Citizenship and educational track membership of Grade 12 students in Flanders: a variable- and person-centered approach

ABSTRACT

Educational tracking can lead to different citizenship outcomes. Most studies on the relationship between citizenship and educational track membership applied a variable-centered approach, comparing averages between tracks but not considering differences between students within a track. Person-centered approaches have shown that different citizenship profiles exist, but scholars never investigated the relationship between these profiles and track membership. Using data from the 2016 National Assessment on Civic and Citizenship Education in Flanders (Belgium), the present study combined both approaches to study democratic citizenship norms among Grade 12 students. The variable-centered approach showed that students in general education scored higher on good democratic citizenship items than students in technical and vocational education. However, a person-centered approach found seven distinct good democratic citizenship profiles containing students from each track. Hence, this study challenges stereotypical views of students’ views on citizenship in different educational tracks.

KEYWORDS:

• good citizenship
• vocational education
• variable-centered approach
• person-centered approach
• hierarchical classes analysis
• citizenship profiles

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the Policy Research Centre for Test Development and Assessments from KU Leuven and University of Antwerp, funded by the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training, for providing the data from the National Assessment on Civic and Citizenship Education 2016.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Margo Vandenbroeck

Margo Vandenbroeck is a junior academic staff member at the Centre for Educational Effectiveness and Evaluation at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and currently pursuing her PhD.

Jonas Dockx

Jonas Dockx is a post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for Educational Effectiveness and Evaluation at the KU Leuven (Belgium). He is working in the field of educational effectiveness, focusing on educational tracks, longitudinal studies and international comparative research.

Ellen Claes

Ellen Claes is associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the KU Leuven (Belgium). She is part of the Centre for Political Science Research since 2005 and responsible for the Master in Social Science Education since 2013. In her work, Ellen takes a didactic perspective on political science exploring the effects secondary schools have in shaping democratic knowledge, skills and attitudes of young people. Recent studies focus on the civic and intercultural competencies of (student) teachers.

Rianne Janssen

Rianne Janssen is professor in educational measurement at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the KU Leuven (Belgium). Her current research interests are large-scale assessments and IRT-modelling.