Does civic education foster civic duty?

Periodical
Canadian Journal of Political Science
Volume
53
Year
2020
Issue number
4
Page range
887-901
Relates to study/studies
ICCS 2016

Does civic education foster civic duty?

A systematic cross-country analysis of the effect of three forms of civic education on the sense of civic duty to vote

Abstract

This article investigates if civic education can spur a sense of duty to vote and, in this way, help to augment the number of voters and diminish inequality in participation. I perform a systematic cross-country analysis of the link between different forms of civic education and civic duty, using the data from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) that include 23 countries. The results show that three key civic education mechanisms-civics courses, active learning strategies and open classroom environment-exert an influence on civic duty but that civics courses have the strongest effect. Country-level analyses confirm that civics courses are more influential on civic duty than the other types of civic education. This evidence elucidates which channels of school socialization may help to develop a sense of duty in adolescents, as well as the relative effect of each mechanism.