Does Formal Education Have an Impact on Active Citizenship Behaviour?

Abstract

In the European context Active Citizenship has been promoted within the education and training Lisbon Strategy as a tool to support the continuation of democracy, human rights and greater social inclusion. In this article the authors analyse the impact of education on Active Citizenship and contribute to the existing debates relating to education levels and participation. The results of their analysis uniformly suggest that there is a significant democratic return associated with formal education. Indeed, using a large sample of individuals from the 2006/2007 European Social Survey, it was found that education is positively and significantly correlated with Active Citizenship behaviour. Tertiary education has by far the biggest impact and this impact is the strongest for the domain of Protest. The findings are robust to the introduction of a large set of control variables and to alternative measures of educational attainment.

Voting for the environment : the importance of Democracy and education in Latin america

“…What level of education or should all levels of instruction be included? Tertiary education is the most effective in encouraging civic engagement and political participation (Hoskins et al, 2008;World Bank, 2002, p. 32). Therefore, it seems reasonable to proxy education with tertiary education.…”

“…Tertiary education is the most effective level of academic formation in encouraging civic engagement and political participation (Hoskins et al, 2008;World Bank, 2002, p. 32). However, the extent to which civic and political engagement affects policy is magnified by the participation of youth, thus an interaction term for education and youth is included.…”

Civic Learning in the „Real World“: Schools and Community as Sites for Student Engagement

“…There is agreement that that education plays a significant role in civic learning and civic action (Putnam, 1995, Dee, 2003, Hoskins et. al., 2008.…”

“…For Dee (2003) it is years of schooling -the longer people spend in education the more likely they are to engage in civic actions such as voting. Hoskins et al, (2008) extended the domain of civic action to engagement in protest activities but still the key relationship was with the amount of education, including higher education. Lauglo (2010, p.3), however, has made the point that "research is strikingly scanty on the underlying mechanisms behind the positive association between educational attainment and measures of political/civic interest and participation".…”

“…The purposes of this paper, therefore, are to investigate such mechanisms, their relationship to the formal curriculum and the way they can be utilized to support and extend civic learning and civic action for young people. This research also seeks to extend Hoskins' et al, (2008) emphasis on the formal curriculum to include informal and non-formal learning and in particular, to make an assessment of how schools and the community might better work together in the civic education of young people.…”