Abstract
In this paper, we explore how teaching practices in classrooms influence students’ civic knowledge achievement in three Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Using data from the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), our investigation focuses on the measures of “open classroom climate”, which include seven items that ask students how often they experience each of the seven teaching practices during regular lessons. From the students’ perspective of teaching practices in the classroom, we hypothesize and assume that there should be a balanced combination of classroom practices where each method/activity carries a different weight or level of importance. Applying logistic regression analysis, we assess the effect of each of the practices on the probability with which a student becomes a high achiever of civic knowledge (as represented by odds ratios). Our results show both similarities and differences in the combinations of classroom practices that have contributed to students’ high civic knowledge achievement in the three Scandinavian countries. Our findings provide useful messages to teachers in the classroom, and they also have implications for teacher education and research.
Highlights
Besides being geographically located on the same peninsula with rather similar political and social welfare sys-How to cite this paper: Huang, L., & Biseth, H. (2016)
For the measures associated with teaching practice, we used the question that measured students’ perceptions of the classroom climate in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) study, which asked students to rate the frequency (“never”, “rarely”, “sometimes”, and “often”) with which each of seven events occurred during a regular class hour. These events included discussions of political and social issues and were classified as follow: 1) students are able to disagree openly with their teachers; 2) teachers encourage students to make up their own minds; 3) teachers encourage students to express their opinions; 4) students bring up current political events for discussion in class; 5) students express opinions in Number of students N
In Denmark, the practice where “students bring up current political events for discussion in class” significantly increases the odds with which students achieve high civic knowledge by 53% (OR = 1.53), this same practice has no effect on students in Norway and Sweden
Summary
How to cite this paper: Huang, L., & Biseth, H. (2016). Openness in Scandinavian Classrooms: Student Perceptions of Teaching Practices and High Achievers of Civic Knowledge. Research finds that parents’ own civic engagement has a positive association with children’s social, civic, and political participations (Cicognani et al, 2012) When it comes to the influence of schools and classrooms in student civic knowledge achievement, civic attitudes, and behaviour, the research evidence is often limited and sometimes presents mixed messages. At the same time, when analysing an “open classroom climate” as an aggregate of “school learning context”, it does not have significant effect on student achievement at school level in many countries in the ICCS 2009 study (Schulz et al, 2010; Mikkelsen et al, 2011; Lieberkind, 2015). Some activities should be applied often in the classroom, while it might be best if others are practiced less
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