Civic education, citizenship, and democracy

Abstract

Critics suggest that youth lack basic civic knowledge and are disengaging from civic action, particularly political action. The validity of these criticisms depends on how civic knowledge and civic engagement are defined. The results of four studies of civic education, conducted by the IEA over a period of almost 50 years, are examined in terms of the definition of these concepts. Five questions are addressed: (1) What are the goals of civic education? (2) What is civic knowledge? (3) What is civic engagement? (4) What are civic attitudes and values? (5) What do we know about teaching civics in schools? The results suggest that (1) there is disagreement on the goals of civic education; (2) civic knowledge is often equated with the memorization of facts about government and politics; (3) civic engagement is different from political engagement, with today’s youth more interested in civic engagement; (4) civic attitudes and values may be more important than civic knowledge or engagement for preparing informed, productive citizens; and (5) there is limited time for teaching civics in schools, and the ways in which civics is currently taught are inconsistent with the kind of teaching needed.