The Personal, the Professional, and the Political : An Intertwined Perspective on the IEA Civic Education Studies

• This chapter describes a political scientist’s progression from analyses of the development of Western democracies to a focused interest in young citizens’ civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement in these democracies. The IEA CIVED data are an important but not fully utilized research resource. With some notable exceptions, political scientists often seem to disregard the 18 years of preparation of first-time voters. Fueled by the Swedish parliamentary democracy commission’s pleas for civic education to build the democratic infrastructure of the country, his scope of concern widened into a fascination with the political socialization taking place during adolescence in everyday life contexts. The multi-disciplinary IEA studies were a major inspiration to create a research team collaborating with developmental psychologists and communication scientists. They longitudinally followed 13 to 30-year-old Swedes over six years in order to see how political views become shaped in adulthood as alienated, passive, active, or standby citizens. More than anyone expected even a decade ago, adolescents have entered as major political actors into international, national, and local political arenas throughout the world. Political scientists have become curious about what happens in school as well as in other contexts. Furthermore, the major threats many democracies are facing in terms of climate change denial along with populism can neither be properly understood nor solved without the engagement of this generation.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Civic education

IEA

ICCS

Political Science

Statskunskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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