Civic attitudes and behavioural intentions among 14-year-olds : how can education make a difference towards a more democratic and cohesive Europe?

Using data from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), this policy report provides a detailed analysis of adolescents' civic attitudes and behavioural intentions, and the mechanisms shaping them, with a particular emphasis on the broader role of education. ICCS 2016 offers broad information on 14-year-old students' civic and citizenship knowledge, their civic attitudes and behaviours, as well as their individual characteristics and the school and community contexts. In this way, it provides an opportunity to obtain greater insights into the role that educational policies in general, and educational institutions in particular, may play in shaping civic outcomes. There are a number of key findings worth highlighting, namely: Civic and citizenship education in general, and increasing students' civic self-efficacy and their civic knowledge in particular, are all crucial and not yet fully exploited means of educating engaged and open-minded young individuals. Maintaining an open classroom climate is a key factor associated not only with students' civic knowledge and later engagement but also with civic attitudes and behavioural intentions. Likewise, motivating students to take part in various forms of within-school activism is likely to increase their interest in actively engaging in democratic processes in later life. Active community involvement (which could be promoted by the school) is also positively associated with attitudes towards social-movement-related citizenship in almost all the participating countries. Both civic and citizenship knowledge and civic efficacy are important predictors of students' civic outcomes. Their roles are very different, though: while efficacy is consistently positively related to all the non-cognitive outcomes across all the countries, for civic knowledge this is true regarding only some attitudes. There is no systematic, universal gap between immigrant and native students' democratic attitudes. A significant gap between immigrant and native students is apparent in most Member States participating in ICCS only with regard to expected electoral participation. On the other hand, immigrant students are generally more in favour of equal rights for minorities. All in all, schools seem to have the potential to shape adolescents' civic attitudes and behavioural intentions in relation to later civic participation. Our results therefore point to interesting policy challenges for education and training policymakers in their endeavours to improve democratic attitudes in the European Union.