Joining an international community of practice: Reflections on the IEA civic education studies

Abstract

This chapter presents reflections from an educational researcher who began her involvement with the project as an early career scholar soon after the release of the first IEA Civic Education Study (CIVED) report nearly two decades ago. She describes the secondary analysis of these data that took place, especially in the ensuring decade, along with ways in which involvement with the IEA civic education studies shaped her own professional development and that of others. She describes joining the large and small communities of researchers (going back to the first IEA International Research Conference) and reflects on how the IEA civic education studies have shaped approaches to studying educational processes and the development of social attitudes in students. In particular, the nature of these data and emerging statistical methodologies allowed the exploration of the role of contextual factors in civic development. Second, cross-disciplinary collaborations with international specialists in the social and behavioral sciences (as well as educational researchers) provided perspectives that broadened the educational or developmental psychology approaches common in the United States. The benefits and challenges of work with large-scale data and with interdisciplinary and cross-national collaboration are highlighted. Links to the datasets and to lists of publications are described.