Young European citizens: An individual by context perspective on adolescent European citizenship

Abstract

This study examined the effects of individual, school-level and country-level variables and their interactions on two components of adolescents’ active European citizenship: trust in European institutions and participation at the European level. For comparison, country-related institutional trust and participation were also predicted. Using multilevel regression models, we re-analysed a subsample of survey data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, collected from 14-year-old students (n = 72,466) in 22 European countries in 2009. Results showed that higher cognitive engagement with politics (e.g., political interest), more opportunities for learning about Europe at school, and country wealth and social equality were positively associated with both aspects of adolescents’ active European citizenship. In contrast to country-related participation, the participatory dimension of active European citizenship was also positively related to a higher socioeconomic status of adolescent’s classroom and family, an association that was more pronounced in less wealthy and post-communist countries.

Keywords:

• Active European citizenship
• adolescence
• institutional trust
• participation
• socioeconomic status

Acknowledgements

This study was produced as a part of the CATCH-EyoU project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under G.A. n. 649538. The study reflects only the authors’ view. The Research Executive Agency of the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Notes

1 Data used in this study are publicly available from the IEA Study Data Repository (http://rms.iea-dpc.org). Description of the steps through which we created the working dataset, used in our paper, can be found in the Masaryk University Repository (https://is.muni.cz/repo/1387306/en)