t is close to impossible to give a succinct summary of everything that is being done in Europe with respect to civic education. There is a great variety in forms and aims. Even the names of the subject vary from aktivt medborgerskap (in Norway), citizenship (in Great Britain) or politische Bildung (in Austria and Germany) to social studies (in Cyprus) or éducation civique (in France). In this article, I will indicate some of the most interesting developments.
Great Britain
To my mind, the most interesting developments in the field are currently taking place in Great Britain. In 2002, a new subject was introduced in the curriculum there: citizenship. Now, much energy is going into material development and teacher training. The results can be followed in great detail through a number of longitudinal studies. The subject is part of the curriculum for school children from 11 to 16 years of age. According to professor Sir Bernard Crick, the aim is nothing less than to make people ‘think of themselves as active citizens, willing, able and equipped to have an influence in public life.’ Much emphasis goes to the children’s future roles as citizens in society. The so-called Crick report gives a general overview of the subject. It is titled Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools and can be downloaded from: www.qca.org.uk/6123.html. The longitudinal studies are published on: www.nfer.ac.uk/research-areas/citizenship/. Teaching material and information on teacher trainings can be found on: www.citized.info.
Spain
In Spain, the ministry of Education has recently started a discussion on education reform. With respect to civic education, the ministry proposes to stop approaching it in a cross-curricular fashion, as is currently being done in both primary and secondary education, and introduce it as a separate subject. The discussion can be followed in Spanish at: http://debateeducativo.mec.es/.
Germany
The situation in Germany is somewhat more complicated, since education is not coordinated by the central government there, but by the federal states. Civic education is among the general aims of education in Germany and has been integrated in all subjects. As a separate subject, it is generally not taught to children before they are around 12 years of age. Germany is very active in the field of civic education. The German society for civic education succeeds easily in mobilising 400 people for a two days’ conference with dozens of workshops. An enormous number of professors at teachers colleges and universities are involved in civic education. The portal www.politische-bildung.net gives a good indication of what is going on. Despite 50 years of democratic education, many people in Germany are still worried about the lack of political engagement among the German people and complain that the many investments in civic education have not been able to prevent right-wing extremism from re-emerging after World War II. Recently, a debate has flared on the question whether civic education should focus on the mechanics of political decision making or rather on key concepts like ‘democracy’ or ‘acting democratically’. This debate can be followed on the website www.blk-demokratie.de. Gerhard Himmelman contributed a particularly interesting study, Was ist Demokratiekompetenz? Ein Vergleich von Kompetenzmodellen unter Berücksichtigung internationaler Ansätze, which can be downloaded from www.blk-demokratie.de/fileadmin/public/dokumente/Himmelmann2.pdf.
Europe
The European Commission is obviously confronted with a great lack of ‘European citizenship’. The commission has taken a number of initiatives to tackle this problem. In the context of the so-called Lissabon-agreement, the commission has established a number of committees for describing the competencies that school children should develop in various school subjects. One of those subjects is ‘civics’. See also: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/2010/doc/basic-skills_en.pdf. Furthermore, the European Commission is researching the indicators of active citizenship. If that research, in which I am personally involved by the way, succeeds in establishing such indicators, the commission would have a powerful instrument to take specific measures in order to foster citizenship in various fields of policy.
Research
Citizenship and its education are also receiving extra attention through the research by the IEA on the knowledge and attitudes among pupils of secondary school with respect to politics and democracy. This research has resulted in a series of publications, which prove that civic education can be effective under certain conditions. Research data can be downloaded from: www.wam.umd.edu/~jtpurta/. A new research round is currently in preparation.
Journals
A number of new journals on civic education have been launched in the last few years. In Germany, the initiative was taken to launch a new electronic journal in English, The Journal of Social Science Education (see: www.jsse.org). In 2002 and 2003, the journal published country reports with respect to civic education. In 2005, the journal published a special edition on the European Year of Citizenship through Education. Another new journal is called the International Journal of Citizenship Teaching and Learning. The most recent issue, from December 2005, can be found at: www.citized.info/ijcte/current.htm. The main editor of this magazine is Ian Davies, who has an important role in training British teachers for the new subject of ‘citizenship’. Of course, there are also international education journals that sometimes publish special issues on civic education. Thus, the European Journal of Education had a special issue on ‘Challenges for Citizenship Education in the New Europe’ (see: www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/ejed/37/2).
General overview
For a general overview, there are two studies I would specifically recommend. In 2005, the European Commission did a small research into civic education at school in Europe. The document is available in English and French at: www.eurydice.org/Doc_intermediaires/analysis/en/frameset_analysis.html.
The Council of Europe published an all-European study on democratic citizenship. This document can be downloaded from: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/education/edc/Source/Pdf/Documents/2004_12_Complete_All-EuropeanStudyEDCPolicies_En.PDF
Ruud Veldhuis, the Netherlands