Schools are expected to contribute to preparing students for engaged citizenship. Research shows that open classroom discussions on political issues have a positive effect on political attitudes and behaviour. However, a deeper understanding of why students perceive their classrooms as open for discussion is missing. The purpose of this study is to examine how deliberative democratic theory can be used to explain such perceptions. We argue that the openness of the discussion climate is positively affected on the one hand by a context of good student-teacher relations characterised by fairness and respect and on the other hand, by the level of collective efficacy, which is the perception of responsiveness of the school towards student demands. Using multilevel analyses on the European data of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2009), we find that these predictors are significant at the student level and the school level. This means that both the individual experience of a student as well as the average school's score on good student-teacher relations and collective efficacy affect how students perceive the discussion climate. Our findings, based on high-quality survey data from 22 countries, are a significant contribution to clarifying the underlying mechanism leading to an open classroom climate. As such discussions have proven to be an effective way to stimulate political engagement, we conclude that a school context characterised by fairness and responsiveness, should not be overlooked by schools and policy.

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Deliberative democratic theory puts discussions at the centre of democracy. Schools are places where young people can practise such discussions. In this article, we argue that these perceptions of deliberation in class are differential for different young people. Individual student characteristics matter when making schools successful in creating an ‘open discussion climate’. Using the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009, we find that gender, self-efficacy and socio-economic background have an impact on the perception of such a climate. If students evaluate discussion opportunities differently based on background characteristics, alternate strategies should be developed to get everyone to deliberate. Future research looking into the quality of discussions should take this into account, as boys or students with a lower SES (socio-economic status) might need extra stimulation to perceive the classroom as a place to discuss public matters. Also, schools and policymakers should be aware when deciding which civic education strategy should be followed to obtain the desired results.

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