Citizenship education is compulsory in most Western countries. Measuring the efforts made by schools is important, for evaluative as well as comparative purposes. A reliable and valid instrument that focuses on the various components that are necessary for students to fulfill social tasks in a democratic society, is still lacking. It is the goal of a current nation wide research project in The Netherlands to build and test such an instrument that enables measuring (changes in) citizenship competences of large groups of students at the age of 11 to 16 years old and that enables to make judgements about the amount and development of citizenship competences in school classes or schools (not individual students). This paper proposal concentrates on the development of the instrument. The conceptual framework and the analyses of student survey data of two pilot studies will be presented. Results of confirmatory factor analyses will make clear whether the structure of the conceptual framework is represented in the data and whether items are biased by background characteristics of the students. Results of diverse groups of students (grouping based on age, gender, cultural background, school type, cognitive functioning) will then be presented and discussed.

Several European countries have recently put citizenship education on their political agenda. As an educational goal, citizenship refers to ‘being able and willing to participate in society’ (Educational Council, 2003). Typical elements of citizenship are first and foremost the accent on social participation and on the democratic and multicultural character of society. In the UK, citizenship education was introduced as a compulsory part of the renewed national curriculum in the nineties (Kerr, 1999), and since 2001 primarily taught as a separate subject in primary and secondary education. The same happened in France with ‘éducation civique’. In the Netherlands a two-track policy was established. According to the Education Council fostering citizenship, i.e., stimulating the willingness and ability to become an active member of a community, should also be part of the regular subjects (languages, history, biology etc.) (Onderwijsraad, 2003). In 2005, the bill ‘Active Citizenship and Social Integration’ was passed which obliged schools to integrate citizenship in the curriculum of both primary and secondary education. Although the contribution that schools can have in the development of citizenship is rather small, this contribution is indeed of importance (cf. Biesta, Lawy & Keller, 2005). Several questions, however, remain. Which aspects of citizenship should form part of the development of children and young people in a democratic society? What can and should education contribute to democratic citizenship? What teaching strategies are effective? In order to answer this kind of questions, a measure instrument regarding citizenship as an educational goal is needed.

It is the goal of a current nation wide research project in The Netherlands to build and test such an instrument that enables measuring (changes in) citizenship competences of large groups of students at the age of 11 to 16 years old and that enables to make judgements about the amount and development of citizenship competences in school classes or schools (not individual students). The project is subsidized by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

This paper proposal concentrates on the development of the instrument. The conceptual framework and the analyses of two pilot studies will be presented.

 

The theoretical framework of the instrument can be summarize in a matrix of four social tasks (participating in a democracy, carrying joint responsibility for the community, dealing with conflicts, dealing with differences) crossed with four components of competences (attitudes, skills, knowledge, reflection), leading to sixteen subunits. For developing the instrument, each subunit was conceptually defined and operationized in items. Item formulation was carefully subjected to issues of normativity, subjectivity and situatedness. Moreover, items were formulated to appeal to students from age 11 to 16. All items were included in a survey that was submitted to students in primary schools (age 11-12) and prevocational secondary schools (age 13-15) in two pilot studies. In addition, two more surveys were constructed for peers and for teachers, measuring their perceptions of students’ citizenship behaviour. The first study took place in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Exploratory factor and reliability analyses were conducted on the data of the first pilot to reduce the number of items from more than 200 to 160. The remaining items were used in the second pilot study that concerned schools from all over the country. After this study, the data of the first and second pilot have been combined to conduct confirmatory factor analyses (with the aid of Mplus (Muthen & Muthen, 2004).

 

At the moment of submitting this paper proposal, we are at the middle of the confirmatory analyses and so called MIMIC-analyses (Muthen & Muthen) in search for mesurement invariance. Preliminary results show the items on attitudes and knowledge to form reliable, non-biased scales. In the paper, the full results of confirmatory factor analyses for the student survey will be presented as well as differential item functioning for background variables (age, gender, cultural background, school type, cognitive functioning, impression management). Based on these analyses, scales can be constructed for each subunit of our framework (for instance democratic attitude, reflectivity on dealing with differences, knowledge of how to deal with conflict, skills of being a responsible citizen). Moreover, we will present correlations between these subunits and propose a procedure for calculating an overall score on citizenship competence for groups of students. The differential results of diverse groups of students (based on age gender, cultural background, school type, cognitive functioning) will also be compared. Moreover, scale scores of citizenship competence will be correlated to the results of students’ citizenship behavior as perceived by peer students and teachers. A discussion of these results will also be part of the paper.

 

Citizenship education is compulsory in most Western countries. Measuring the efforts made by schools is important, for evaluative as well as comparative purposes. A reliable and valid instrument that focuses on the various components that are necessary for students to fulfill social tasks in a democratic society, is still lacking.

 

Biesta, G.J.J., Lawy, R.S., & Kelly, N. (2005). Young people learning democracy. A UK perspective. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association., Montreal, 11-15 April 2005.

Glass, R.D. (2000). Education and the ethics of democratic citizenship. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 19, 275-296.

Kerr, D. (1999). Changing the political culture: the Advisory Group on Education for Citizenship and the teaching of democracy in school. Oxford Review of Education, 25 (1/2), 274-285.

Onderwijsraad [Educational Council] (2003). Onderwijs en burgerschap. Advies. [Education and citizenship.] Den Haag: Onderwijsraad.

Muthèn, L.K., & Muthèn, B.O. (2004). Mplus: The comprehensive modeling program for applied researchers. User’s guide, 3rd ed.. Los Angeles: Muthèn & Muthèn.

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Schuitema, Ten Dam, & Veugelers, (in press). Teaching strategies for moral education: a review. Journal of Curriculum Studies.

Ten Dam, G., & Volman, M. (2005). Educating for adulthood or for citizenship. Amsterdam: Graduate School of Teaching and Learning.