Citizenship Education in Europe

All European countries now boost real-life democratic practices and participation within schools through the election of class representatives, student councils and/or student representations in school governing bodies, according to Citizenship Education in Europe, a Eurydice report that was published today.

The report shows that all European countries have now introduced central regulations to promote student participation in school governance.

Encouraging citizens, particularly young people, to actively engage in social and political life has recently become a growing political priority both at national and European level. Because education is viewed as a principal means to promote active citizenship, the 2012 Eurydice report on Citizenship Education in Europe aims to capture how policies and measures relating to citizenship education have evolved over recent years in European countries.

To this end, the report provides an overview of the state of play on five main topics :

1) Curriculum aims and organisation ;

2) student and parent participation in schools ;

3) school culture and student participation in society ;

4) assessment and evaluation ;

5) support for teachers and school heads.

The report provides information on 31 of the Eurydice Network countries (EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Croatia and Turkey) and highlights progress made, whenever evident, since the last Eurydice study on the topic published in 2005. All political reforms planned for the coming years have also been taken into account wherever relevant. The reference year is 2010/11.

The study is available on the Eurydice website in English together with the Highlights. The German and French translations of the study will be published later this year.

Eurydice Unit EACEA P9