Provision of civic and citizenship education

• Twenty of the 38 participating countries included a subject specifically concerned with civic and citizenship education in their respective curriculums.

Students’ civic knowledge

• The average civic knowledge scores ranged from 380 to 576—a range equivalent to almost two international student-level standard deviations.
• Girls had significantly higher civic knowledge scores than boys in most ICCS countries; the average difference was 22 scale points.
• Students from non-immigrant backgrounds recorded higher civic knowledge scores than those from immigrant backgrounds; the average difference was 37 scale points; however, when the influence of socioeconomic background was statistically controlled, the effects of immigrant background were smaller.
• In all ICCS countries, students whose parents had higher-status occupations achieved higher civic knowledge scores.
• Students whose parents had higher educational qualifications and whose homes had greater numbers of books also scored higher on the civic knowledge scale.

Students’ perceptions and behavior

• Most ICCS students endorsed democratic values.
• Students agreed with a number of fundamental democratic rights as well as with the importance of a great number of the conventional and social-movement-related behaviors that are considered to support good citizenship.
• Trust in civic institutions varied across ICCS countries. Political parties were typically the least trusted institution.
• Most students also supported equal rights for ethnic or racial groups and immigrants.
• Students’ interest in political and social issues was stronger with regard to domestic political and social issues than with respect to foreign issues and international politics.
• Large majorities of students said they intended to vote in national elections once they reached adulthood, but only a minority of students expected to become politically active as adults.
• In most of the ICCS countries, students supported measures that increased the power of security agencies to (for example) control communications and hold suspects in jail for relatively long periods of time. Even higher percentages of students endorsed restricting media coverage during times of perceived crisis.