New Citizens for Globalised Societies? Citizenship Education from a Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Comparative studies on civic and citizenship education have already a solid tradition. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) conducted its first study of civic education covering 10 countries in 1971. However, cross national education studies flourished only in turn of the Millennium when the number of studies and countries involved increased remarkably. The last IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) in 2009 had already 38 participating countries, among them 12 non-European countries and 16 emerging democracies. Citizenship education has always been at the core of mass schooling in modern nation-states since the 18 th century (Boli 1989). As nation states try to adapt to increasing economic, political and social interdependence, former approaches to citizenship education are called to meet the challenges of globalisation. The ICCS survey offers the opportunity to answer some pressing issues related to questions of social integration, equity and viability of democracies. What are the national approaches to education? How do schools combine educating knowledge, attitudes and values? Can schools reduce the impact of socio-economic and cultural disadvantages? Are the best educational practices transferrable to other countries? This is only a very short list of common issues in all international educational surveys. Besides these commonalities there are some special reasons why comparative studies on citizenship education gain importance today. Firstly, democracy and democratic governance itself are changing. The quality of governance is shifting and the effect of political institutions on the overall performance of contemporary democracies is faltering (Dalton 2004). Political representation – the linkage between citizens’ demands and political decisions – is becoming problematic in globalised markets and multilevel political settings (Mair et al. 2009). This is thought to have led to problems of political participation. Citizens tend to be more critical and even to distrust democratic institutions (Milner 2010). Political engagement tends to diversify and citizens tend to adopt new modes of becoming informed about politics (Norris 2000). As political science literature reveals, established and emerging democracies react differently to these changes (Norris 2004; van Deth et al. 2007). The study of the mechanisms affecting civic trust and engagement can shed light on the working of democracy and provide a piece of the jigsaw in understanding the linkage between citizens and the government in globalised societies. Secondly, societies have become more dynamic and open. This implies that virtually all developed countries today are multicultural with a notable share of immigrant population. High migration combined with the economic