Author Description

The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is the largest international study of civic and citizenship education ever conducted. Over 140,000 Grade 8 students, 62,000 teachers, and 5,300 school principals from 38 countries participated in this study. Among these were five from Asia, 26 from Europe, six from Latin America, and one from Australasia. The ICCS assessment addressed students' civic knowledge and understanding, perceptions and attitudes, and engagement and behavior. It also collected information on various aspects of students' home backgrounds. Each chapter, written by one or more members of the country's national research center, begins with a description of the country's general demographic features as well as its political characteristics. Authors then detail the background and structure of the education system, the general approach to civic and citizenship education, how it is included in the national curriculum, which school activities relate to it, and whether this learning area is subject to current reforms and debates. Authors also outline the requirements for educating teachers for teaching in general and for teaching civic and citizenship education in particular. With regard to the latter, consideration is given to the extent to which teachers receive teacher education (both preservice and inservice) that prepares them to teach issues related to this learning area. Each chapter concludes with a description of the national approaches to assessment and quality assurance of educational outcomes on the one hand and of learning topics related to civic and citizenship education on the other. A list of organizations and individuals involved in ICCS is appended. (Individual chapters contain tables, figures, footnotes, and references.) [Additional funding for this document was provided by the Inter-American Development Bank.].