ICCS 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016

Since the Civic Education Study 1999 (CIVED) no representative, international comparative study on civic knowledge, engagement and attitudes of students has been carried out in Germany. Hence, there is a huge interest in finding out what kind of civic and citizenship competences students learn and how they position themselves in society today. The „International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016 (ICCS 2016)“ provides such an opportunity. ICCS 2016 is carried out in 25 educational systems, and one of them constitutes the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Results of the study serve for assessing concepts and contents of civic and citizenship education: By testing 14-year-old students in eighth grade, the starting point for civic and citizenship education in the last two years of compulsory schooling can be defined more in detail.

Research Questions

From the international point of view the generated research questions mainly focus on a comparison of representative student cohorts in the participating education systems (http://iccs.iea.nl). From the national perspective of the individual educational systems the following questions are of particular interest for the implementation of the study:

1. What are the competences of students when analysing political activities? Which specific difficulties may arise for certain student groups when analysing political issues?
2. How do students understand and value human rights and democratic principles?
3. What are the attitudes of students in terms of major challenges of the society (e.g. cultural heterogeneity, social integration, ecological sustainability)?
4. How do participation and shared experiences in school and other social contexts influence students’ civic and citizenship competences and attitudes?
5. How do opportunities for participation and shared experiences in school differ among school groups?

Methodology and Design

ICCS follows the design of a representative cross-sectional study. In order to ensure quality in the main study, a field trial on the review of the instruments is carried out about 1,5 years in advance. For the field trial 25 schools are chosen to participate, each of them providing one or two classes of eighth grade students. For the main study a stratified sample is drawn from all schools in the educational system, ensuring that all educational tracks and regions of the federal state are considered. In total, about 170 school classes take part in the main study and not more then one class of eighth grade students in each school is chosen to participate. In addition, the principal as well as the teachers of eighth grade students are asked to participate in the survey.

Project Management

Prof. Dr. Hermann Josef Abs (National Research Coordinator)
Dr. Katrin Hahn-Laudenberg

Project Team

Dipl. Reha. Päd. Daniel Deimel
Johanna Ziemes, M. Sc. Psychology

Funding

European Union (2013-2017), et. al.

Publications on the subject

• Abs, Hermann Josef (2014). Kinderrechte und pädagogische Beziehungen in Ansätzen des internationalen Qualitätsmonitorings. In: Prengel, Annedore; Winklhofer, Ursula (Hrsg.). Kinderrechte in pädagogischen Beziehungen: Forschungszugänge. Opladen (Barbara Budrich).
• Abs, Hermann Josef (2014). Jugendpartizipation im internationalen Vergleich. In: Schüler – Wissen für Lehrer 2014. Friedrich Verlag. 98-99.
• Abs, Hermann Josef (2013). Die Vermessung des guten Bürgers – Zur empirischen (De-) konstruktion eines Ideals. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation. 33. Jahrgang, Heft 3/2013. 267-282.
• Abs, Hermann Josef; Pyka, Tina (2013). Using Critical Incidents for the Assessment of Citizenship Competence. In: Print, Murray; Lange, Dirk (Eds.). Civic Education and Competencies for Engaging Citizens in Democracies. Rotterdam (Sense). 125-148.
• Abs, Hermann Josef; Werth, Sarah (2013). Policy Approaches to Quality of Citizenship Education by European Intergovernmental Organisations. In: Hedtke, Reinhold; Zimenkova, Tatjana (Eds.). Education for Civic and Political Participation. A Critical Approach. London (Routledge). 81-98.
• Abs, Hermann Josef (2013). Einleitung zum Themenheft: Citizenship Education – Zivilgesellschaftliche und politische Bildung. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie der Erziehung und Sozialisation. 33. Jahrgang, Heft 3/2013. 227-230.
• Buhl, Monika; Kuhn, Hans Peter; Abs, Hermann Josef (2013). Bedingungen und Entwicklung von politischem Wissen und politischem Kompetenzerleben. In: Berkessel, Hans; Beutel, Wolfgang; Faulstich-Wieland, Hannelore; Veith, Hermann (Hrsg.). Jahrbuch Demokratiepädagogik 2013/14. Schwalbach/Ts. (Wochenschau Verlag). S. 209-219.

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