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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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2020

Fernando Feitosa Open the ORCID record for Fernando Feitosa [Opens in a new window]
Fernando Feitosa*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Montreal, 3150 Jean-Brillant St., C- 3123, Montreal, H3T 1N8
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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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.

Résumé

Résumé

Le présent article examine si l'éducation civique peut stimuler le sens du devoir de voter et contribuer ainsi à augmenter le nombre d'électeurs, tout en réduisant l'inégalité de la participation. Sur le plan méthodologique, il procède à une analyse transnationale systématique du lien entre les différentes formes d'éducation civique et le devoir civique, en utilisant les données de l'Étude internationale sur l'éducation civique et citoyenne (ICCS) de 2016, qui porte sur 23 pays. Elle montre que trois mécanismes clés de l'éducation civique, à savoir les cours d'instruction civique, les stratégies d'apprentissage actif et l'environnement ouvert de la salle de classe exercent tous une influence sur le devoir civique, mais que les cours d'instruction civique ont l'effet le plus important. Les analyses par pays confirment que les cours d'éducation civique ont une plus grande influence sur le devoir civique que les autres types d'éducation civique. En fournissant ces données probantes, cet article élucide les canaux de socialisation scolaire susceptibles d'aider à développer le sens du devoir chez les adolescents, ainsi que l'effet relatif de chaque mécanisme.

Keywords

civic duty to votecivic educationcivics coursesactive learning strategiesopen classroom climatecross-country analysisdevoir civique de voteréducation civiquecours d’éducation civiquestratégies d’apprentissage interactivesambiance de classe ouverteanalyse transnationale
Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 887 - 901
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2020

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