Establishing a general framework civic competency for European youth

Abstract

This paper proposes a project that aims to construct a general framework of civic competency that will help understand civic competence as a blended measure of civic knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, beliefs, behavioural intentions and behaviours. By distinguishing between civic potential, civic behaviour and civic outcomes, with empirical datasets from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) on 14 year-old European students, the framework will describe how these constructs are related and measured, and show their impact on future civic competence and active citizenship. In this project, by considering the effect of different social, political and cultural contexts, the framework will accommodate measures of civic dimensions that are common to all societies as well as those specific to particular societies and regions. This will challenge the quest for a universal model for civic competence. Given that cultivating civically competent citizens ready for active citizenship is an important educational outcome for many educational systems, this paper has the potential to expand understanding of citizenship, citizenship education and the relation of the two