Abstract
BackgroundPromoting tolerance is an important goal of European education policies focused on education for democratic citizenship and human rights. In this article, we argue that cross-cultural comparability must be empirically assessed and ensured for the measurement of highly relevant indicators that serve to monitor inter-European and international differences in young people’s tolerant attitudes toward immigrants.MethodsUsing the framework and data provided by the recent International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016), we examine the extent to which average comparisons of cross-national differences in young people’s tolerant attitudes toward immigrants are empirically justified. Multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) is applied to estimate the measurement model of the concept and test its measurement invariance across fourteen European countries.ResultsIn line with prior research, our findings show that cross-cultural comparability can be achieved with some modifications. Results of measurement invariance analysis point to the achievement of full scalar invariance with the implication that average scores can be validly compared across the European educational systems under investigation. These findings are largely corroborated by robustness analyses.ConclusionsWe conclude by providing information on further scale refinement and improvement. Limitations and implications for further research are outlined and discussed.
Highlights
Tolerance, like freedom and equality, is a fundamental feature of a mature citizenship in democratic societies (Almond and Verba 1963; Sherrod and Lauckhardt 2009)
We applied multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) (Jöreskog 1971; Steenkamp and Baumgartner 1998) to assess whether comparisons of average scale scores across fourteen European countries participating in International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2016 can be made with confidence
In the current study we argued that cross-cultural comparability must be ensured for the measurement of highly relevant indicators that serve to monitor inter-European and international differences in young people’s tolerant attitudes toward immigrants
Summary
Like freedom and equality, is a fundamental feature of a mature citizenship in democratic societies (Almond and Verba 1963; Sherrod and Lauckhardt 2009). We argue that cross-cultural comparability must be empirically assessed and ensured for the measurement of highly relevant indicators that serve to monitor inter-European and international differences in young people’s tolerant attitudes toward immigrants. Methods: Using the framework and data provided by the recent International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016), we examine the extent to which average comparisons of cross-national differences in young people’s tolerant attitudes toward immigrants are empirically justified. Results of measurement invariance analysis point to the achievement of full scalar invariance with the implication that average scores can be validly compared across the European educational systems under investigation. These findings are largely corroborated by robustness analyses.
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