Civic literacy—about the theory and measurability of competence in school-based civic education

Abstract

Democratic institutions and laws are rarely sufficient to ensure the survival of democracy. Instead, democracies can only function well if embedded in a culture of democracy. Therefore, the quality and persistence of a democracy depends on the engagement and the underlying civic literacy of its citizenry. Civic education research differentiates between political knowledge and motivational, attitudinal, and volitional dispositions. By measuring all these components and carefully interpreting their interactions we obtain a more sophisticated and differentiated understanding of civic literacy in youth. Accordingly, this paper conceptualizes a theoretically and empirically justified competence model, which addresses children’s political knowledge as well as their motivational, attitudinal, and volitional dispositions. In the future, this competence model will allow for theoretically sound and systematic research on civic literacy in youth and provide valuable insights for research and practice in the field.