Civic Education Outcomes After Emergency Lockdowns: International Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic

IF 5.7 1区教育学 Q1 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Learning and Instruction Pub Date : 2026-02-01 Epub Date: 2025-10-21 DOI:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102243

Alec I. Kennedy, Ana María Mejía-Rodríguez, Rolf Strietholt

{"title":"Civic Education Outcomes After Emergency Lockdowns: International Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Alec I. Kennedy, Ana María Mejía-Rodríguez, Rolf Strietholt","doi":"10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102243","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background:</h3><div>In early 2020, nations around the globe responded to the rapidly developing COVID-19 pandemic by implementing emergency containment measures to slow the spread of the virus. Educational systems were widely impacted as they made the difficult decision to close schools affecting over 1.5 billion students globally.</div></div><div><h3>Aims:</h3><div>This study aims to characterize the relationship between COVID-19 lockdown stringency and changes in several secondary student civic education outcomes.</div></div><div><h3>Sample:</h3><div>We use data on more than 100,000 grade 8 students from 15 educational systems that participated across multiple cycles of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS).</div></div><div><h3>Methods:</h3><div>We utilize multiple regression models with country- and cycle-fixed effects to estimate the relationship between the duration and stringency of COVID-19 containment measures and changes in grade 8 student civic education outcomes.</div></div><div><h3>Results:</h3><div>We find that longer school closures and greater lockdown stringency were associated with greater declines in average civic knowledge and trust in civic institutions. They were also associated with increases (or smaller decreases) in intentions to protest or expectations to participate in politics. Less consistent evidence was found regarding the relationship with expected participation in elections.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusions:</h3><div>The findings provide valuable insights into the associations between lockdown measures and early secondary student civic education outcomes, highly relevant for understanding how the pandemic and related policies may have influenced the future citizens of the world.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48357,"journal":{"name":"Learning and Instruction","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 102243"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7000,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Learning and Instruction","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959475225001677","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/10/21 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background:

In early 2020, nations around the globe responded to the rapidly developing COVID-19 pandemic by implementing emergency containment measures to slow the spread of the virus. Educational systems were widely impacted as they made the difficult decision to close schools affecting over 1.5 billion students globally.

Aims:

This study aims to characterize the relationship between COVID-19 lockdown stringency and changes in several secondary student civic education outcomes.

Sample:

We use data on more than 100,000 grade 8 students from 15 educational systems that participated across multiple cycles of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS).

Methods:

We utilize multiple regression models with country- and cycle-fixed effects to estimate the relationship between the duration and stringency of COVID-19 containment measures and changes in grade 8 student civic education outcomes.

Results:

We find that longer school closures and greater lockdown stringency were associated with greater declines in average civic knowledge and trust in civic institutions. They were also associated with increases (or smaller decreases) in intentions to protest or expectations to participate in politics. Less consistent evidence was found regarding the relationship with expected participation in elections.

Conclusions:

The findings provide valuable insights into the associations between lockdown measures and early secondary student civic education outcomes, highly relevant for understanding how the pandemic and related policies may have influenced the future citizens of the world.

查看原文本刊更多论文

紧急封锁后的公民教育成果：来自COVID-19大流行的国际证据

背景：2020年初，全球各国通过实施紧急遏制措施来应对快速发展的COVID-19大流行，以减缓该病毒的传播。教育系统受到了广泛影响，因为他们做出了关闭影响全球15亿多学生的学校的艰难决定。目的：本研究旨在描述COVID-19封锁严格程度与几种中学生公民教育成果变化之间的关系。样本：我们使用了来自15个教育系统的10万多名8年级学生的数据，这些学生参与了国际公民和公民教育研究（ICCS）的多个周期。方法：利用具有国家固定效应和周期固定效应的多元回归模型，估计疫情防控措施持续时间和严格程度与八年级学生公民教育成果变化的关系。结果：我们发现，更长的学校关闭时间和更严格的封锁与公民平均知识和对公民机构的信任的更大下降有关。它们还与抗议意图的增加（或较小的减少）或参与政治的期望有关。关于预期参与选举的关系，发现的证据不太一致。结论：研究结果为了解封锁措施与中学生早期公民教育成果之间的关系提供了有价值的见解，这对于了解大流行和相关政策如何影响未来的世界公民具有高度相关性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Learning and Instruction Multiple-

CiteScore

11.30

自引率

4.80%

发文量

109

期刊介绍： As an international, multi-disciplinary, peer-refereed journal, Learning and Instruction provides a platform for the publication of the most advanced scientific research in the areas of learning, development, instruction and teaching. The journal welcomes original empirical investigations. The papers may represent a variety of theoretical perspectives and different methodological approaches. They may refer to any age level, from infants to adults and to a diversity of learning and instructional settings, from laboratory experiments to field studies. The major criteria in the review and the selection process concern the significance of the contribution to the area of learning and instruction, and the rigor of the study.