). What kind of citizen? The politics of educating for democracy.
American Educational Research Journal, 4(2), 237-269.
49
JAN GERMEN JANMAAT
5. CIVIC COMPETENCES
Some Critical Reflections
INTRODUCTION
Civic competences are generally seen as critical for democracy and social
cohesion. Equally widespread is the assumption that schools have an important role
to play in fostering these competences. The Council of Europe (2011a) for instance
believes that
Education plays an essential role in the promotion of the core values of the
Council of Europe: democracy, human rights and the rule of law, as well as
in the prevention of human rights violations. More generally, education is
increasingly seen as a defence against the rise of violence, racism, extremism,
xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance.
However, this paper will argue that the notion of civic competences is problematic
in a number of ways. The advocates of citizenship education need to address these
problems in order to make a convincing case for the introduction or continuation of
such education. The paper will identify four major problems and offer suggestions
as to how these challenges might be taken up by supporters of citizenship
education. The problems will be discussed one by one and concern the following:
(1) the contested nature of the concept; (2) the diversity of qualities it refers to; (3)
the relevance of civic competences for democracy and social cohesion; (4) the
impact of citizenship education on civic competences.
Many scholars agree that citizens should have certain competences in order to
function well in a liberal democratic society (Verba, Scholzman, & Brady, 1995;
Galston, 2001). There is also broad consensus on the idea that a substantial part of
the citizenry needs to have these qualities for democracy itself to operate
effectively and survive (Putnam, 1993; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). In other words,
democracy is not sustainable if it has to rely on a disengaged and politically
alienated population.
Disagreement starts however when it comes to identifying and defining these
competences. Some scholars attach great value to conventional ways of political
and civic participation, such as voting and active membership of a political party, a
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 51–63.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
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a skill that everyone needs. In its most practical form, it is the knowledge
about how a country and society works – why government functions as it
does, where to get information and how to vote. But democratic citizenship is
more than just the ballot box – it is also the skill we need to live well in a
family and community. It shows us how to resolve disputes in a friendly and
fair way, how to negotiate and find common ground, and how to make sure
that our rights are respected. A democratic citizen knows about the ground
rules of the society they live in and the personal responsibilities they need to
respect.
Likewise, Eurydice (2005, p. 14), the information service on education systems of
the European Commission, sees “responsible citizenship” as:
embodying issues relating to the knowledge and exercise of civic rights and
responsibilities. All countries also link the concept to certain values closely
associated with the role of a responsible citizen. They include democracy,
human dignity, freedom, respect for human rights, tolerance, equality, respect
for law, social justice, solidarity, responsibility, loyalty, cooperation,
participation, and spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development.
In a similar vein, the CRELL Research Centre of the European Commission
considers civic competences to be “a complex mix of knowledge, skills,
understanding, values and attitudes and dispositions, which requires a sense of
identity and agency” (Hoskins & Crick, 2008, p. 8).
Though understandable from a political point of view, these elaborate
approaches are problematic for educational practitioners seeking to promote civic
competences among youngsters. They as a rule do not prioritize competences
leaving practitioners guessing which competence to address most urgently and
intensively. More seriously, their contested nature makes practitioners vulnerable
to the criticism that they pursue a hidden political agenda in case they make a clear
choice for some competences. Schools putting a great emphasis on volunteering, a
sense of responsibility, and common identities and values are likely to be branded
as right-wing, while schools fostering equality, tolerance and critical thinking will
be accused of promoting a left-wing ideology.
The contested nature of civic competences also raises the question whether they
can be fostered simultaneously. If some competences are unrelated to one another,
or worse, mutually exclude each other, it is unlikely that pedagogical approaches
can be developed which benefit these competences all equally.
On the basis of common sense one can already suspect tension between some
competences. How can critical thinking and trust in institutions for instance be
reconciled when the former must rely on a detached posture towards the object
under scrutiny? Similarly, is it possible to combine strong national solidarities,
which are likely to involve the privileging of one own nation over others, with
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ethnic tolerance and civic equality? Lastly, is it not problematic to foster respect
for politicians and democratic institutions on the one hand and civic equality on the
other when the former inevitably involves the recognition of hierarchical relations
and inequalities of power? Research has indeed confirmed that some competences
are unrelated to one another and that others rule each other out – e.g. national pride
and ethnic tolerance (Green et al., 2006; Jackman & Miller, 2005; Janmaat, 2006,
2008).
Furthermore, observers have found marked intra- and inter-regional variations in
strength of civic competences. Hoskins et al. (2008), for instance, found that while
Eastern and Southern Europe did relatively well on participatory attitudes and
views on good citizenship, Western Europe and Southern Europe scored higher on
social justice values. They moreover found large differences within each region:
while Poland did well on all four dimensions of citizenship competences, Estonia
had below average scores on these dimensions. These differences suggest that
educational programmes tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of a distinct
country or region are more effective than some uniform pan-European programme.
Yet, it is precisely the last-named programmes that are often adopted and promoted
(e.g. the Council of Europe’s Education for Democratic Citizenship programme).
Adding to the complexity is that civic competences may not only vary in
aggregate levels across time and space but also in how they are interrelated. I
illustrate this with an analysis of survey data from the 1999 IEA Civic Education
Study. This study collected data on the civic knowledge, skills and attitudes of 14
year olds in 28 countries with national samples of as many as 3000 students. I
correlated expected future political participation to a number of other concepts seen
as core civic virtues (institutional trust, patriotism, gender equality, ethnic
tolerance) in countries representing various regions in Europe (see Table 1).
Table 1. Correlations of expected future political participation with other civic virtues
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CIVIC COMPETENCES
negative link with gender equality in Greece. Similarly, while expected future
political participation goes together with ethnic tolerance in Denmark, England and
Germany, it is again in Greece that the two are negatively related. While
participation is positively linked to patriotism in Germany, it is unrelated to
patriotism in England and it is negatively related to patriotism once again in
Greece. More generally, the correlations between the concepts are not particularly
strong indicating that civic competences are a very loose collection of qualities and
certainly don’t “travel as a package” as is suggested by some scholars (Rice &
Feldman, 1997, p. 1150). Of course the attitudes at age 14 are still quite volatile,
which means that it cannot be ruled out that civic competences form a more
coherent set of values when youngsters become adults. It is interesting, however, to
see that broadly the same pattern of correlations emerges when analysing data of
the 2009 International Civics and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS – the
successor to Cived), which suggests a high degree of inter-generational stability in
how civic competences are interrelated.1
The possible tension between some civic competences, their different strengths
across Europe and geographical variations in their interrelationships all have
serious policy implications. They suggest that it is next to impossible to develop a
teaching programme that benefits all civic competences equally. A programme, for
instance, that aims to foster political participation may well contribute to
institutional trust, but it is unlikely to affect gender attitudes much or ethnic
tolerance. Moreover, such a programme is likely to have differential side effects
across countries (positive ones in some; negative ones in others).
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a democracy. There would certainly not seem to be more empirical support for the
civic culture shaping democracy argument than for its counterpart. Testing a
number of civic attitudes and controlling for a number of macrosocial factors such
as economic development, income inequality and ethnic heterogeneity, Muller and
Seligson (1994), for instance, found that only support for gradual reform, as key
civic attitude, had a positive impact on democratic change. However, the strength
of this effect paled by comparison to that of income inequality. Moreover, while
having no effect on democratic change, interpersonal trust in its turn was
influenced by democratic tradition. The authors thus concluded that their findings
“are not supportive of the thesis that civic culture attitudes are the principle or even
major cause of democracy” (Muller & Seligson, 1994, p. 647). Obviously, if civic
competences are the product rather than the cause of democracy, and it cannot be
demonstrated that they have positive effects on other desirable outcomes either, it
can legitimately be asked why they should be promoted at all.
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CIVIC COMPETENCES
Dialogue, interaction and learning by doing have certainly been advanced as the
main ways in which youngsters develop an intention and commitment to
participate. For the US, Kahne and Sporte (2008) for instance found that
volunteering, extra curricular activities, exposure to civic role models and open
debates were the best predictors of the intention to participate in the community. A
positive impact of volunteering on participation levels in later life was also found
in other US studies (Verba, Schlozman, & Bardy, 1995; Campbell, 2006). In
Britain too, participatory teaching styles and out of school participation have been
found to be positive predictors of a willingness to participate (Benton, 2008).
Finally, Hoskins et al. (2012) found that discussions about politics and societal
matters with parents, friends and teachers and participation in a school council
showed strong positive links with participatory attitudes across the board in five
very different European countries, which suggests that the positive effect of
dialogue and learning by doing on participation is universal.
However, there seems to be little evidence for the idea that specific education
programs can also help foster ethnic tolerance and intercultural understanding. As
Hagendoorn (1999, p. 5) wryly remarks: “Although there is no empirical evidence
that education programmes on racial tolerance have been counterproductive, there
is no evidence that they have been especially effective either. Moreover, in spite of
such programmes data from the US shows that recently educated youth are no
more racially tolerant than their post-war peers.”
Instead, most educational research on ethnic tolerance has examined the effects
of mixed schooling and of educational attainment in general. Based on the premise
of contact theory that frequent and intensive cross-cultural interaction among peers
on the basis of equality should enhance positive feelings towards the ‘ethnic other’
and diminish prejudice (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006), most research
examining the impact of mixed schooling has indeed found a positive relation
between diversity on the one hand (which may be assumed to lead to more cross-
cultural contact) and intercultural understanding and tolerance on the other. Recent
studies in the US by Frankenberg et al. (2003) and Holme et al. (2005), for
instance, found that the experience of racially mixed schools left graduates with a
better understanding of different cultures and an “increased sense of comfort in
interracial settings” (ibid., p. 14). Research by Ellison and Powers (1994) and
Sigelman et al. (1996), moreover, shows that the tolerant attitudes and interracial
friendships developed in racially integrated schools persist into adulthood. Holme
et al. (2005) further claim that the daily experience of interracial schooling is much
more effective in this regard than multicultural curricula or student exchange
programs.
Studies in the United Kingdom have also found support for the contact
perspective. For instance, Bruegel (2006), investigating inter-ethnic friendships
among pupils of 12 primary schools in London and Birmingham, reaches
conclusions similar to Holme et al. In her view, “the day-to-day contact between
children has far more chance of breaking down barriers between communities, than
school twinning and sporting encounters” (ibid., p. 2), which supports the notion
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that it is through contact rather than specific programs that tolerance can be
enhanced.
Yet not all studies inspired by contact theory have found positive effects of
cross-cultural interaction. In a review study on the topic, Ray (1983), for instance,
found remarkable differences across English-speaking countries. While studies
conducted in America and Canada produced evidence in support of the notion that
inter-racial contact helps to break down stereotypes, the evidence from Britain and
Australia pointed in the reverse direction (contact with blacks leading to more
prejudice among whites). Similarly, Janmaat (2010, 2011) did not find a relation
between the ethnic diversity of classrooms and the ethnic tolerance levels of
individual pupils in England, controlling for many other individual- and classroom-
level conditions. Moreover, he found that in diverse classrooms the better ethnic
minority students performed on average in terms of civic knowledge and skills, the
lower the tolerance levels of their white classmates appeared to be. However, in
Germany and Sweden classroom diversity and ethnic tolerance were positively
related and no relation could be observed between the average performance of
ethnic minority students and the tolerance levels of their native classmates.
Janmaat’s results suggest that in environments where students experience
competition and rivalry diversity does not contribute to tolerance but actually
undermines it. Together with Ray’s findings they more broadly indicate that there
is not a standard formula for promoting ethnic tolerance that works everywhere
under any kind of condition.
Lastly, many studies have noted the strong link between educational attainment
and tolerance in the sense that more highly educated people express more tolerant
attitudes (Putnam, 2000; Emler & Frazer, 1999; Haegel, 1999). According to
Hagendoorn (1999), this positive effect is understandable as education may be
assumed to improve the knowledge and cognitive skills of people, allowing them to
grasp new phenomena, such as immigration, and not interpret them as
unpredictable and dangerous. Education further may be said to enhance tolerance
by “transmitting ideas about desired states of the world” (ibid., p. 2), in other
words by promoting certain norms and values – the acceptance and positive
appreciation of immigrants being one of them. Thus, the shorter the period people
have been exposed to formal education (as expressed in a lower education levels),
the less they are able to make sense of changes in their environment and the less
they have been socialized in the value of tolerance and therefore the more
intolerant their attitudes are likely to be.
However, despite these sound theoretical reasons to expect a close link between
education and tolerance, the effect of educational attainment on tolerance has been
found to vary significantly across time and space (Green et al., 2006). In Italy, for
instance, this effect has been found to be remarkably small (Peri, 1999). Thus,
similar to the effect of diversity, the effect of educational attainment appears to be
highly context-specific. Moreover, at the societal level, there is no correlation
between education and tolerance (Green et al., 2006). In other words, societies with
high aggregate levels of education do not show higher mean levels of tolerance
than poorly educated societies. This implies that raising the education level of the
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CIVIC COMPETENCES
How can the supporters of citizenship education address the four problems
discussed above? To begin with the problem of social relevance (i.e. the third
problem), there are two ways in which advocates of citizenship education could
seek to demonstrate the importance of civic competences. First, if their necessity
for the establishment and preservation of democracy cannot be demonstrated,
advocates could explore whether they are essential for enhancing other desirable
macro-social outcomes, such as social cohesion or economic growth. Research has
59
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NOTES
1
The results of these analyses can be obtained from the author.
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REFERENCES
61
JANMAAT
Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J. G., & Villalba, E. (2012). Learning citizenship through social participation
outside and inside school: An international, multilevel study of young people’s learning of
citizenship. British Educational Research Journal, 38(3), 419-446.
Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial societies. Princeton: Princeton Universit Press.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human
development sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jackman, R. W., & Miller, R. A. (2005). Before norms. Institutions and civic culture. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press.
Janmaat, J. G. (2006). Civic culture in Western and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Sociology/
Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 47, 363-393.
Janmaat, J. G. (2008). The civic attitudes of ethnic minority youth and the impact of citizenship
education. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(1), 27-54.
Janmaat, J. G. (2010). Classroom diversity and its relation to tolerance, trust and participation in
England, Sweden and Germany. LLAKES Research Paper 4. Available at: http://www.llakes.org/
Home/llakes-research-papers.
Janmaat, J. G. (2011). Diversiteit in de klas: Kweekvijver voor verdraagzaamheid onder alle
omstandigheden? Mens en Maatschappij.
Kahne, J., & Sporte, S. (2008). Developing citizens: The impact of civic learning opportunities on
students’ commitment of civic participation. American Educational Research Journal, 45(3), 738-
766.
Kennedy, B., Kawachi, I., & Brainerd, E. (1998). The role of social capital in the Russian mortality
crisis. World Development, 26(11), 2029-2043.
Knack, S., & Keefer, P. (1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff? A cross-country
investigation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXII, 1251-1288.
Kymlicka, W. (2002). Contemporary political philosophy: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Langton, K. P., & Jennings, M. K. (1968). Political socialisation in the high school civic curriculum in
the United States. American Political Science Review, 62, 852-867.
LaPorta, R., Lopez de Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (1997). Trust in large organizations.
American Economic Review, 87, 333-338.
Lichterman, P. (1996). The search for political community: American activists reinventing commitment.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Muller, E. N., & Seligson, M. A. (1994). Civic culture and democracy: The question of causal
relationships. The American Political Science Review, 88(3), 635-652.
Niemi, R., & Junn, J. (1998). Civic education: What makes students learn. Yale: Yale University Press.
Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of inter-group contact theory. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783.
Peri, P. (1999). Education and prejudice against immigrants. In L. Hagendoorn & S. Nekuee (Eds.),
Education and racism: A cross-national inventory of positive effects of education on racial tolerance
(pp. 21-32). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon
and Schuster.
Ray, J. J. (1983). Racial attitudes and the contact hypothesis. The Journal of Social Psychology, 119, 3-
10.
Rice, T. W., & Feldman, J. L. (1997). Civic culture and democracy from Europe to America. The
Journal of Politics, 59(4), 1143-1172.
Schmitter, P. C., & Karl, T. L. (1991). What democracy is … and is not. Journal of Democracy, 2, 75-
88.
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Sigelman, L., Bledsoe, T., Welch, S., & Combs, M. W. (1996). Making contact? Black-white social
interaction in an urban setting. American Journal of Sociology, 101, 1306-1332.
Torney-Purta, J. (2002). Patterns in the civic knowledge, engagement, and attitudes of European
adolescents: The IEA civic education study. European Journal of Education, 37(2), 129-141.
Verba, S., Schlozman, K., & Brady, H. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American
Politics. London, Harvard University Press.
63
DIRK LANGE AND HOLGER ONKEN
INTRODUCTION
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 65–76.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
LANGE & ONKEN
The empirical basis of this chapter is a sample of some 1200 people between 17
and 24 from Lower Saxony in North-western Germany. It has been conducted in
eleven different high schools and vocational schools. The survey has been carried
out by questionnaire in October and November 2009, and took place just after a
German federal election.
Two classical approaches are used in this empirical analysis. The first one, a
sociological approach, broadly known as the Columbia School, studies the
connection between individual objective social characteristics (such as income,
religious denomination, educational achievement etc.) and political attitudes. The
authors following this concept came to the often cited conclusion that “a person
thinks politically as he is socially” (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944, p. 27).
The second model, based on a social psychological approach, frequently called the
Michigan School, derives political attitudes and behaviour indirectly: Individual
attitudes depend on the subjective interpretation of social characteristics and the
socio-political environment (Campbell, Gurin, & Miller, 1954). Both models have
been deployed in many electoral studies and related research fields in various
variants, but their core is widely unchanged to the present day.
The independent variables of this study can be distinguished between a
sociological and a social psychological approach. From the sociological
perspective the youngsters surveyed have been divided into two groups regarding
education, (a) those who aspire a high-level formal education (a high school
diploma, permitting access to university), and (b) those who aspire a medium-level
formal educational degree (a professional qualification without academic
requirement). 54.5% of our survey aspire a medium, 45.5% a high educational
qualification. Two additional sociological aspects have been inquired: vocational
background of the parents and household income.
Three more items of the study are social psychological: First, those polled have
been asked for a self-positioning within the social stratification. Secondly,
satisfaction with the way democracy works in Germany. The third item consists of
two questions, both of them asking for future expectations. One question asked
individual future expectations in general, the other for personal career expectations.
For both questions a five-point scale has been used, ranging from 1 indicating the
most positive expectations to 5 indicating the most negative expectations.
Summing up this grading we assigned the following Index values:
– 2 to 5 denote positive expectations,
– 6 to 10 indicate negative expectations.
A vast majority of those interviewed (63.5%) had positive expectations, only
36.5% held negative expectations.
Apart from confidence in democracy, the central dependent variable of this
investigation is young adults’ degree of interest in politics. Political interest of
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youths and young adults is an important factor for a positive attitude towards the
democratic political system and for civic involvement (Reinhardt 2005: 39). A
minimum of attention to political questions, i.e. political interest, is necessary for a
learning process regarding political developments. Thus a minimum of attention
can lead to a self-reinforcing process.
For the political interest an index based on three questions has been developed.
The three items were general interest in politics, those polled were asked how close
they followed the election campaign for the German general election in 2009, and
how well they estimate their knowledge to be about the German political
institutions. This approach presumes a positive correlation between a wide ranging
political knowledge, high attention towards political campaigns and political
interest among the respondents (Ingrisch, 1997, p. 164). All three questions also
had a 5-point scale, with 1 indicating the questioned person is not interested in
politics to 5, indicating strong interest in politics.
– Index value 3 to 7: low interest in politics
– Index value 8 to 11: moderate interest in politics
– Index value 12 to 15: strong interest in politics
The distribution of answers in our sample comes close to a normal distribution:
– 20.6% low interest in politics
– 61.1% moderate interest in politics
– 18.3% strong interest in politics.
In the Shell youth studies, conducted by the German youth institute (Deutsches
Jugendinstitut, DJI), the young generation is asked regularly, how important
politics is for them personally. The general picture shows that, compared to other
spheres of life, politics does not play a major role in the life of most youths and
young adults, (Gille, Kleinert, & Ott, 1995, p. 47; Gille, 2000, p. 177). During this
life period partnership, vocational qualifications and the process of gaining
independence from home are in the focus of attention. In 1992 34% of those
interviewed held that politics is important for them personally. In the following
survey waves the percentage went up to 41% in 1997 and 43% in 2002 (Gille,
2006, p. 201).
The numbers of young people who are “interested in politics” differ from those
for whom politics is of personal importance. 20.6% of those polled in 1992 in the
western states of Germany (the “old” Federal Republic of Germany before 1990)
stated a strong interest in politics, 40.6% showed a moderate and 38.6% a low
interest in politics. There was little difference compared with the “new” eastern
states of Germany (located in the territory of the German Democratic Republic)
(Schneider, 1995, p. 279). This changed in 1997 survey, when 25% of the young
people in West Germany indicated a strong interest in politics, but only 17% of
those in East Germany (Gille, Krüger, & de Rijke, 2000, p. 211). In 2003 there
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LANGE & ONKEN
were only 20% of youths and young adults with a strong political interest
nationwide (Gaiser & de Rijke, 2006, p. 255).
In a different survey the sample was divided into two subgroups, persons
interested in politics and those not interested. Over the last two decades there was a
sharp nationwide decline in the number of political interested youths. In 1992, 57%
of the sample indicated they were interested in politics, in 2002 that number shrank
to 34%; in the following surveys, conducted in 2006 (39%) and 2010 (40%) the
number showed a marginal increase (Schneekloth, 2010, p. 130).
Further results indicated that social status determines the degree of political
interest. The correlation shows that, the lower the social status, the lower the
relevance of politics for the individual. Social aspects of the parents’ home
(educational degree, job situation, household income, housing situation) were
summarized in different social classes. The composition of the sample showed that
10% of those surveyed belonged to the underclass, 24% to the lower middle class,
30% to the middle class, 22% to the upper middle class and 14% to the upper class.
In 2010 only 16% the share of young people belonging to the underclass, were
interested in politics. Among those of the lower middle class the share was 26%.
Among youths assigned to the middle class 36% were interested in politics.
Significantly higher results were recorded for the upper middle class (48%) and the
upper class with 51% (Schneekloth, 2010, p. 130).
Another notable aspect from the German youth studies is the trend of politically
interested individuals among different social classes. The numbers show a
widening gap since 2002. While the shares of politically interested persons within
the underclass and the lower middle class stagnated, the shares within the upper
middle class and the upper class increased: from 34% to 48% respectively from
43% to 51%.
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POLITICAL INTEREST OF YOUNG ADULTS
n = 924; * Cases belonging to the categories underclass respectively upper class have been
added to the category lower middle class respectively upper middle class, due to a small
number of cases.
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LANGE & ONKEN
underrepresented among those with a strong interest in politics. But all these
correlations are rather weak.
n= 791
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POLITICAL INTEREST OF YOUNG ADULTS
Before the impact of the aspired educational qualification and the subjective
future expectation of young people on political interest and satisfaction with
democracy is analysed, the question how strong household income and vocational
background of the family determines these variables, has to be investigated.
The income of the household a young person lives in is an important factor for
their expectations concerning chances in life and educational and professional
career prospects. Young people living in high-income households, with 3000€ and
more per month, are overrepresented in the group with positive future expectations
and among those targeting a high educational qualification. Vice versa, young
people from a low-income background are overrepresented in the group with rather
negative expectations. This is also the case among those aspire a non-academic
professional qualification.
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POLITICAL INTEREST OF YOUNG ADULTS
Table 7. Subjective future expectations, aspired education achievement and political interest
This section is dealing with the link between political interest and information
behaviour of those polled in the survey. The results show the major importance of
the traditional media, television and newspapers. Particularly television is of
overwhelming importance for all three groups. The two most frequently mentioned
sources of information, television and newspapers are most frequently stated as
sources of information by those with a moderate interest in politics. This is also the
case for political discussions among family members.
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Interestingly, young people with a strong political interest seem to have circles
of friends with whom they discuss about politics more often than the other
subgroups. On the other hand, youths with a low interest in politics mentioned
political discussions with friends comparatively less often as sources of
information.
In summary, there are several noticeable tendencies regarding information
behaviour:
– Generally the traditional media (television, newspaper) are by far still more
important than the new media (Internet) as sources of information.
– Sources requiring active searching for information with political content, such
as internet-blogs, internet-pages and to a lesser extend newspapers, are used
predominantly by the more politically interested individuals.
– Civic education is an important source of political information for an above-
average number of young people with low interest in politics.
– Discussions about politics in the personal area seem to have a minor impact, in
particular for those with low political interest.
The last of these points must be evaluated differently, after looking at the
connection between political interest and the frequency of discussions with
political content at home.
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POLITICAL INTEREST OF YOUNG ADULTS
The group that is strongly interested in politics has more discussions with
political content at home than the other two groups. Most of them discuss politics
with their parents frequently or very frequently. A large majority of those with low
political interest never or rarely discuss political issues at home.
Most of the results show a fairly strong connection between important socio-
economic characteristics and political attitudes of young people. There is valid
evidence that both, social characteristics and political attitudes are still transferred
to a high extent from one generation to the next. This transfer, characterised as the
social milieu pathway 30 years ago (Dalton 1982), seems largely intact. What has
changed is the intra-generational condition for political socialization since then.
Social circles are less stable and more fragmented. Another important change is the
often unclear transition between education system and the labour market (De Grip,
Hoevenberg, & Willems, 1997, p. 49). As a consequence the expectations, habits
and attitudes of the young generation have changed. Generally the conditions for
political socialization have shifted to more and more fragmented personal and
public circles. However the outcome of political socialization processes is still
largely determined by individual socio-economic living conditions. It seems that
Lazarsfeld is still correct; a person tends to be politically what he is socially. What
has changed is the variety of social circumstances and political attitudes.
Nevertheless further conclusions will require longitudinal studies.
REFERENCES
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De Grip, A., Hoevenberg, J., & Willems, E. (1997). Atypical employment in the European Union.
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Gille, M., Kleinert, C., & Ott, S. (1995). Lebensverhältnisse. In U. Hoffmann-Lange (Eds.), Jugend und
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Gille, M., Krüger, W., & de Rijke, J. (2000). Politische Orientierungen. In M. Gille & W. Krüger (Eds.),
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Greiffenhagen, S. (2002). Politische Sozialisation. In M. Greiffenhagen & S. Greiffenhagen (Eds.),
Handwörterbuch zur politischen Kultur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (pp. 408-418).
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Ingrisch, M. (1997). Politisches Wissen, politisches Interesse und politische Handlungsbereitschaft bei
Jugendlichen aus den alten und neuen Bundesländern: Eine Studie zum Einfluss von Medien und
anderen Sozialisationsbedingungen. Regensburg: Roderer.
Lazarsfeld, P. F., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1944). The people’s choice. How the voter makes up his
mind in a presidential campaign. New York: Columbia University Press.
Reinhardt, S. (2005). Politikdidaktik – Praxishandbuch für die Sekundarstufe I und II. Berlin:
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Schneider, H. (1995). Politische Partizipation – Zwischen Krise und Wandel. In U. Hoffmann-Lange
(Ed.), Jugend und Demokratie in Deutschland (pp. 275-335). Opladen: Leske + Budrich.
Schmid, C. (2004). Politisches Interesse von Jugendlichen: Eine Längsschnittuntersuchung zum
Einfluss von Eltern, Gleichaltrigen, Massenmedien und Schulunterricht. Wiesbaden: Deutscher
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Schneekloth, U. (2010). Jugend und Politik: Aktuelle Entwicklungstrends und Perspektiven. In Shell
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76
PART II
CIVIC EDUCATION
APPLICATIONS AND
PROGRAMS
ANDREAS PETRIK
The primary purpose of civic education can be defined to “develop the ability to
make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a
culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world” (NCSS, 1992).
Or, as Joseph Adelson (1971) phrases it in his famous study “the political
imagination of the young adolescent”: The development of a political identity as
process of “struggling to formulate a morally coherent view of how society is and
might and should be arranged.” So we have to pursue two major tasks: First to
show the variety of political perspectives, as there is no objective, common shared
public good, especially in a culturally and sub-culturally diverse society. Second to
show that democratic values, principles and procedures are the best-known
political way of coping with, negotiating and coordinating ideological diversity
without making war.
What are the political or civic competencies going along with these tasks?
English-speaking countries mostly conceptualize strands of civic competency that
encompass civic-related knowledge, cognitive and participative skills as well as
values, attitudes and civic dispositions (see e.g. NCSS, 2010). The items that
concretize these strands are mostly familiar to the German discussion (see GPJE,
2004; Behrmann, Grammes, & Reinhardt, 2004). But there, we find a more
concrete approach to competencies by referring to the Swiss scholar Franz Weinert
(2001): He defines competencies as cognitive dispositions or skills required for the
mastery of demands in specific domains that go along with values, attitudes and
emotions. In other words: Competencies are cognitive tools to solve specific
problems in concretes situations. Therefore, to define and distinguish political or
civic competencies, we first have to consider typical situations related to the
resolution of social, economic and political problems.
The so-called policy cycle (Senesh, 1966) describes different stages of political
decision-making. In civic education a simplified version is used to model the four
stages “conflict – negotiation – solution – (remaining or new) conflict” as ideal-
typical process of social problem-solving. The initial conflict is often times a social
problem like poverty, minority rights, immigration, economy crisis or climate
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 79–97.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
PETRIK
change. As all social problems lead to controversial ideas about their dimensions
and adequate solutions, the term conflict is more appropriate to mark the starting
point of political interaction. Each stage of the policy cycle needs specific
competencies to cope with its requirements.
What is the connection between those stages of social conflict resolution and
necessary competencies? To become aware of urgent social problems that don’t
concern us directly we ought to take the perspectives of people from other social
classes, cultures, world regions and so on. Thus, perspective-taking becomes the
initial competency to get rid of a self-centered world-view, incenting us at least to
accept the necessity to look closer at the problem. At this point, analytical tools and
methods seem indispensable to reveal the conflict’s causes and consequences.
Then, this new understanding leads us to debate different views about working
solutions. Here the interactive competency of arguing and compromising becomes
necessary. By analyzing and debating political conflicts, our prejudices get a
chance of being transformed into knowledge-based critical judgments. A critical
judgment shows the competency of weighing up underlying value systems and
typical consequences of controversial approaches. Having found our own well-
founded viewpoint, we are prepared and hopefully motivated to participate in the
process of problem solving and conflict resolution. Participatory skills describe the
individual and collective possibilities to interfere politically on a local, state or
international level, from community service up to the engagement in political
parties or (inter)national NGO’s.
As a consequence, the five competencies we distinguish in the German
discussion (based on Behrmann, Grammes, & Reinhardt, 2004) can be ordered
with the policy cycle as shown in Figure 1 (see Petrik, 2010a).
The competencies may be defined as:
1. Perspective taking: Ability to perceive and recognize the existence of urgent
social, political, economical and ecological problems – even without being
concerned – through self-distancing
2. Analytical thinking: Ability to use social scientific categories, models and
methods to deeply understand the problem and resulting conflicts (causes and
impacts of the underlying problem, involved parties and their interests,
strategies and means of power to enforce their interests)
3. Conflict resolution: Ability to debate controversial claims and solutions for the
conflict by founding one’s own claims, by accepting or refuting controversial
reasoning, by persuading and being persuaded and by compromising.
4. Critical judgment: Ability to develop a personal value system as political
identity by distinguishing and weighing up different ideological orientations.
5. Participation: Ability to participate in the implementation of political solutions
or in the setting of a new agenda through public activities and mobilizing.
Participation is often times a reaction to political decisions by those who are
negatively affected by the decision – this is what causes the “cyclical” character
of politics.
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LEARNING “HOW SOCIETY IS AND MIGHT AND SHOULD BE ARRANGED”
POLITICAL
CONFLICT NEGOTIATION
1
.Perspective taking
Perception and recognition of 3. Conflict resolution
urgent social problems through Debating of controversial
self-distancing claims and solutions for the
2. Analytical thinking conflict; arguing and
Using social scientific compromising
methods to understand
the conflict
SOLUTION
4. Critical judgment
Reasoned decision by
weighing up controversial
value systems
5. Participation
Implementation of political
solutions or agenda setting
through public activities
and mobilizing
81
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Competencies Æ Critical
Perspective taking Analytical thinking Conflict resolution Participation
È Dimensions judgment
Role-taking, introspection, Understanding, interpretation Communication skills, Distinguish facts from Ability to monitor and
self-distancing, display & critique of different sources ability to present in verbal opinions, cope with influence policies and
solidarity and interest in of social scientific and manner your ideas by using ambiguity, articulate one’s decisions, including through
Skills
solving (foreign) political knowledge (articles, grounded claims, including own (or an opposed) voting. Ability to build
problems, interculturally images, TV-news, statistics ...) debating, negotiating and opinion, give a critical coalitions and to cooperate
appropriate behavior critical listening written statement
Biographical knowledge Key elements of the political, Argumentation strategies, Different value systems, Civil rights and
about different social economic & legal system, key debating & conflict social cleavages, political responsibilities, possibilities
milieus, social roles, events and current political resolution strategies, ideologies, party like voting, demonstrations,
Knowledge cultural differences, causes issues, history & cultural theories of (non-violent) programs, social petitions, letters to the
of value building & social heritage conflict resolution movements and their editor etc. at the local,
change historical development national & international
level
Empathy, respect, rejection Scientific curiosity, Belief in non-violent Tolerance, distance to Valuing involvement as
of prejudice, sexism, knowledge as key to solutions to differences, one’s own values, seeing active citizens, feeling
racism and discrimination comprehension and social openness to compromise contingency and equal responsible and confident
Values/ Attitudes change, acceptance of the rule and to self-critique, defense value of all democratic for your decisions and
of law, democratic principles of one’s political ideologies actions
& institutions adversary’s right of free
speech
Intention to take unknown Intention to get knowledge to Intention to resolve conflicts Intention to judge fairly Intention to participate and
Dispositions foreign perspectives overcome one’s own in a peaceful manner and being open to being to lead a socially
prejudices judged responsible life
Core concepts build the basic curriculum. They embody the necessary knowledge
for the five competencies. As the competency of value-based judgment remains
often times neglected in civic education (see e.g. Hess & Ganzler, 2007; Niemi &
Niemi, 2007), I will focus on social cleavages and democratic ideologies. The
following nine questions represent a core concept of civic learning as they raise
highly controversial topics that every society, government, political party and
social movement has to cope with. Moreover, each individual “answers” these
questions at least indirectly by his or her life style and “lived” values. Every
society and every social group has to cope with decision-making, conflict
resolution, the usage, allocation and redistribution of (natural) resources, with the
integration of foreigners and deviants, with motivation for achievement and
progress as well as with the maintenance or modification of traditions. The
following nine topics cover at the same the basic items used in questionnaires on
value change and democratization (see Welzel & Inglehart, 2009).
Nine fundamental controversial questions as core curriculum for civic
education:
1. Decision making & change: Which persons and agencies should be in charge of
decision-making, government? How should social change be organized?
2. Conflict resolution & security: How do we solve personal, educational, national
and international conflicts and breaches of the rules?
3. Common value base: What is the value base of our society? Which role should
religion play?
4. Inclusion & cultural identity: How should we include strangers and social
minorities in the mainstream culture?
5. Private life styles: How should politics influence private life styles, gender
relations and sexual behavior?
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6. Property rights & economic leadership: What impact should the state have on
economy and property rights?
7. Resource allocation & redistribution: How should people get endowed with
resources?
8. Innovation & achievement: Which are the leading principles to motivate people
for innovation and achievement and how do they impact on the educational
system?
9. Ecology & economy: What role should the use of ecological resources play for
the economic system?
These questions help teachers to choose controversial topics that foster critical
judgment skills. But in civic education, political opinions are generally merely
asked for or remain superficial, non-committal statements that don’t get analyzed
to foster identity development, perspective-taking and tolerance. Most civic
education programs emphasize value-neutral, “objective” thinking and analytical
skills. The international IEA Civic Education Study (see Torney-Purta et al., 1999)
focuses on basic characteristics of democratic societies, like the willingness to vote
and to participate, but also on democratic skills like tolerance, compromise and
cooperation. “Attitudes” are related to students’ trust in institutions, their country,
opportunities for immigrants, the political rights of women, and future prospect.
There we find indeed traces of political ideology, but they are neither
systematically asked for nor properly interpreted. A couple of classroom studies
reveal a lack of exposure to political partisanship and conflict (see Niemi & Niemi,
2007; Hess & Ganzler, 2007). This is what I call “the ideology gap” in Civic
Education (see Petrik, 2010c). Recent misconception research showed the crucial
role of belief systems to analyze and understand political facts (Nyhan & Reifler,
2010). The false belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, for example
remains resistant until today among conservative adherents of ex-president Bush.
False or unsubstantiated beliefs can even endure corrections, depending on
ideological orientations and partisan beliefs. A further study with US-American
college students in the field of political science reveals that the student’s efforts
highly depend on their perception of their professor’s political orientation (Kelly-
Woessner & Woessner, 2008).
The ideology gap can be filled by the use of the influential Kitschelt model of
political cleavages (see Kitschelt, 2003), distinguishing left-libertarian, market-
liberal, democratic-socialist and conservative answers to the nine fundamental
questions I listed above. Kitschelt developed his model to classify Eastern
European’s new democratic party programs after the decline of Stalinist
communism. Those four orientations are broadly considered as basic political
ideologies at least in all Western democracies shaping individual value-systems,
social movements and political parties. Kitschelt’s coordinate system can be seen
as a renewal of Karl Mannheim's (1936) classical model of utopian and ideological
thinking published in 1929. From a perspective of Sociology of Knowledge he
identified the same four historical ideal types of political consciousness. Hence, the
84
LEAR
RNING “HOW SO
OCIETY IS AND
D MIGHT AND SHOULD
S BE ARR
RANGED”
F
Figure 3. The poolitical compasss as horizon of ppolitical judgm
ment (Petrik, 20110c)
85
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LEARNING “HOW SOCIETY IS AND MIGHT AND SHOULD BE ARRANGED”
Liberalism as pure capitalist market system without any social protection, a system
automatically excluding many people from political participation.
The conservative idea is strongly rooted in Hobbes’ view of Homo homini lupus
(“man is a wolf to [his fellow] man”). People need strong directives by traditional
authorities to establish a peaceful, stable and well-ordered society. The government
should at the same time protect individual property rights as well as control
individual behavior in public and private life. Important moral values are supported
and represented by religious authorities. The natural human inequality and
destructive urges need a hierarchical order, in order to maintain justice and safety.
National Socialism and Fascism represent an extreme form of a socially unequal,
hierarchical and nationalist society.
Kitschelt (2003) mentions the linguistic convention to label the libertarian-
authoritarian cleavage also left-right conflict, but he sticks to the convention to
reserve the two terms to the economic dimension. I for myself consider two
dimensions of left and right. Nevertheless, I will continue, for practical reasons,
like Kitschelt does, to talk about left-libertarian and right-authoritarian orientations
etc. Thus, these adjectives clearly distinguish both dimensions.
On the basis of the nine fundamental questions raised above we can now specify
the ultimate values of the political compass. The following version opens up the
landscape of political controversy within democratic societies. The grey fields
represent the corporate values of two adjacent ideologies while on the contrary the
white ones refer mainly to one ideology that typically fills one quadrant (see Figure
4). This political map allows us at the same time to consider the possibilities of
coalitions and the contrasts between two ideologies sharing one ultimate value like
authority, social equality, economic liberty or self-determination. It represents the
important “value-bricks” of political ideology.
The IEA study considered only 25 per cent of students across all countries were
‘often’ encouraged to state their own point of view. While in theory many teachers
favor critical thinking and values development, in practice they mostly deliver
factual information using textbooks, worksheets and teacher talk (Torney-Purta et
al., 2001). So there seems to be a methodical lack of action-orientated and
interactive methods. Though, participation or civic engagement cannot only be
taught through “learning by doing,” it needs analytical and negotiation skills as
well to become aware of the necessity to participate and to be able to act tolerantly
and to empower one’s own position at the same time. So we can distinguish three
modes of strategies, which should be used equally:
87
PETRIK
All those methods are grounded by learning principles: they are problem-oriented,
conflict-oriented, action-based or genetic (in the sense of discovery-orientated) etc.
Those principles lead to distinct learning phases in the civic education classroom
(see also Sibylle Reinhardt’s chapter in this book). According to my own
experience, simulative methods should get a key role in civic education as they are
able to bridge personal experiences and the abstract and barely accessible world of
political institutions. On a methodological level, role games, social experiments
and institutional simulations also reveal the crucial role of the social scientific
methods to understand society, value building and social change. Simulations
mostly involve students into activities they wouldn’t or couldn’t do in real life. I
would like to introduce my “Found-a-village”-simulation as an example for a
“social experiment”-strategy especially designed to fill the ideology gap.
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LEARNING “HOW SOCIETY IS AND MIGHT AND SHOULD BE ARRANGED”
i
The village-project (Petrik, 2007, 2010b, c) simulates the migration of a whole
class to a deserted and isolated mountain village in the French Pyrenees in order to
found a new (micro-)society. Hence, the project follows the idea of the genetic
method, allowing students to study social issues in their “process of formation”
(Dewey, 1966; Wagenschein, 1991; for English translations, see Westbury, 2000
and http://www.natureinstitute.org/txt/mw/index.htm). Therefore, the village re-
presents a “point zero,” a political vacuum provoking the students to fill it with
their own political, economical and cultural ideas. This starting point supports
students to discover their latent ideologies and the necessity of democratic rules
and institutions to coordinate controversial claims. Thus, the simulation can be
grouped within the tradition of “island-scenarios” or so-called “Robinsonades.”
Adelson (1971) asked adolescents to imagine a thousand people venture to an
island to form a new society. Through the village project, students can enhance
their perspective taking skills, conflict resolution skills, critical judgment skills and
participation skills. As we know from previous research in Germany, especially
political tolerance gets developed. To foster those competencies, the village-
scenario is based on interactive student-to-student debates and provides an
“institutional scaffolding” through traces of a traditional three-class structure, a
market place, a town hall, a prison and a church:
House 5 & 6
House 2, 3 & 4 Former farm workers
Former cheese dairy, & shepherds
butcher & carpenter
Barn
Cropland
House 1
Former mayor &
big landowner
Workshop
Market
square
Montréjeau 31 km
School & community (6 km narrow path,
center with prison cell then country road)
Act one: (Self-) Discovery – Controversial Political Values & Democratic Rules
The students gather around for several town meetings to develop their own
economic, political and cultural system. Those meetings are mostly highly
controversial, inducing the students to establish basic debating rules. Some of the
fundamental issues such as decision-making and the distribution of incomes are
raised automatically, without the teacher having to introduce them. Later the
89
PETRIK
teacher confronts the students with potential village situations that systematically
launch the nine fundamental issues (see above):
1. Government: Should we elect a strong leader to solve personal conflicts and our
economical crisis?
2. Conflict resolution: What should we do with a villager who stole 1000 € out of
the common cash box?
3. Value base: Might we transform the church into a secular cultural center?
4. Inclusion: Should we accommodate four traditional Moslems from Tunisia?
5. Private life: Who should decide about a village girl’s request to have an
abortion?
6. Property rights: Do we accept an investor’s offer to buy one of the houses,
transforming it into a hotel, building a road out of the small path, a
parking on the market place, a telephone and internet line to attract more
tourists?
7. Redistribution: Should the whole village pay for the reparation of the
rotten roof of one of the houses?
8. Economic principles: Should villagers who are economically successful
by inventing new cultivation methods, computer games etc. pay a special
wealth tax?
9. Ecology: Do we want to invest in a wind powered generation and
ecological farming by neglecting other possible investments?
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LEARNING “HOW SOCIETY IS AND MIGHT AND SHOULD BE ARRANGED”
91
PETRIK
constructive conflict resolution, the faster they will be able to question and
elaborate their personal value system.
Public Level (2): Relevant Grounds as Basis for the Constructive Exchange of
Political Viewpoints
Using grounds with relevant warrants represents the base of political exchange,
because an individual statement gets plausibly connected to collectively accepted
insights. As to political judgment, a substantiated viewpoint is reached. Combined
with the openness to understand others stating their views a “founded dissent” can
be achieved. So we could distinguish between two public sublevels: the ability a)
to use relevant reasons to state one’s own view, b) to reconstruct opposed reasons
of others.
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LEARNING “HOW SOCIETY IS AND MIGHT AND SHOULD BE ARRANGED”
Figure 6. A Toulmin-based model for the development of political judgment and conflict
resolution skills
93
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95
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NOTES
i
English translations of the material are available from the author.
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SIBYLLE REINHARDT
INTRODUCTION
The democratic system needs specific teaching strategies to help students become
competent democratic citizens. As the reader will notice, none of the outlined
strategies would be used for political learning in an authoritarian system.
Citizenship education (politische Bildung) tries to help students to acquire
adequate competencies to participate in a democratic political system. It is
especially important to learn how to deal with political conflicts since democracy
(different from authoritarian and totalitarian systems) respects divergent interests
and/or values and gives room to their competition before a decision is come to.
Research on political socialization shows how difficult the task is: students often
mistakenly try to apply to politics categories that only fit the private lives of
people.
All this must have consequences for teaching strategies. Most important, the
Beutelsbach Consensus outlines the principle of controversy (political issues are
controversial issues). Different didactic principles put the Consensus to work and
aim at different dynamics of learning when dealing with politics: Is the teaching
and learning centered around a conflict, a problem or a case? Or does it involve the
students with political action, judgement, or future-oriented scenarios? Or do they
found their own system or do they go for a scientific orientation?
Each of these didactic principles emphasizes some normative aspect of
democracy, requires the seeking of (scientific) knowledge and information, takes
the students’ own approaches into account and articulates the method(s) of
teaching and learning that are appropriate. The method of problem-solving, for
example, corresponds to the principle of problem-orientation under the Teaching
Strategies section of this paper and is carried through by answering six questions:
Definition(s) of the problem? Possible causes? Divergent interests involved?
Possible solutions? Consequences and side-effects of the solutions? My/our
standpoint?
These strategies of teaching give an over-all picture of the philosophy and the
techniques of the school-subject.
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 99–109.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
REINHARDT
– takes part actively in the process of public discussion and political decision
(Detjen, 2000).
This well-informed, humanistically-minded and participating individual
incorporates a high degree of personal autonomy and responsibility. Of course, this
ideal picture does not describe reality but it renders the direction and goal of
citizenship education (politische Bildung). In order to break the idea down to more
precise aims and means of teaching and learning and to the evaluation of these
processes, five competencies for the learning of democracy follow (Behrmann,
Grammes, & Reinhardt, 2004, pp. 337f., 387-391). These competencies are meant
to describe the competent citizen in the specific domain of democracy, to give an
idea of the developmental learning process, to relate to teaching methods and to
link to research findings.
The competent democratic citizen is able to:
1) Take others’ perspective roles: The views and expectations of others, also of the
generalized other, are seen and integrated.
2) Handle conflicts: Conflicting interests, values and identities are approached with
tolerance and “resolved” responsibly.
3) Use social sciences: Institutions, structural frameworks and individual actions in
society (e.g. in politics, economy, law and other partial systems) are analyzed by
employing social sciences.
4) Use moral and political reasons: Judgements on political issues need two sorts
of criteria, those referring to the functioning of the political system and those
referring to individual and / or collective terms of morals/ethics.
5) Participate in democracy: Everyday face-to-face life, work life, civil society and
the over-all democratic state give the opportunity for and are dependent on the
participation of citizens.
These competencies break the idea of the competent democratic citizen down and
render a more precise and concrete notion to our thinking about teaching and
learning democracy.
The one competence out of the five that is perhaps the most characteristic to the
democratic political system and that is probably most difficult to learn by
individuals is the competence to handle conflicts. The ability to handle conflicts of
interests, values and political orientations in a productive and legitimate matter is
specifically part of the democratic political system – it does not fit an authoritarian
or totalitarian regime. These non-democratic systems tend to hide or suppress
conflicts. Often this is done in the name of national unity, out of respect for the
leader of the country, or in order to hold up collective we-feelings (Gemeinschaft).
This ability to accept and deal with conflicts is (historically) a new citizen’s
competence, it is (systematically) the psychic equivalent to democracy and it is
(biographically) most difficult to learn. The “logic” of democratic politics is
competition for the best answers and fight for power – all carried out in institutions
and in a civil manner (Streitkultur). The “logic” of private life is seeking harmony
and well-being. Therefore handling conflicts on a macro-level of society/state is
not learned in everyday life; it needs to be taught in a specific school subject
(Reinhardt, 2006, 2010a).
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TEACHING FOR DEMOCRATIC LEARNING
CONDITIONS OF LEARNING
► If all the parties formed the government – disadvantage for democracy? Choose
one.
items %
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REINHARDT
Another item is a classic one in political science. The item asks for the meaning
of political opposition. It asks if the person approves or disapproves of the
following statement: “The task of the political opposition is not to criticize the
government but to support its work.” (The statement is completely false, somewhat
false, mostly correct, completely correct.) Quite evidently the statement fails the
meaning of opposition, but even so, almost 70% of the young students between the
ages of 13 and 18 (some were older) identified it to be correct (mostly or
completely).
(Reinhardt, Tillmann, 2002, p. 61; see also Krappidel & Böhm-Kasper, 2006, p.
45)
I suggest that the interpretation of these data concentrates on the students’ lack
of competence of understanding and handling conflicts and not on a lack of
knowledge in the sense of knowing and reproducing words. Everybody in
Germany “knows” that a central element of democracy is “opposition”; almost
everybody agrees. But if an item gives a description of the process of opposition
many people are actually against opposition, because opposition means to oppose
the opinions of others and to fight for the right answer. However (this is my
interpretation) this logic of democratic conflict is not well liked by normal human
beings who are unlikely to make clear distinctions between their private lives and
the processes and actions that go on in a democracy. In summary, the conditions of
learning must influence the teaching arrangements.
In 1976 the state agency in charge of citizenship education in the state of Baden-
Württemberg called on a group of well-known thinkers in the field of democratic
learning to discuss aims and strategies of the school subject. They met in the small
town of Beutelsbach where they discovered a consensus on principles of teaching
political issues. This “Beutelsbacher Konsens” emerged out of lectures and
discussions. The consensus was not voted on but written in the form of a summary
by Wehling (1977). The three basic principles of democratic learning are:
1) It is forbidden to overwhelm learners.
Teachers are not allowed to overwhelm students – by whatever means - in
the direction of wanted opinions and thereby prevent students from gaining
their own judgements. This marks the difference between democratic
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103
REINHARDT
CONFLICT ORIENTATION
1. Conflict analysis
– Confrontation – first contact with the conflict, controversy, possible vote by the
learners
– Analysis – the conflict is analyzed with the aid of categories/central questions
– Response – learners take up positions and may debate:
– Controversial process – Arrangements like verbal dispute, debate, role-play
enact the conflict
– Generalization – the conflict in question may stand for a more general structural
conflict
PROBLEM ORIENTATION
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TEACHING FOR DEMOCRATIC LEARNING
Problem Study
– What is the problem? (Definition)
– How did the problem emerge? (Causes)
– Whose interests are affected? (Interests)
– What are the possible solutions for the problem? (“Solutions”?)
– What significance do these solutions have for …? (Consequences)
– Where do we/I stand? (Decision)
CASE ORIENTATION
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REINHARDT
FUTURE ORIENTATION
A. Normative dimension: The tasks of politics concern the present and the future.
Decisions bring about effects and side effects in the long term
B. Scientific approaches: Prognoses don’t only update the present, but try to
comprehend qualitative changes
C. Common approaches: Looking to the future can cause anxieties, awake hopes
and bring about plans
D. Professional knowledge: Strategy game, future workshop, scenario-technique
POLITICAL-MORAL ORIENTATION
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TEACHING FOR DEMOCRATIC LEARNING
C. Common approaches: Young people discover the political world, possibly they
suffer from it and want to create their lives, those of others and society
D. Professional knowledge: Foundation as teaching-method
Foundation
– Stimulus: Learners want to simulate a foundation in a fictional, open situation
– Foundation: Models of society are discovered and conflictually debated
– Systematisation/ Theoretisation: Theories of society help with decisions
– Application: Knowledge is applied to current conflicts and problems
– Reflections: Individual standpoints and learning processes are observed
SCIENTIFIC ORIENTATION
It is not surprising that teaching controversies are difficult and probably disliked by
many teachers, especially those who teach the subject without having studied
social sciences and its didactics thoroughly. There are many indications that
students seldom get the chance to deal controversially with controversial subjects
(cf. Henkenborg, 2008), but there are also hints by empirical research that teachers
do try to give their students the possibility to express opinions that are
controversial to the teacher’s or the other students’ opinions (Kötters-König, 2002).
This is remarkable and encouraging! But it does not automatically mean that
controversies do take place in the classroom, but it means that there is an important
prerequisite for controversies. Research is needed to show the impact of the
different strategies shown above on the development of competencies.
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REINHARDT
CONCLUSION
This thinking about democratic learning draws a line from the idea of democracy
and the competencies that the citizen needs to different teaching strategies. In that
way the competence of handling conflicts and the principle of teaching politics as
controversial issues are important steps that are backed by research data on
political socialization.
All the teaching strategies incorporate the Beutelsbach consensus and thereby
the principle of controversy and they all set a learning process in motion that is
self-dynamic and cooperative rather than instruction-driven und teacher-directed.
So far only little empirical research (surpassing teachers’ experiences) is available
to trace the positive outcomes of this sort of teaching.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance in editing the English version of
this paper by Dr. Amy Pfeil, USA.
REFERENCES
Behrmann, Günter C., Grammes, Tilman, & Reinhardt, Sibylle (2004). Politik: Kerncurriculum
Sozialwissenschaften in der gymnasialen Oberstufe. In Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Ed.), Kerncurriculum
Oberstufe II – Biologie, Chemie, Physik, Geschichte, Politik (pp. 322-406). Weinheim/Basel: Beltz.
Detjen, Joachim (2000). Die Demokratiekompetenz der Bürger. Herausforderung für die politische
Bildung. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 25, 11-20.
Fend, Helmut (1991). Identitätsentwicklung in der Adoleszenz. Entwicklungspsychologie der Adoleszenz
in der Moderne, Vol. II. Bern/Stuttgart/Toronto: Huber.
Henkenborg, Peter, Krieger, Anett, Pinseler, Jan, & Behrens, Rico (2008). Politische Bildung in
Ostdeutschland. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Kötters-König, Catrin (2002). Handlungsorientierung und Kontroversität im Sozialkundeunterricht. In
Heinz-Hermann Krüger et al. (Eds.), Jugend und Demokratie – Politische Bildung auf dem
Prüfstand. Eine quantitative und qualitative Studie aus Sachsen-Anhalt (pp. 115-144). Opladen:
Leske+Budrich.
Krappidel, Adrienne, & Böhm-Kasper, Oliver (2006). Weder rechts noch politisch interessiert?
Politische und rechte Einstellungen von Jugendlichen in Sachsen-Anhalt und Nordrhein-Westfalen.
In Werner Helsper et al. (Eds.), Unpolitische Jugend? Eine Studie zum Verhältnis von Schule,
Anerkennung und Politik (pp. 53-52). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
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Krüger, Heinz-Hermann, Reinhardt, Sibylle, Kötters-König, Catrin, Pfaff, Nicolle, Schmidt, Ralf,
Krappidel, Adrienne, & Tillmann, Frank (2002). Jugend und Demokratie – Politische Bildung auf
dem Prüfstand. Eine quantitative und qualitative Studie aus Sachsen-Anhalt. Opladen:
Leske+Budrich.
Reinhardt, Sibylle, & Tillmann, Frank (2002). Politische Orientierungen, Beteiligungsformen und
Wertorientierungen. In Heinz-Hermann Krüger et al. (Eds.), Jugend und Demokratie – Politische
Bildung auf dem Prüfstand. Eine quantitative und qualitative Studie aus Sachsen-Anhalt (pp. 43-74).
Opladen: Leske+Budrich.
Reinhardt, Sibylle (2005/2009). Politik-Didaktik. Praxishandbuch für die Sekundarstufe I und II (3rd
ed.). Berlin: Cornelsen Scriptor.
Reinhardt, Sibylle (2006). Die Demokratie-Kompetenz der Konfliktfähigkeit – lässt sie sich messen? In
Axel Rüdiger & Eva-Maria Seng (Eds.), Dimensionen der Politik: Aufklärung – Utopie –
Demokratie. Festschrift für Richard Saage zum 65. Geburtstag (pp. 501-520). Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot.
Reinhardt, Sibylle (2010a). Die domänenspezifische Kompetenz „Konfliktfähigkeit“ – Begründungen
und Operationalisierungen. In Ingo Juchler (Ed.), Kompetenzen in der politischen Bildung (pp. 125-
141). Schwalbach/Ts.: Wochenschau Verlag.
Reinhardt, Sibylle (2010b). Was leistet Demokratie-Lernen für die politische Bildung? Gibt es
empirische Indizien zum Transfer von Partizipation im Nahraum auf Demokratie-Kompetenz im
Staat? Ende einer Illusion und neue Fragen. In Dirk Lange & Gerhard Himmelmann (Eds.),
Demokratiedidaktik. Impulse für die politische Bildung (pp. 125-141). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für
Sozialwissenschaften.
Wehling, Hans-Georg (1977). Konsens á la Beutelsbach? In Siegfried Schiele & Herbert Schneider
(Eds.), Das Konsensproblem in der politischen Bildung (pp. 173-184). Stuttgart: Klett.
Wehling, Hans-Georg (1987). Zehn Jahre Beutelsbacher Konsens – Eine Nachlese. In: Siegfried Schiele
& Herbert Schneider (Eds.), Konsens und Dissens in der politischen Bildung (pp. 198-204).
Stuttgart: Metzler.
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BÉATRICE ZIEGLER
In the past few years, we have seen a progressively greater public discussion about
linking citizenship with duties, on both the national and European levels. After the
extremely tedious ratification process for a constitution in some of the member
states, the European Union made it clear that the institution “European Union”
would not be viable without a European consciousness among citizens of the
member states. Such a European consciousness would and should create ties that
could promote interest and engagement in European politics, thereby legitimating
the unification process as well as the institution as such.i
The attempt to create a European corpus of lieux de mémoire, along with the
effort to establish a view of the two World Wars as shared events conjointly
suffered, and even to see them as civil wars, aim in the same direction (Kühberger
& Sedmak, 2009). In the same vein comes the proposal that a school book in
European history be made available to history teachers in European countries
(1998), or the discussions of a strong Europe that must prove itself competitive
with the USA and China. All these examples display elements of historical and
power-political thinking which should help to create a pan-European
consciousness. Likewise, when Europe is commonly defined as a continent of
migrants, the heterogeneous inhabitants of Europe, whether citizens or not, feel
obliged to engage in politics and civil society in order to confront difficulties in
mutual cultural, religious and political understanding. (Astonishingly, social
understanding rarely appears in such circumstances: see Migration in Europa 2008.
Only the most recent developments have now become a subject of scientific
debate. These are discussed in the media and press increasingly in terms of the
threat posed by the financial sector, that is, “the rich” in the economic systems of
the nation-states, that is, the European Union, as well as in terms of the well-being
of those who are already worse off.ii)
The same arguments on behalf of participation occur in nation states, both
among politicians and political scientists: the legitimacy of national democracies is
seen to be at risk if citizens do not participate. In this view, the first duty of
citizenship is to exercise political rights, and second to do so in a way that
legitimizes democracy, i.e., reinforces democratic order.
In Switzerland, several factors – the declining number of persons who engage in
parties and political discussion, and who vote and do voluntary work, as well as the
results of the international study about Citizenship Education organized by IEA –
have nourished preoccupations concerning the functioning of democratic life and
the quality of direct democracy (Oser & Biedermann, 2003). Discussions follow
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 111–123.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
ZIEGLER
the line that it is absolutely important to reinforce the conviction that being active
in both society and politics is part of adult life and a preeminent social obligation
(see especially Quesel & Oser 2007). These ideas are not new: the young nation
states of the 19th- and early 20th centuries claimed national identity of their citizens
and their participation in democratic processes (above all elections); it has been a
relatively brief phase in which the National Welfare State has not formulated duties
in recompense for social security (for Switzerland, see Furrer 2004). In the 19th
century as today, deficit-analysis did not aim at the systems of state and economy,
but at the shortfalls in the participation and commitment of citizens. Such an
outlook is highly normative without showing people why it might also be in their
interest to see themselves as members of a society. It fails to take into account the
motivational aspects of acting, neglecting to take into consideration that, in the
long run, people will not engage in civic processes unless they see them not only as
duties but also fields in which they can trace the effects of their effort in one way
or another.
This is the point at which the discussion of the importance of competencies in
Political Learning or Citizenship Education begins. My argument is that only by
defining the disciplinary competencies of Citizenship Education, especially the
competency of judgement, can we systematically account for anyone’s capacity to
recognize him-/herself as a member of society, not by virtue of choosing to be
social but by being human. With that kind of definition, the importance of these
disciplinary competencies becomes more evident, in spite of the fact that nearly
every discussion about Citizenship Education stresses the importance of competent
judgement. My own argument will draw on the Swiss discussion about Citizenship
Education and its competencies, which started some ten years ago and took on
added value with the developing new Curricula since 2010.
I begin with the definitions of competencies in relation to goals of Citizenship
Education (I), Citizenship Education in German-speaking Switzerland (II), the
possibilities given by the curriculum for the German-speaking part of Switzerland
(LP21), actually under construction to further competencies in Citizenship
Education (III), and I end with some remarks which elaborate upon a graph which
helps to describe performance with respect to the competencies in Citizenship
Education (IV). I conclude with a brief remark about Citizenship Education in and
for Europe (V).
The capacity to make up one’s mind after a certain period, and after the efforts
made to inform oneself and interpret and evaluate things, is a fundamental element
of (adult) life. Decision-making is basic to the organization of one’s life. In this
understanding, the skill belongs to the so-called personal capacities as one of the
transdisciplinary capacities that define a mature adult life (Rychen & Salganik,
2003). Therefore, it is hardly surprising that in the social sciences the competency
of judgment appears essential to the discipline itself. Yet, when discussed in this
way, there still remains the task of gaining a disciplinary view of this competency.
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STABILIZATION OF THE DEMOCRACTIC SYSTEM AND SELF-EMPOWERMENT
Only when embedded in the perspective of action – the contents and situations for
acting in this disciplinary approach – may we speak of a disciplinary competency.
Quite clearly, then, judgement must be linked to the questions discussed by the
discipline, if we wish to consider disciplinary competencies. Nor does it help to
simply declare that in Citizenship Education the judgement made is about politics.
The discussion about the disciplinarity of competencies is ongoing. In Germany,
for instance, the discussion of “expertise” by Klieme et al. (Bundesministerium,
2003), which underlined the importance of disciplinary competencies, closed off
not only an alternative way of formulating competencies as transdisciplinary, but
also ways of organizing research around the idea of existing transdisciplinary and
disciplinary competencies. According to these authors, ongoing research has
concentrated on disciplinary competencies and their respective models (in the
context of Citizenship Education, see the latest discussion in Sander, 2011). In
German Citizenship Education, the GPJE proposed a model with three domains of
competencies: Capacities of Judgement; Capacities of Political Acting; Capacities
of Methods (GPJE, 2004). The authors stress the idea that competencies are
intimately linked with conceptual “Deutungswissen” or basic knowledge, which is
deeply marked by schemata, scripts, and mental models (ibid., p. 14);
competencies therefore should strengthen this conceptual knowledge, and are not
aiming at “facts and figures.” The model of GPJE is not empirically tested, or else
is only in certain respects.
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ZIEGLER
over 20% of the Swiss population are foreign nationals.iii While Switzerland took
part in the ICCS Study, the study’s results no longer found the same echo, even if it
confirmed relevant findings of the IEA Study. Thus, while the study revealed that,
compared to other countries, Swiss youth possessed average knowledge, the
performances of one-third of the participating Swiss pupils were extremely weak.
The lack of interest and the unwillingness to engage in politics later in life were
once again noted with concern (Biedermann et al., 2010). Attitudes came under
even closer scrutiny precisely because while it seemed possible to enhance
knowledge, such enhancement had no positive bearing on the foreseeable
abstaining from politics. Given the meagre performance of Swiss youths, the
initiative to create a manual for teachers helping them to teach Citizenship
Education (“Politische Bildung”) in an action-oriented way was welcomed by the
“Erziehungsdirektoren-Konferenz (EDK),” the “Swiss Conference of Cantonal
Ministers of Education (EDK).” In this manual (Gollob et al., 2007), competencies
are mentioned; the manual follows the competencies defined by the GPJE (2004).
In order to aid teachers in preparing their lessons, their analyses of actual political
developments and the subsequent preparation for school, the manual links the
competencies to the idea of the policy-cycle (see also www.politikzyklus.ch) and to
the three dimensions of politics – policy – polity. This instrument evidently makes
it possible to organize learning in Citizenship Education on a pragmatic level.
However, this work did not include research on competencies. Instead, it used
known ideas, adapting them for the manual, opening up a future project that would
elaborate the competencies as well as their gradation, if necessary. It saw politics
as a multilevel process tied to the existing levels of Community, Canton, and the
Federal State of Switzerland, and opening up systematic relations to the supra- and
transnational levels in Europe and the world.
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STABILIZ
ZATION OF THE
E DEMOCRACTIIC SYSTEM AND
D SELF-EMPOW
WERMENT
Figurre 1. See the transdisciplinary tthemes on the riight side and “SSpaces, Times, SSocieties
(Räum me, Zeiten, Geselllschaften)” on the secondary oone-levelv
Seccond, the basicc report (“Gruundlagenbericcht”) of the prroject, from w which the
above graph is takeen (which shoows the structture of schooll subjects andd areas of
study dduring compuulsory educatioon), mentions as disciplinarry resources, aalongside
Geography and Hiistory, “Staatsskunde” or C Civic Educatiion, with thee domain
“Zeitenn, Räume, Geesellschaften” (“times, spacees, societies”) on the seconddary one-
level ((referred to ass Cycle 3 in the graph). With
W this explicit inclusion of Civic
Educattion as basis for
f the mentiooned domain, the project reesponds to dem mands by
politiccians and scienntists/professiionals to integgrate Citizenshhip Educationn into the
curricuulum. In addittion, in the dom main for the fi
first two cycless (see graph: tthese two
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ZIEGLER
cycles refer to two years of kindergarten and the first two years of primary school
(= Cycle 1) and four more years of primary school (= Cycle 2), “Natur, Mensch,
Gesellschaft (NMG)” or “nature, human being, society (NMG),” foundations
should be laid in all subjects mentioned explicitly on the secondary one-level. The
basic structure of the curriculum (Geschäftsstelle, 2011, p. 11) offers further details
on these requirements: it mentions seventeen topics to be discussed in NMG
classes (“nature, human being, society”). One of these is “Staat und Gesellschaft”
(“state and society”), another is “Ich und Gemeinschaft” (“individual and society”).
“Times, spaces, societies” in Cycle 3 includes eleven topics, amongst others,
“Politics, Democracy, Human Rights.” With this a certain space is opened for
Citizenship Education right from the beginning. On the one hand, these
denominations create a space for Citizenship Education, which will allow
fulfilment of the contents and competencies relevant to Citizenship Education,
depending on the working-group and later the political process. In the working-
groups on “nature, human being, society” and “times, spaces, societies,” there is no
professional for Citizenship Education. Perhaps there might be a concentration on
polity-aspects of Citizenship Education, remaining far behind the theoretical
discussion in the field. On the other hand, as all domains must be oriented to the
promotion of competencies, action-oriented learning can still take place.
Theoretically, this might open a field for aspects of the competencies important to
Citizenship Education (Ziegler, 2011b).
The situation outlined above has made it advisablevi to present a short paper
including the understanding of Citizenship Education for the curriculum being
elaborated. This was done by a group of scientists / professionals who have formed
a network concerned with Citizenship Education (Ziegler et al., 2009). The paper
explained their understanding of Citizenship Education and mentioned explicitly
how it should be integrated into the Curriculum. In this paper, the competence of
judgement again was granted high relevance, particularly with its ability to
strengthen a multi-perspective outlook on political questions, interests and values,
and one’s positioning in social and political action. This process of analysis,
interpretation and judgement is called “judgement” overall. It contains elements of
both factual interpretation and value-based judgement. The Competence of
Judgement in Citizenship Education was declared by the paper as contributing to
transdisciplinary competences, and seen as intimately linked to the Competence of
Acting. Therefore, the paper declared that the general parts of the curriculum
should stress the importance of democratic and human-rights-based school life and
rules, in order to promote judgement in action and to reflect judgement in the
results of actions.
The paper took a position once again on the question of defining disciplinary
competencies. In order to strengthen the disciplinarity of the competencies, they
were referred to the model of the policy-cycle and its process stages. Therefore, the
denomination of competencies underwent a slight change in comparison with the
model of the GPJE, as follows:
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STABILIZATION OF THE DEMOCRACTIC SYSTEM AND SELF-EMPOWERMENT
What the paper (Ziegler et al., 2009) could not do was to elaborate a model with an
accompanying graph of competencies for Citizenship Education. As Citizenship
Education has not existed as a domain-specific didactic discipline in Switzerland
until recently, and since the curricula were not oriented to competencies,
systematic formulations of competencies for Citizenship Education do not exist at
this time, not yet having become the object of systematic scientific theoretical
work. Swiss researchers have participated in international surveys, such as the IEA,
but the theoretical work preliminary to empirical studies was not debated outside
the project, and therefore could not lead to a scientific theoretical discussion
(Biedermann & Reichenbach, 2009).
Without question, it is important that definitions and modelling be carried out in
the next few months – the official installation of the curriculum is planned for
August 2014 – if teachers are to be able to teach Citizenship Education. This
modelling cannot yet provide a basis for empirical research, as it will not be able to
draw on the resources necessary for such work. None the less, it must be carried
out with a pragmatic aim, and hopefully will be followed by more sophisticated
efforts.
Below eight preliminary ideas are presented about how the competencies for
Citizenship Education should be defined and modelled. These notions of
competency modelling in Switzerland reflect a personal point of view, which has
been developed mostly within the framework of subject-specific didactics, but
partly also within the interdisciplinary debate on the matter. Wherever possible,
reference is made to possible links.
It seems quite evident that current theoretical work on competencies will not
limit them to the goals of fostering participation in the nation-state. Competencies
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ZIEGLER
in Citizenship Education are much broader: they have to implement the idea of
creating and recreating civil society and political processes all over the world,
taking into account the structuring effects of national borders and regional
communities in the EU as well in nation-state regions. Certainly, the multilevel
system, in which politics are treated, has to be taken into account.vii
In elaborating a common view of transdisciplinary themes in the working
group on “BNE+,” “Education for a Sustained Development+,” which should
include Citizenship Education under the theme of “Human Rights and
Democracy” (Geschäftsstelle, 2010, p. 22), which was later modified to
“Politics, Human Rights, and Democracy,” global issues and discourses were
referred to. Besides human rights, “Global Learning” should also be
mentioned here.viii
It is not the task of Citizenship Education to form a collective identity for a defined
entity, neither for the nation-state nor for larger units like the EU. The goal of
learning consciously to be a social being and to survive as such is quite different
from forming a national or regional identity.
In the theoretical literature on Citizenship Education in German-speaking
Switzerland, a conception of such education linked normatively to the
formation of a collective identity has hardly played any role over the last
thirty years. Thus, the fact that “Global Learning,” which – by all means on
the basis of sound arguments – also aims to raise awareness of “One World”
(Global Society), forms part of the LP21 together with the other “BNE+”
interdisciplinary themes only as a “subtheme” and not as an actual
perspective, plainly reveals that no prominent role should be assigned to
collective responsibility and its normative anchoring within the educational
system. (Ziegler, 2011, forthcoming)
The status of “a social being” is confronted mainly with two interpretations. At the
beginning of this article, I argued that Citizenship Education oscillates between the
two ideas of Citizenship Education’s aims: on the one hand, competencies are built
up based on the idea of those rights that individuals have and should be able to
enjoy for their own sake. On the other hand, competencies are acquired because
society needs competent individuals who see their rights as a duty, and who
consequently have and practise a public spirit (“Gemeinsinn”) in order to help
society and state function. As long as this awareness of responsibility for society is
alien to the competency itself, this argument for Citizenship Education has a
totalitarian aspect, reminding one of nationalistic educational schemes.
While it is easy to state that the duty to think and act in order to serve a
community, a state or larger entity is not obviously a legitimate goal, it is far more
difficult to give a systematic, rather than a strictly normative place to that
consciousness which is aware of being necessarily social and therefore political.
The competencies of political analysis and judgement, methods, decision-
making and acting are well accepted with good reason, but in actual understanding
are still not sufficient. The curriculum discussed above demonstrates this. While
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ZIEGLER
The grave and acute problems faced by European society and its constituent
national groups lead to the widely-accepted idea that the pan-European population
should identify itself more with the EU and the EC. Individual Europeans should
be more interested in political affairs on the European level, in this view, and want
to be informed as well as to engage in the civil society and politics of Europe. The
assumption is that Europeans as a whole should participate!
This assumption creates dangers, however: the EU may not simply replicate
processes of identification and morale typical of the nation-states, which have
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created a strong identification and at the same time strong feelings against
“enemies” which could be manipulated. On the other side, without such
identification, societies function poorly, opening themselves to internal aggression
because their members do not behave as members of a community.
Therefore, Citizenship Education needs to guarantee this feeling of membership,
all the while combining it with the knowledge that in our present-day world
political processes are global. In that perspective, the EU is an important actor for
every European, and even for non-Europeans indirectly. Citizenship Education
ought to promote an understanding of this perspective that transcends regional- and
nation-state-dimensions, so that EU identity becomes not simply a matter of
political position but also a matter of political competency, with all its attendant
skills and their ultimate reference to public-spiritedness.
However, there is good reason for Citizenship Education not to create this
awareness of the general interdependence between societies and their members by
way of a normative formation of collective identity, but rather by fostering a well-
argued understanding of the prevailing political mechanisms, of the threat posed to
the individual failing the establishment and constant affirmation of a supranational,
binding system of rules, and of the necessity of integrating and tying power and its
bearers into democratic and international legal processes. The competencies of
Citizenship Education should develop both this understanding and the capacity for
taking corresponding action. It is aimed at bringing forth adults capable of
recognising, classifying, and attending to their interests and values in civil society
and on the national and supranational levels, that is, adults capable of analysing
and assessing political events in terms of their interests and values, and capable of
acting accordingly. But such education is also aimed at adults, who, subject to their
possibilities, are actually interested in and committed to shaping politics
accordingly, because they have understood that in the long term human beings may
enjoy a good life only as social and political creatures. It is therefore indispensable
that competencies are formulated so that these insights result as far as possible not
only from an intellectual thought process but also from lived practice. To what
extent formulating such competency descriptions will be possible in the near
future, and whether they will actually gain acceptance, remains to be seen.
NOTES
i
In the same way in the Council of Europe’s program to bring forward European Citizenship, all
the papers and entries in its website make these ideas clear. For a recent formulatation (updated
3 December 2010), see http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/edc/1_What_is_EDC_HRE/What_%
20is_EDC_en.asp. See further the paper of the steering committee’s president at
ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/improving/docs/ser_citizen_pureza.pdf. The same views are expressed
on the European Union's website, which stresses the necessity of citizen participation.
ii
Issues believed to have been forgotten have suddenly become prominent; see, for instance, the 2012
Congress of the Swiss Association of Education Research on “Educational Inequality and Justice –
Challenges for Science and Society” (http://www.sgbf.ch/jahreskongresse/jahreskongresse_de.html).
iii
Meanwhile, official information on statistics is readily available. http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/
portal/de/index/dienstleistungen/forumschule/them/02/03a.html.
121
ZIEGLER
iv
“Lehrplan 21 auf Kurs.” Press release dated 14 November 2011. For the press release and the basic
structure, see http://www.lehrplan.ch/sites/default/files/grobstruktur_lp21.pdf.
v
My thanks go to Francesca Moser, Co-leader of the project “Deutschschweizer Lehrplan,” for
sending me the graph in a quality to be printed.
vi
The author of this text is the official “expert” for Citizenship Education in the working-group
“BNE+” of the LP21 project; see www.lehrplan.ch/arbeitsgruppen (last retrieved 31 October 2011).
vii
Implicitly, this suggests that Civic Education is understood to correspond more or less to “Civics”
(that is, the study of the state and of government), that is, a form of Political Education focused on
state institutions and which considers participation in elections and ballots the principal citizen
actions. Citizenship Education, however, refers to a form of Political Education aimed at enabling
the members of civil society to take action within that society and on the different levels of political
decision-making.
viii
Even if the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), an important political force in Switzerland, continues to
systematically make the case for an isolationist policy, it nevertheless permanently invokes the
importance of a clearly negative attitude towards the European Union. Moreover, the Swiss media
are full of contributions on international events and their relations to Swiss politics and the country’s
economy. It goes without saying that in such a highly networked economic area as Switzerland, life
is not confined to national boundaries.
ix
No up-to-date overview of the conceptions of Political Education in Switzerland exists. The key
publication in this area is Moser, Kost, and Holdener (1978). However, preliminary work on an
annotated edition on the source history of Political Education suggest this point of view. See further
the project “Reader Politische Bildung (2010–2012)” http://www.fhnw.ch/ph/pbgd/projekte.
REFERENCES
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HERMAN J. ABS AND TINA PYKA
The conviction that citizenship education is vital for democratic societies has
increasingly been reflected in planned curricula (Bîrzéa, 2004; Eurydice, 2005;
ICCS, 2010) and quality assurance of schools (Edelstein et al., 2007; Abs, 2009);
nonetheless, there remain difficulties for their implementation and assessment.
First, the definition of citizenship education is highly debated. Beyond a
multitude of labels unfolds an even larger number of approaches and objectives.
Johnson and Morris (2010) review the various concepts of critical thinking and
pedagogy that have flourished in the literature. From this, they propose a
framework allowing for comparative analysis of curricula and teaching materials.
They synthesise the literature by crossing curricular categories whose labels they
have drawn from Cogan et al.’s definition of citizenship/civics education as the
formation of “the knowledge, skills, values and dispositions of citizens” (Cogan et
al., 2002, p. 4). They point out the distinctive categories in which critical
pedagogy is declined. Accordingly, the table runs a horizontal line through the
following categories: politics/ideology, social/collective, self/subjectivity and
praxis/ engagement.
While this work sets a foundation for future studies, it does not generate a
consensus on what should be taught in schools or on how to interpret citizenship
competences. On the contrary, the last decade was marked by several alternative
concepts of citizenship competence. Recent examples are systemised in Eis (2010,
p. 120), even more recently in the alternative model of Weißeno et al. (2010), and
most recently the contributions of Petrik (2012) and Reinhardt (2012). In this case,
the Delphi-Study in this volume can be considered an acceptable approach to build
a consensus in the open debate.
Second, both policy makers and teachers need methodological guidance to assist
them in implementing citizenship education in curricula and the classroom. In
addition to teaching methods that need to be continuously advanced, diagnostic
tools are required to help teachers identify real student competencies. Then,
educationalists are needed to determine how students can efficiently assimilate the
desired competencies followed by policy to shed light on problematic systemic
structures in schooling.
Operationalizing a concept as vast and multidimensional as citizenship into an
instrument is a difficult feat. To date, the assessment of citizenship competencies
M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 125–148.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
ABS AND PYKA
By the end of World War II in the Aviation Psychology Program of the US Army
Air Forces, J. C. Flanagan developed and used a research method which quickly
was coined the critical incident technique. Primarily it generated functional
descriptions of behaviour in professional activities. The technique served to collect
data for ‘measures of the typical performance’ in these situations (Flanagan, 1954,
p. 346). At that point, Flanagan defined an incident as “any observable human
activity that is sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions to
be made about the person performing the act” (1954, p. 328). He considers an
incident critical that “occurs in a situation where its consequences are sufficiently
definite to leave little doubt concerning its effect” (ibid.). In other words, the
technique collects data on behaviour within specific scenarios of broad
professional activities.
In his studies, the technique was meant to provide answers to specific military
questions: why people failed flight training, why bombing missions failed and in
the situations pilots suffered from vertigo and disorientation during combat. The
concept was to gather behavioural and emotional information about failures or
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Critical incidents have also found application as assessment tools in the evaluation
of citizenship. In a first section, the research design by Hesse and Göbel (2007) to
measure intercultural competence is reviewed with particular attention to its
utilisation of the critical incidents technique. In the second section, we will explore
critical incidents as a tool for assessing informal citizenship learning at school
(Eckensberger et al., 2009). Last, the focus turns to the results of Pyka’s (2010)
pilot study analysing citizenship education in upper secondary schools.
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validated the choice, Hesse and Göbel assigned four questions to each critical
incident:
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USING CRITICAL INCIDENTS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF CITIZENSHIP COMPETENCE
Pedagogical reaction to
Intended by the Extracurricular activities spontaneously occurring (inter-)
teacher organised by the school actions of students or other
members of the school
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The critical incidents are settled in the school environment and consider
paradigmatic situations of informal learning as outlined above. They generally
present interpersonal or intergroup conflicts, but most are also related to
controversial moral and political issues (Hess 2004, 2009). However, the relatively
short EU-Project made further instrumental development more difficult. Piloting
work as a first step to improve and standardise the tool and to investigate inter-
individual and transnational differences could had to be postponed to another
study, which will be described in the next chapter.
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Please think about the following incidents and give your opinion.
Critical incident 1
(Barcelona wording) A teacher, who has some disciplinary problems in his class,
uses individual grading as a means of punishment against bad behaviour.
(Post-Barcelona wording) Imagine a teacher doesn’t like a student in your class
and therefore gives a good piece of work by this student a bad mark.
Critical incident 2
(Barcelona wording) Imagine the speaker of all students in your school is in deep
conflict with the principal. In the end the principal decides to suspend the speaker
and to proclaim re-elections
(Post-Barcelona wording) Imagine the spokesperson of all students in your
school is in deep conflict with the head teacher. In the end the head teacher decides
to suspend the spokesperson and to proclaim re-elections.
For the first two items, students had to rate their agreement with the statements
on a four-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”
These two items seek to gain information about the impression of their school
climate that students perceive and about their stance on the justness of behaviour
and attitudes depicted in the critical incident. The next two are open questions, they
leave room to the respondents to elaborate on and explain their point of view.
When Eckensberger, Abs and Breit proposed critical incidents as an assessment
instrument, they formulated nine CIs with exclusively open format questions. In
the piloting phase with two CIs, two Likert scale questions and two open-ended
questions were used instead. This change was done in order to simplify data
analysis for the first two questions and to focus students’ writing on those aspects
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that could not be answered in a closed format. Only after rating “It is justifiable to
act in that way” can respondents reason freely about “Why is it justifiable or not?”
Opting for “justifiable” rather than “generally ok” resulted meant to encourage
students to reflect their vision of what is morally acceptable in a school setting.
Since the questionnaire was addressed to students only, respondents were asked
“How would you as a student react?”
The wording of the incidents themselves changed post data collection in the first
stage of the research (Barcelona, Spain). The change came due to numerous
enquiries from the respondents regarding the context of the incidents.
Analytical framework
The role of the critical incidents in the questionnaire is to assess:
1. Whether the depicted interaction could take place at the respondents’
school (school and classroom climate);
2. Whether the depicted interaction was justifiable (first insight into
respondents’ moral judgment);
3. How the respondents motivate their previous evaluation of what is right.
4. What kind of responsibility respondents feel for acting in comparable
situations.
The initial idea was to analyse the data obtained with the critical incidents
instrument without previously fixed sets of categories. Nevertheless, the theoretical
framework that underpinned the design of the entire study derived from the
citizenship models of Wiel Veugelers (Veugelers, 2007; Leenders, Veugelers, &
De Kat, 2008), Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne (2004) and Lawrence
Kohlberg’s theory on the Stages of Moral Development (1984).
Influenced by the theoretical work of Jean Piaget, Kohlberg (1984) identifies six
stages of individual moral development. Kohlberg considers the reasoning about
justice the basis of moral behaviour. The process of moral development reflects
progress in an individual‘s perception of justice. He conducts interviews in which
he presents moral dilemmas to identify the stages in which respondents reason.
Dilemmas are situations requiring a moral decision. For instance, in the “Heinz
Dilemma,” a man steals a drug to cure his deadly sick wife. He steals because the
pharmacist charges an unaffordable price, making money off the drug
disproportionately (Kohlberg, 1984). Then the interviewees justify how they would
react in that scenario. For stage classification, Kohlberg did not focus on the result
of the interviewees’ moral reasoning but on how they reasoned.
The six stages are divided into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and
post-conventional. In the pre-conventional level, the individual observes right and
wrong in respect to their primary interest. Characteristic concepts include
punishment, authority, and reciprocity. In the conventional level, the individual
observes rules while pondering them with regard to necessary loyalty to their
group, characteristic concepts are group acceptance, law, and order. In the post-
conventional level, individuals define and follow universal moral values and
principles which are valid beyond individual interests or group belongings.
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Nonetheless, these categories still fail to cover the entire set of nuances of the
answers. In fact, many respondents argued in terms of rights and duties within the
expectations they held for the three actors (teacher, student, school). The coding,
however, lacks to emphasise the interactive element that is naturally part of an
individual’s assessment of a situation; the categories presented at this point only
depict closed regards on single actors. They do not take into account the
interactional context in which the actors evolve.
To mitigate this shortcoming, we coded our data according to the three levels of
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, and found a satisfactory set of
categories. In terms of pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional moral
reasoning, we found we can pinpoint many subtleties in the respondent’s
explanations (Table 2). We split the pre-conventional and conventional level into
two subcategories: (1) power/hierarchy relationship between the teacher’s and
student’s perspective, and (2) the (non)compliance to one’s role between the
teacher’s and the student’s perspective. The post-conventional level relates to
arguments that invoke universal ethical principles.
A question arises of how one should evaluate an answer that condemns a teacher
who justifies their behaviour with hierarchy. Students condemn this because they
are used to argue on a higher level of morality. But with our coding (cf. table 2),
there are two options for moral levels: either “principles of the common good” or
“(non)-compliance to role/expectations”. For example, if a student writes “teachers
aren‘t kings” or “teachers don‘t have absolute power” without stating what rule,
principle or expectation they are following. We have a good intuition this student is
beyond the pre-conventional level because s/he is able to criticise the
corresponding statement. However, we do not know his conventional or post-
conventional reasoning for doing so.
Due to the relative shortness, or sometimes worse, the lack of detailed
argumentation in the available data, allocating each reply to Kohlberg’s stages is
subjected to limited reliability. So we succeeded in showing the potentiality in
student’s reflections with respect to different levels of moral reasoning (see Table
2) but we failed in developing an instrument that provides sufficient information
for a reliable individual assessment of Kohlberg’s levels or stages.
Kohlberg and Candee (1984) identify moral judgement as one necessary but not
sufficient basis for adequate activities. The current idea of citizenship competence
by the European Commission is characterised by the need to go beyond estimates
of what is just or unjust. Like in the Delphi study presented in this volume (Print,
2012) active participation is conceptualised as a core idea of citizenship (Hoskins,
2006). Therefore, the critical incidents within this study should not only provide
information about moral reasoning but about planning actions, too. The second
question in each critical incident, “How would you as a student react?” provides
data to help address this. The coding pattern selected takes into account if an active
reaction takes place and the motives for the decision. The following categories for
coding have been developed (Table 3).
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USING CRITICAL INCIDENTS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF CITIZENSHIP COMPETENCE
Table 2. Coding adopted for critical incidents, first open answer question. For an earlier
version of this table, see Pyka (2010)
Level
Codeword Description Examples according to
Kohlberg
Because the teacher has the
Power /
An action is legitimised by right
hierarchy Pre-
agent‘s authority/hierarchical It is the head teacher’s
(teacher conventional
position decision as they run the
perspective)
school.
Power /
hierarchy An action is legitimised by Because this way the student
Pre-
agent‘s authority/hierarchical calms down without being
(student conventional
position thrown out of class
perspective)
If you don‘t respect the rules,
you have to be punished,
because we’re all equal
Because student doesn’t do
his work and disturbs the
others
The (head) teacher‘s decision
(Non-) You have to be attentive and
is justified or not, depending
Compliance to listen to the lesson
on whether the student has Conventional
role (student
complied to the rules of We must behave well with
perspective)
conduct inherent in his role. teachers
If speaker isn’t able to talk
right / behave well, it’s
normal they suspend him
Students chose him/her to
represent their opinion
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Table 3. Coding adopted for critical incidents, second open answer question. For an earlier
version of this table, see Pyka (2010)
No possibility to act.
Students can’t do anything
Student does not act because he resigns
or sees no possibility to act, for instance Students don’t care about that
because he fears receiving a more
important punishment. I don’t talk about it because it’s dangerous
doesn‘t Remain silent and accept
take
action Acceptance. Don’t do anything
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USING CRITICAL INCIDENTS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF CITIZENSHIP COMPETENCE
Internal agitation.
Student does nothing, but is upset Get angry
(angry, disappointed, furious…). This
agitation is not translated into any form Disappointed
of exterior action.
Table 4. Quantitative results for first two items asked for each
critical incident (see Pyka, 2010)
This can also happen at my school. 332 2.6 (.85) 306 2.1 (.76)
It is justifiable to act in that way. 324 1.9 (.97) 294 2.0 (.88)
The quantitative results of the coding for the open questions are summarised in
Tables 5 and 6. For the second open question we found more variation between
students from different countries. Therefore, we present the data subdivided into
country groups. Since the level of missing data is considerably higher for open
ended items, the sample size is much smaller in some countries. Moreover, there is
a drop in participation from the first critical incident to the second. When we
calculate percentages for certain codings we report the number of students from a
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ABS AND PYKA
certain country that answered to the respective item as the base population. If a
student’s answer contained enough detail to be allocated to more than one coding
category, we allowed for multiple coding. Therefore the answers per critical
incidents do not equal the sample size.
Table 5. Coding of students’ answers to the first open question regarding justice oriented
reasoning (sensu Kohlberg) (see Pyka, 2010)
Pre-conventional Post-conventional
Conventional level
level level
140
USING CRITICAL INCIDENTS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF CITIZENSHIP COMPETENCE
141
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ABS AND PYKA
Table 6. Coding of students’ answers to the second open question regarding types of activation. Separate calculation for the two
critical incidents (CI) (see Pyka, 2010)
Spain - 31% 40% 22% 22% 0% 3% 6% 14% 45% 15% 29% 24%
Barcelona (N 124) (N 95) (N 124) (N 95) (N 124) (N 95) (N 124) (N 95) (N 124) (N 95) (N 124) (N 95)
England -
Manchester 7.7% 10.3% 7.7% 15.4%
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ABS AND PYKA
comment on. This refers to the notion of ecological validity, questioning “whether
[an] effect is representative of what happens in everyday life” (Brewer, 2000). The
critical incidents need to depict a realistic situation of the respondents’ lifeworld
(Lebenswelt), so that they are capable of thinking through the implications,
consequences and underlying motives of the hypothetical incident.
In Order to account for this demand, the wording of the critical incidents was
changed after data collection in Barcelona. Moreover, a native British expert
judiciously highlighted the inappropriateness of the first critical incident for the
English context. Originally, a teacher punishes several students by lowering their
grade as a reaction to disciplinary issues. This phenomenon is unlikely in England
where the grading of exams, long essays and papers is incumbent to the exam
board. Teachers only have occasional grading responsibilities for small in-class
assignments. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to change the first critical
incident into one where a personal grudge or antipathy of a teacher towards one
student is reflected in the grading of a single assignment not seen by the board. A
similar problem of ecological validity occurred with the Swedish subsample, this
time too late to adapt the questionnaire accordingly: The majority of Stockholm
students never have had a student representative at school. Many wrote this as part
of their answer (“We don‘t have representatives here”). However, some still
imagined how they would evaluate the incident, if it happened at their school. Even
so, it is more likely to grasp students’ genuine reasoning on right and wrong, if
they can do so for an incident that is likely in their Lebenswelt.
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USING CRITICAL INCIDENTS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF CITIZENSHIP COMPETENCE
CONCLUSION
The aim of this chapter was to discuss an alternative approach to the assessment of
citizenship competence. The critical incidents methodology was introduced as an
approach to supplement the existing measures of citizenship competence. The
existing methods are considered incomplete as they define degrees of competence
without orientating teachers on sufficient degrees of competence to be attained,
further without providing information on the logical next step in a student’s
development, and the most conducive learning environment for such development.
In this regard, the critical incidents approach presented several advantages. First,
critical incidents can be easily integrated into classroom routines by the teacher.
They can be used as an integral part of lecturing and provide a basis for both
discussions by the students and assessment by the teacher. Reactions to critical
incidents can be interpreted with existing theory (as a baseline here, Kohlberg’s
social-cognitive theory for the development of moral judgement). This background
in development theory enables the teacher to design a development supportive
learning environment. Alternatively, reactions to critical incidents can be
interpreted in a more constructivist way. Teachers can use open questions (or use
predefined questions) and analyse them against educational objectives that are
provided by the curriculum (the example used here has been the objective of
active, participatory citizenship). Finally, using critical incidents as assessment
145
ABS AND PYKA
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M. Print & D. Lange (eds.), Civic Education and Competences for Engaging Citizens in
Democracies, 149–162.
© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
PRINT
even less interest and participation in politics and democracy than older
generations. However, it is upon the shoulders of the young that the future of
democracy rests.
Our basic question is now refined. What do young Europeans need to know and
do in order to become effective democratic citizens? And how do young Europeans
understand and practice modern democratic citizenship? The answers to these
fundamental questions will help explain much of the future of European
democracy. The answers will have potentially significant impact on government
policy, the administration of educational systems and the practice of schools
throughout Europe.
A useful approach to examining what young Europeans need in order to be
effective democratic citizens is to research the competences that will achieve that
goal. What competences do young Europeans need to be active citizens in the 21st
Century? In Hannover in 2011 an invited research symposium of leading civic and
citizenship educators as well as political and social scientists addressed this issue
through a workshop and subsequent Delphi method to:
1. Identify key competencies required for active citizenship of young people in
Europe of the future.
2. Translate those competencies to school-based activities in the form of curricular
and pedagogical strategies.
3. Produce publications that demonstrate the competences identified for young
people, the curriculum needed for schools, the pedagogy to engage the
curriculum, the research base and the policy initiatives and processes needed for
effective implementation.
This chapter addresses the first task through the means of a Delphi research
method.
The international symposium on building democratic citizenship through civic
engagement in schools was held at the Leibniz University in Hannover (LUH),
Germany in 2011. The task for the participants, invited from throughout Europe,
was to identify and examine the civic competencies needed for engaged European
citizens that could be developed and nurtured through civic education programs in
schools.
The symposium was sponsored by the International Civic Education (ICE)
program at AGORA, LUH and funded by a grant from the Volkswagen Stiftung.i
CURRENT RESEARCH
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PROCESS
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the wording and intent of the statements was then required of the group. These
were returned, reviewed and then reworded as necessary before being sent out
again for comment, again using email. Given the high level of initial input from
participants at the symposium, it was anticipated that two waves of the Delphi
would be needed before a high level of consensus would be reached and this was
the case. It is possible to continue the Delphi through many waves though each
time the change becomes more marginal and the risk of losing participants
becomes higher. At some point those conducting the Delphi needed to decide
where to cease the waves. In this case, due in part to the preliminary work
conducted before and during the invited symposium, an acceptable level of
consensus was achieved after two waves.
DELPHI METHOD
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CONCEPTUALIZING COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
A key feature was the interdisciplinary nature of the groups within which
individuals participated. Each group consisted of a civic educator, administrator,
political scientist, policy maker and social scientist. This produced a more balanced
approach with specialists required to relate to other disciplines and then, after
discussion, to produce a consensus outcome.
Undertaking this task raised many complications. Definitions of concepts was
problematic. What does it mean to be a democratic citizen? What is a competence?
Does being a democratic citizen imply one must also be an active citizen? While
these were problematic questions to resolve it was realized that the discussion
could not proceed unless agreement was reached on some basic terms. For the
purposes of the study the following definitions were employed:
A competence refers to a combination of knowledge, skills, understanding,
values, attitudes and desire which potentially enable effective, embodied human
action in the world in a particular domain.
In the European Union, active citizenship is defined as “participation in civil
society, community and/or political life, characterized by mutual respect and non-
violence and in accordance with human rights and democracy” (Hoskins, 2006).
Drawing from these dimensions would then constitute the basis of competences
for engaged citizens. The group further acknowledged that not everybody in a
society can have/would achieve the same standard of competences and
consequently the level of competence will vary with individuals. For example, to
be able to do something, such as critical judgement, one uses certain knowledge,
skills, values, attitudes and dispositions. So making a critical judgement about a
political issue within one’s democracy, as evidence of being competent as an
engaged or active citizen, one would use knowledge about democracy, citizens
rights, national history, etc.; skills of evaluating and taking a position, critical
reflection, etc.; draw upon one’s values of the importance of democracy, respect
for individual difference, etc.; attitudes of responsibility to engage, trust in
democratic institutions, etc.; and dispositions to participate in the political
community.
After the symposium was completed the work of participants was analysed,
pooled and organized into the four categories outlined above. The following
directions were then sent to the symposium particpants.
The modified Delphi process we are using for this project will take at least two
phases. In the first phase you are asked to review the competency statements and
reword them as you feel necessary. You may accept the statement as is and not
reword it, or make some minor changes or reword the statement completely. The
statements are in Word documents so that changes can be made.
Then return the statements to us through email. We will integrate all the responses
into a revised set of competences.
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Then in the second phase we will ask you to review the competences and give each
a score on a 10 point scale. Your score reflects the amount of your agreement with
each of the revised statements.
We will then review the scores to identify the degree of agreement amongst all
participants.
Finally we will send the final statements to you, with the scores, and release them
to relevant agencies.
DEFINITIONS
We also wish to acknowledge that not everybody in a society can have/achieve the
same standard of competences and the level of competence will vary with
individuals.
Our discussions and research has identified FOUR sets of civic competences for
engaged / active citizenship that can be applied to future European citizens:
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CONCEPTUALIZING COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
Knowledge
Skills
Attitudes / values
Dispositions
KNOWLEDGE of:
SKILLS
[Skills relate to the ability to do something in the civic domain engage such as
effectively engage with others in the public arenas, and displaying critical and
creative reflection on all political levels from local to national and European level.]
1. An active European citizen of the future should have skills which make them:
2. Capable of reflective-critical thinking, i.e. take conditions into consideration; be
aware of power-relations in a society; critique information including financial
and economic information (Financial and Economic literacy in relation to
citizenship)
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VALUES/ATTITUDES
Values are deep, long-term, influential factors affecting behaviour sustained over
time and under differing conditions e.g. the value of human rights applied to all
people or the value of democracy as a way of governing people.
Values are seen as a basis for democratic engagement and are an important
precursor to democratic decision-making.
Attitudes reflect more topical conditions and may be influenced by many factors,
included embedded values, which can then influence behaviour. E.g. support for a
carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions or support for a political party on a
particular issue.
Values:
1. Acceptance of the rule of law
2. A belief in social justice and the equality and equal treatment of citizens
3. Respect for differences including gender and religious differences
4. Reject prejudice, racism and discrimination.
5. Acceptance of and respect for human rights (equality, dignity and freedom)
6. Tolerance towards difference
7. A belief in the importance of, and practice of, democracy
8. A belief in the need to preserve the environment
9. The responsibility for the common good and for communal solidarity.
10. A belief in non-violent solutions to differences
11. Valuing involvement as active citizens
12. A sense of identity- personal, community, national and global identity.
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CONCEPTUALIZING COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
Attitudes:
DISPOSITIONS
DELPHI OUTCOMES
Over two successive waves the participants modified the above competences and
later scored them on a 10 point scale to indicate their final level of agreement with
the statements. The following list represents the final statements that were accepted
by the group with each statement receiving an average score of least eight out of
ten. That is, sufficiently high levels of agreement to represent an acceptable level
of consensus, though very rarely complete agreement. The accepted statements are
presented in four domains, each explained in italics in the context of this study –
knowledge, skills, values & attitudes, and dispositions.
KNOWLEDGE of:
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3. Key elements of the legal system and legal processes including constitutional
limitations and one’s legal rights.
4. Rights and responsibilities of citizens (incl. human rights, social rights and
duties) including the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and
international declarations.
5. The media and the role of the media in personal and social life.
6. History and cultural heritage of one’s own country including the predominant
norms and values.
7. Different cultures that exist in the local, regional, and national context
8. Knowledge of current political issues at national, European and international
levels.
9. Main events, trends, and change agents of national, European, and world
history.
10. The function and work of voluntary groups and civil society.
11. Economic literacy and financial matters.
12. Sustainable development locally and internationally.
SKILLS
[Skills relate to the ability to do something in the civic domain engage such as
effectively engage with others in the public arenas, and displaying critical and
creative reflection on all political levels from local to national and European level.]
An active European citizen of the future should have skills which make them:
20. Able to monitor and influence policies and decisions, including through voting.
21. Able to build coalitions and to cooperate in addressing civic issues.
22. Interculturally competent to live and work in a multicultural environment.
23. Capable of research capacity, critical reflection and coping with ambiguity.
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CONCEPTUALIZING COMPETENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP
VALUES/ATTITUDES
Values are deep, long-term, influential factors affecting behaviour sustained over
time and under differing conditions e.g. the value of human rights applied to all
people or the value of democracy as a way of governing people.
Values are seen as a basis for democratic engagement and are an important
precursor to democratic decision-making.
Attitudes reflect more topical conditions and may be influenced by many factors,
included embedded values, which can then influence behaviour. E.g. support for a
carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions or support for a political party on a
particular issue.
Values:
Attitudes:
36. To feel responsible for your decisions and actions, in particular, in relationship
to other citizens.
37. To feel confident to engage politically.
38. To trust in and have loyalty toward democratic principles and institutions.
39. To be open to difference, change of own opinion, and compromise.
40. To feel that you can make a difference in political deciiosn-making (political
efficacy).
DISPOSITIONS
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CONCLUSIONS
In the case of this Delphi technique it was possible to confirm four sets of
competencies for engaged democratic citizens in Europe. These were devised and
reviewed in the context of preparing young Europeans for future adult citizenship
in Europe. Strong support existed amongst the Delphi participants that it was
important for young Europeans to be knowledgeable about their democracy, ist
institutions and their role as citizens. Similarly there was strong support for future
European citizens possessing a set of skills around engagement, communication,
resolution and informed critique. Values and attitudes that supported social justice,
equity, tolerance and sustainablility were equally strongly supported. Finally there
was muted support for the concept of dispositions from many of the participants.
However, there was general agreement that engaged/active citizens needed to
display their values and attitudes through forms of behaviour and that statements of
values alone was insufficient to assume that those values would be translated into
behaviour.
The final outcome of the Delphi was to confirm a set of competences for future
European citizens that could be applied to educational policy documents and
school curricula. These competences would serve as extremely useful guides and
directions to educational systems and schools that see their task as preparing
democratic citizens for the future. It is further hoped in a more general way that the
work of the symposium and Delphi participants will contribute to enhancing
democracy in Europe through the building of more engaged / active democratic
citizens.
NOTES
i
The organizers wish to acknowledge the support and assistance of the VW Stiftung for the
international symposium in Hannover.
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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Jan Germen Janmaat is Reader in Comparative Social Science at the Center for
Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES) of
the Institute of Education, University of London. He has published widely in the
field of civic identities and values and has written two books, co-authored with
Andy Green, on social cohesion. He is interested in the ability of education broadly
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CONTRIBUTORS
Professor Dirk Lange, PhD, is a professor for Politische Bildung (civic education)
at the Leibniz University Hannover, where he actually develops a research focus
called Bürgerbewusstsein (citizenship awareness), which he wants to analyse
through pupils′ mental perception of socio-political reality. Other current focuses
include political educational research, historical-political didactics, political
teaching and learning research, everyday orientation and migration policy
education. Prof. Lange has been involved in numerous projects, so e.g. in the EU-
Projects “MIRACLE. Migrants and Refugees – A Challenge for European
Schools” and “MiLES – Migration Learning in European Schools,” that deal with a
main research interest of Lange, which is to develop a concept for European
citizenship education under the circumstances of migration and intercultural living
and learning. Lange is also director of the Agentur für Erwachsenen- und
Weiterbildung Niedersachsen and holds the position of the head of the scientific
organisation Deutsche Vereinigung für Politische Bildung/DVPB (German
Association for Civic Education).
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CONTRIBUTORS
Tina Pyka finishes her MSc European Studies: Ideas and Identities at the London
School of Economics and Political Science in 2012. This degree is obtained in a
double degree with the Master Affaires Européennes from Sciences Po Paris. Her
fields of study at the LSE encompass European history of ideas, political theory,
and multiculturalism, as well as social exclusion and inequalities, economics of
social policy, and education policy. Pyka earned her BA in political science and
European studies from the French-German undergraduate college of Sciences Po
Paris in 2010. Pyka currently works as research assistant for the Paris based charity
Agir pour l’école that develops literacy promotion programmes in early childhood
education.
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