Examining Students’ Perception of Classroom Openness as a Predictor of Civic Knowledge: A Cross-National Analysis of 38 Countries

Abstract

Civic knowledge is critical to interpreting various policy and candidate issues that are necessary to participating in certain political activities, such as voting in elections or attending public demonstrations. Various studies have examined students’ perceptions of classroom openness, which reflects perceived levels of political discussion supported by peers in the classrooms, to understand how this measure relates to students’ civic behaviors. This study analyzes data from the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, in which approximately 134,000 students were sampled from 38 countries across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Results from three-level hierarchal linear modeling suggest that students’ perceptions of classroom openness are strongly related to their civic knowledge scores. Further analyses indicate that the relationship strength between these two measures do not vary across students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. These findings reaffirm the importance of curricular approaches that emphasize political discussions in classrooms to prepare students for active citizenship.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author expresses appreciation to his colleagues from the University of California, Irvine who provided assistance with this manuscript: Thurston Domina, Joshua Lawrence, Tamara Beaucamp, and Kristen Lin.

Notes

¹The 2009 ICCS includes 22 of the same countries featured in the 1999 CIVED study. The 16 countries added to the study include: Austria, Chinese Taipei, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Indonesia, Ireland, Korea, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, Spain, and Thailand. The six countries from the 1999 CIVED dataset that are not part of the 2009 ICCS dataset include: Australia, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, and the United States.

²In civic education research, the most widely used measure of socioeconomic status (SES) consists of an index that considers family income, parental education, and occupational status (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Entwislea & Astone, 1994).

Note. HDI, provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is a composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development including a healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. The HDI is also used as one of the means of classifying a country as developed (HDI greater than a 0.9) and developing (HDI below 0.9). Non-native refers to students who reported not being able to speak or understand the language used in the assessment. Adapted from “ICCS 2009 International Report: Civic knowledge, attitudes, and engagement among lower-secondary school students in 38 countries” by W. Schulz, J. Ainley, J. Fraillon, D. Kerr, and B. Losito. Copyright 2010 by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

³In a study that examined mortality differences associated with educational levels in nine industrialized countries, Kunst and Mackenbach (1994) considered adolescents aged 12–16 years old as the traditional age range of students in the lower secondary grades.

Note. Questions on a scale of Never = 1, Rarely = 2, Sometimes = 3, Often = 4; Weighted values.

⁴The students’ individual perceptions of classroom climate were regressed on the class mean, with the residuals saved as the Individual-level Classroom Openness. The residuals reflect the degree to which an individual's own score deviates from the aggregate value; thus, the two are by definition uncorrelated. Next the classroom mean was regressed on the individual's perceptions of classroom climate, and the resulting residuals were saved as Classroom-level Openness. This procedure produces a different classroom climate score for each respondent, which means that it must be regarded as an individual-level variable. To test the procedure's success, I included the “unpurged” measure of classroom climate into the model as a classroom-level variable and found that the results are identical. The author credits Campbell (2008) for his permission to use this methodological approach.

Note. Weighted values.

Note. Classroom climate estimates taken from HLM regression analyses of civic knowledge, after controlling for all student-level covariates; Standard errors in parentheses; Correlation estimates based on regression analyses between classroom climate variable and civic knowledge.

*p < 0.05;.

**p < 0.01;.

***p < 0.001.

Note. Results from Hierarchical Linear Modeling; Standard errors in parentheses; Each classroom has a minimum of 10 students; AIC refers to Akaike Information Criterion.

^a Variables standardized (M = 0, SD = 1.0).

^b Classroom discussion is a scale, reflecting the extent to which students consider they are free to express opinions in class and to discuss civic-related issues.

*p < 0.05;.

**p < 0.01;.

***p < 0.001.

Note. Adapted from “ICCS 2009 User Guide for the International Database Supplement 5” by F. Brese, M. Jung, P. Mirachiyski, W. Schulz, and O. Zuehlke. Copyright 2010 by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.