Abstracts
Christa Händle and Peter Henkenborg: Civic Education Around The World - Reports from the Civic Education Study - How can participation in civic activities be improved? (JSSE 1-2003)
Young people's distance from politics is seen as a central problem of democratic societies. Compared to the first IEA-study in the era of political mobilization during the early seventies the results for today's young Germans are worse. Regarding political knowledge, the results for young Germans are mediocre; conspicuous and alarming is the unwillingness of German youngsters to participate in school, politics and society. These results can be explained by using data and relations found by the international comparative project Civic Education about the specific meaning of conditions and results of political education in different school systems and societies. This paper discusses several results and questions and shows that one-dimensional explanations are hardly possible in the complex field of political education.
Rolf Mikkelsen: Conditions for high democratic awareness and participation in Norwegian schools (JSSE 1-2003)
The Norwegian students in the Civic Education study are doing very well in civic knowledge, skills, attitudes and concepts. Despite this documented democratic awareness the student's score is below international average on interest in politics and conventional participation. On the other hand the 14 year olds carry an important willingness to vote as adults, they have a high level of trust in their government and they want to participate in the school society. The paper discusses the question how these Norwegian findings can be explained, and wheather or not are the school system and school activities are part of the explanation. The paper illustrates the strategies for teaching an learning democracy in Norwegian Schools. The "about-perspective" means to teach the students about democracy und die "through-perspective" means teaching and learning through democracy. Using examples this paper shows, that school is one of the institutions who most explicit prepare young people for their role as citizens, that is as participators in democratic political activity. The comparison between Norwegian 14 year olds and 18 year olds shows improvements closely connected to student's years in school. The about-perspective seems well taken care of by schools, teachers and students. This integrative school-system in connection with the open classroom climate seems to be a condition for attractive democratic attitudes.
Isabel Menezes, Madalena Mendes, Carla Ferreira, Georgina Marques, Conceiçã Monteiro, Joana Gião, Rosa Afonso, Gertrudes Amaro: The impact of school education, family, cultural background and political attitudes and experiences in civic knowledge (JSSE 1-2003)
The IEA Civic Education Study in Portugal involved the observation of national representative samples of students from grades 8, 9 and 11. Grades 8 and 9 are the terminal years of basic (compulsory) education, and grade 11 is the mid-year of secondary education. Results on civic knowledge reveal a particular scenario that will be explored in this paper: 8 grade students score clearly below the international mean, but both 9 and 11 grade students score above the international mean. The impact of four relevant variables in the literature on political development - education, family cultural background, political interest and experiences, and interpersonal trust - will be analyzed and discussed.
Constantinos Papanastasiou, Mary Koutselini, Elena Papanastasiou: The process of democratic values in Cyprus and Germany (JSSE 1-2003)
This paper explores how democratic values are stimulated by predictors related to family and school. We began by posing a simple question: How can we best explain students' democratic values in relation to their home backgrounds, school-class climate, political environment, political interest and participation of students in social activities? To answer this, we chose to elaborate on a model comparing various background factors. Both models (cf. figures 2 and 3) seem to indicate that school climate has a huge effect on political environment and political interest. Here, political environment has a stronger effect on social participation than political interest. Although Germany and Cyprus have many differences, the actual models for both countries are almost identical.
Suzanne Mellor: Comparative findings from the IEA civic study and their impact on the improvement of civic education in Australia (JSSE 1-2003)
The IEA Civic Education Study occurred in a context of little formal civics curricula in Australian schools. The paper compares some Australian data with that from England and the USA. Comparative Civic Knowledge data emphasise the finding that students do learn civics in school and that the kind of delivery does affect student learning outcomes. The comparative data on Civic Engagement indicate that more positive civic attitudes about engagement co-exist with greater civic knowledge. They also indicate that formal provision of civic education makes a difference to civic attitudes. Teacher data demonstrated the need for more training in civics, especially in the contested nature of the field. Teachers did not show an appreciation that encouraging decision-making in schools might increase student engagement in democracy more generally. The paper argues that pedagogic and administrative strategies to address decision-making and other civic competencies are crucial to the engagement of students in schools and to their future engagement in the wider society.
Detlef Oesterreich: The impact of political knowledge and democratic competencies on desirable aims of civic education. Results from the German contribution to the IEA Civic Education Project (JSSE 1-2003)
International comparative studies on civic education are especially difficult because of the lack of a common understanding of what civic education is as a subject and because of different cultural and political traditions or different school systems. Using the concept of democratic competencies, this paper starts by exploring a theory of authoritarian personalities and operationalising 11 items for an empirical study. Thereby this paper investigates to what extent central topics of civic education are more determined by cognitive factors or personality factors. It shows that matureness is developed not only by political knowledge but also by those democratic competencies which are an essential part of any democratic school and teaching culture.
Gita Steiner-Khamsi: The politics of League Tables (JSSE 1-2003)
The article focuses on the political usages of OECD- and IEA-type studies on student achievement, and suggests that we examine in more detail how policy makers use results from international comparisons to advance fundamental school reform at national level. The author categorizes three types of policy reactions to league tables: (1) scandalization, (2) glorification, and (3) indifference. Drawing from media reports and policy debates that emerged right after the release of the results from TIMSS, PISA, and the Civic Education Study, the author points at the different policy reactions that these OECD and IEA studies have had in various national contexts. In Japan, for example, the release of TIMSS led to a self-affirmation or glorification of Japanese methods in science and mathematics, whereas the release of PISA in Germany triggered self-criticism or scandalization, and strengthened existing demands for a fundamental reform of the German educational system. Most striking is the political indifference that the release of the IEA Civic Education encountered in Germany. German students held the last rank in the international league table on attitudes towards immigrants (Civic Education Study), whereas they scored below OECD-average in reading literacy (PISA). The author provides a few tentative explanations for the following question: why was there such a political spectacle about the reading literacy scores of German students given that German students did far worse with regard to xenophobia?
(c) 2003 sowi-online e.V., Bielefeld
Leading editors of jsse 1-2003: Christa Händle, Peter Henkenborg
WWW-Presentation: Norbert Jacke
URL: http://www.jsse.org/2003-1/abstracts.html
Publishing date: 2003/08/25