Citizenship education is regarded as one of the key factors that explain political participation. Thus, education and its outcomes are set responsible for the observed decline in political participation as well as for equipping citizens with the competencies necessary for meaningful participation.  As response to these concerns on decline of youth civic engagement most democratic countries have introduced citizenship education as part of the formal schooling.  Current paper uses data of the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS) carried out in 2009 amongst 14-year –old students in 38 countries around the world. We selected 12 European countries representing both established and emerging democracies in the Western and Eastern part of the continent.

The ICC included an extensive cognitive test on civic and political knowledge and a survey on adolescents’ democratic attitudes and civic participation. Although the data allow investigate the link between citizenship knowledge and civic behaviour this possibility has been almost not used by the researchers. This state of affairs reflects research in political socialization of youth generally.  Another shortcoming of most previous studies is the universal approach to the democracy and to the civic engagement.  Typically researchers make generalised conclusions about the mean level of youth political activism in universal democracy. Yet, contemporary era is illustrated by increasing diversification of social life that affects also the ways how young people construct their democratic attitudes and citizen roles. Therefore a closer look at different forms of democracy, and corresponding civic competences and practices becomes important in order to understand youth behaviour and to develop citizenship education.  

This paper aims to contribute exploring the problem by placing empirical data into contemporary theories of democracy. The main assumption is that various models of democracy presuppose different competencies depending on the type of political participation. The interplay between normative possibilities and individual participatory choices is mediated by the national educational and political traditions that can bring to the notable variation between countries. 

The argument will be developed through three dimensions. Firstly, we briefly analyse how the concept of participation has changed in the course of democratic change and what kind of competences are required today for citizens to act efficiently. Secondly, based on the research literature and data of the IEA civic and citizenship education study we investigate to what extent national policies on civic and citizenship education provide opportunities to learn competences needed for multiple forms of contemporary democratic participation? Thirdly we analyse how these opportunities have been realised by students and whether some cross country patterns of knowledge-practice nexus become evident.

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