The Education and Training 2020 policy agenda (ET 2020) continues to identify Active Citizenship as one of the four major policy goals and continues to support national governments in developing key competences, including civic competences, of its citizens. Active Citizenship was a priority of the 2011 Hungarian Presidency, and Education Ministers were invited to debate this issue at a March 2011 meeting. An outcome of this meeting was the ministers’ support for the development of a new composite indicator on civic competence.

Based on these policy needs, we created a new composite indicator on civic competence, the Civic Competence Composite Indicator 2 (CCCI-2). It comprises four dimensions: ‘Participatory Attitudes’, ‘Citizenship Values’, ‘Social Justice Values’, and ‘Knowledge and Skills for Democracy’. The data was obtained from young people between 13 and 14 years old as part of the IEA International Citizenship and Civic Education Study 2009 conducted in 38 countries.

The findings of this indicator show that wealth and democratic stability in a country do not guarantee democratically engaged youth. Young people’s positive attitudes towards participation and their citizenship values are often stronger in relatively poor countries with recent breaks in democracy in South and East Europe. Furthermore, democracies in North and West Europe appear to be fostering a non-participatory culture. However, the reverse is true for social justice attitudes and knowledge and skills on democracy, which are supported by more wealthy and democratically stable countries. These trends are consistent with the results of the original Civic Competence Composite Indicator, using data from 10 years ago, thus suggesting a consistency of civic cultures amongst the younger generations.

Hoskins, B. Barber, C. Van Nijlen, D. And Villalba, E. (2011) Comparing Civic Competence among European Youth: Composite and Domain-Specific Indicators Using IEA Civic Education study data. Comparative Education Review Vol. 55 ,1. http://www.jstor.org/pss/10.1086/656620 Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J and Villalba, E. (2011) Learning Citizenship through Social Practice Outside and Inside School: Multilevel Analysis of the Learning of citizenship. British Education Research Journalhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411926.2010.550271 Hoskins, B. and Deakin Crick, R. (2010) Learning to learn and civic competence to sides of the same coin? European Journal of Education Research Vol. 45, 1. Hoskins, B. and Mascherini, M. (2009) Measuring Active Citizenship through the development of a Composite Indicator. Social Indicator Research, Vol. 90, 459-488.http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-008-9271-2. Hoskins, B., Villalba, E., Van Nijlen, D., and Barber, C. (2008) Measuring Civic Competence in Europe: A composite Indicator based on IEA Civic Education Study 1999 for 14 years old in School. CRELL research paper, EUR 23210, Ispra: European Commission. Hoskins, B. (2006). Draft framework on indicators for Active Citizenship. Ispra: CRELL. Kerr, D., Sturman, L., Schulz, and Burge (2010) ICCS 2009 European Report. Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower-secondary students in 24 European countries. Amsterdam: IEA. Schulz, W Fraillon, J. Ainley, J. Losito, B. Kerr D. (2008) International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. Assessment framework. Amsterdam: IEA Schulz, W. and H. Sibberns in Schulz and Sibberns (Eds.) (2004). IEA Civic Education Study Technical Report (IEA Amsterdam). Chapter 7: Scaling Procedures for Cognitive Items Schulz, W., Ainley, J. Fraillon, J Kerr, D. Losito, B (2010) ICCS 2009 International Report. Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower-secondary school students in 38 countries. Amsterdam: IEA