The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2022) is an international comparative large scale assessment, which aims to examine the contribution of educational institutions to the mental requirements for democracy. 

Background

Democracies require democratic attitudes and behaviours from citizens in order to be perpetuated. These requirements impend to vanish (Foa & Mounk 2016). Which knowledge, which convictions, which sense of belonging and which behavioural dispositions adolescents develop regarding democracy is of major relevance for the future of democracies. The concurrence of knowledge, convictions, belonging, and behavioural dispositions is named  »political mindset« in ICCS. Two questions result for the educational sector. Firstly, how do lessons, school and further contexts contribute to form a democratic mindset? Secondly, how can school and lessons be constructed to foster democratic mindsets in a better way?

Methodology and Design 

The Study covers 26 education systems in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. From Germany only the most populous constituent state North Rhine-Westphalia (DNW) has participated in ICCS 2016, but in ICCS 2022, Schleswig-Holstein (DSH) will join in as a second German constituent state. 

Data on the school system of each participating education system are collected and representative samples are taken from the following groups:

• Students in grade eight;
• Teachers of the participating schools;
• Principals of the participating schools;

The procedures for the design of the survey instruments, their adaptation in the participating countries, and the used methods of sampling, data collection, scaling and weighting are permanently being developed within the framework of the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) and monitored internationally. An introduction to the methodology of ICCS is included in the German national report. Further information on the previous ICCS cycle can be taken from the technical report and the international report on ICCS 2016. 

Continuous and new Focuses

To observe changes over time, it is essential that a major part of the survey instruments remains unchanged in every cycle of the study. Hence parts of the questionnaires deal with political knowledge, tolerance, institutional trust, national and European identity, as well as willingness to participate. Further, an additional questionnaire will be administered in the European educational systems, to specifically capture students’ perspectives on European issues.

At the same time, there is a reasonable interest in including new topics and challenges. Therefore, ICCS 2022 will highlight the topics of ecological sustainability, the digitalisation of everyday life and heterogeneity in societies.

Project Management and Implementation of the Study

ICCS is a study of the IEA whose standards are leading for the conception, implementation, and evaluation. The IEA has established an international study centre (ISC) for ICCS, in which the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) cooperates with the Laboratorio di Pedagogia Sperimentale (ROMA TRE). The development of survey tools and procedures is being carried out by the ISC.

The University of Duisburg-Essen has been designated as a study centre at national level. The national study centre adapts this study for the contexts in the two constituent states and coordinates the communication with the international centre, the EU and the ministries of education both on the level of the constituent states and on the federal level in Germany.

At national level, a consortium has been constituted in order to meet the interdisciplinary research challenge of ICCS. The consortium particularly combines the expertise on schooling, Citizenship education and psychometrics. It consists of:

• Prof. Dr. Hermann J. Abs (speaker of the consortium, School education, University of Duisburg-Essen)
• Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katrin Hahn-Laudenberg (Civic education, University of Leipzig)
• Prof. Dr. Goldhammer (Technology based Assessment, DIPF – Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt a. M.)

A project team is working on the operational implementation of the project in Germany, which is located at the National Study Centre of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and the University of Leipzig (UL):

• Prof. Dr. Hermann Josef Abs (UDE, Head of the national ICCS study centre, National Research Coordinator for DNW and vice NRC for DSH)
• Jun.-Prof. Dr. Katrin Hahn-Laudenberg (UL, National Research Coordinator for DSH and vice NRC for DNW)
• Dr. Daniel Deimel (UDE, National Data Manager for DRW and vice NDM for DSH)
• Dr. Johanna Ziemes (UDE, National Data Manager for DSH and vice NDM for DNW)
• M.A. Rukiye Ates (UDE, Junior Researcher)
• M.A. Igor Birindiba Batista (UL, Junior Researcher)
• M.A. Beatriz Matafora (UDE, Junior Researcher)
• M.A. Nina Welsandt (UDE, Junior Researcher)