Abstract
AbstractThis chapter provides an analysis of the complex role of Nordic schools in both enhancing and reducing socioeconomic inequalities in civic competences. A multilevel analysis method was used to examine the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 and 2016 data of all four Nordic countries. The results show that unequal access to civic learning (in-school civic participation and open classroom climate) exist in all Nordic countries. We found differences in access within schools in which students with more advantages experienced greater opportunities to participate. Additionally, we found differences between schools. Those schools that had an intake with a higher proportion of socioeconomically advantaged students tended to provide more civic learning opportunities and open classroom climates. Inequalities in access to civic learning activities manifested itself in different ways in schools across the Nordic countries. There is some evidence that this happens more regularly in Sweden than Finland, though Norway recorded the highest levels of unequal access inside schools, and no Nordic country provides equal access to all the forms of civic learning we studied. At the same time, however, there were forms of civic learning in Nordic schools that were found to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in civic competences. The results showed that when disadvantaged students gained access to civic learning, they mostly appeared to benefit either the same or more from the experience than their more advantaged peers. A unique contribution of this chapter to the field of citizenship education is that we found that in-school civic participation can compensate for a disadvantaged background for developing future electoral participation and civic knowledge in students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Highlights
The Nordic countries have long and well-respected traditions of maintaining low levels of socioeconomic inequality (Piketty 2013)
Denmark had about 16% in both cycles. These results suggest that there is a difference between schools in Denmark in terms of the student experience of open classroom climate but in Finland differences between schools are negligible
We added the socioeconomic status (SES) of students at the individual level and the average SES of students attending a school at the school level to the model. The purpose of this was to understand whether students from different schools reported different levels of open classroom climate and to test if that level was higher in classrooms composed of students with higher SES
Summary
The Nordic countries have long and well-respected traditions of maintaining low levels of socioeconomic inequality (Piketty 2013). Since the Second World War, much of the Western world has become increasingly unequal (Piketty 2013) and more dissatisfied with democracy (Fora et al 2020), and it has suffered from mounting social inequalities in political engagement (Hoskins and Janmaat 2019). This feeling of political alienation excludes certain voices from decision-making processes and creates untapped frustration, which populist and extremist parties have exploited in referendums and elections (Huber and Ruth 2017; Kriesi 2014). Socioeconomic inequalities within the education system and unequal access to civic learning have been identified as important contributors to socioeconomic inequalities in political engagement (Hoskins and Janmaat 2019)
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