Elsevier

Teaching and Teacher Education

Volume 77, January 2019, Pages 112-125
Teaching and Teacher Education

A cross-national comparison of teachers' beliefs about the aims of civic education in 12 countries: A person-centered analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.09.005Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • We identified three profiles of teacher beliefs about the aims of civic education.

  • The smallest group, dominant in Korea, emphasized dutiful school participation.

  • Emphasis on knowledge transmission was strong in Western Europe and Hong Kong.

  • Teachers in the Nordic countries emphasized independent thinking and tolerance.

  • Independent thinking was endorsed in more developed and democratic countries.

Abstract

This article examines teachers' beliefs about the aims of citizenship education in 12 countries from Europe and Asia. A latent class analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study of 2009 identified three distinct profiles of teachers' beliefs about the goals of citizenship education. These profiles are associated with teachers' characteristics and with national indicators of democratic development. Profiles can be more useful than single beliefs in understanding how teaching contributes to students' civic development. Teachers across countries thought it far more important to foster students' participation in the school or local community than to foster future political participation.

Keywords

Citizenship education
Democracy
Person-centered analysis
Political participation
Social studies
Teachers' beliefs

Abbreviations

AIC
Akaike information criterion
AIC3
AIC with 3 as penalizing factor
BIC
Bayesian information criterion
CAIC
consistent AIC
CCE
civic and citizenship education
CivEd
Civic Education Study
CPI
(Lack of) Corruption Perception Index
ICCS
International Civic and Citizenship Education Study
EIU
Economist Intelligence Unit
GDP
Gross Domestic Product
IEA
International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement
LCA
latent class analysis
LL
Log-Likelihood
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
SABIC
sample-size adjusted BIC

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