Germ Janmaat, Institute of Education, LLAKES Second International Conference London, October 2012 Educational Differentiation and Inequalities of Civic Engagement

Central question and rationale Key question: Does educational differentiation exacerbate inequalities of civic engagement? Rationale: Disparities of civic engagement undermine social cohesion; Almost no studies looking at the role of education in mitigating such disparities

Civic engagement (CE) A hazy concept because it is contested Two schools of thought: - CE as conventional political participation, institutional trust, law abidance, sense of duty (i.e. the conservative view) - CE as tolerance, civic equality, alternative participation, critical attitude towards authority (i.e. the left-wing view) Our approach - take components from both views: Civic knowledge and skills Political efficacy Voting intentions Institutional trust Gender equality Ethnic tolerance

Educational differentiation and the link with civic engagement Two modes of educational differentiation: Grouping on the basis of ability School autonomy Hypotheses: 1. The more grouping by ability, the larger (a) the cross-classroom gaps in CE and (b) the effect of social background on CE; 2. The more school autonomy, the larger (a) the cross-classroom gaps in CE and (b) the effect of social background on CE; Why these effects? Curriculum differences across tracks/schools; selection by ability = selection by social background; peer effects

Data and methods Data sources: - ICCS 2009 (14 year olds) and Cived 2000 (16 year olds) for indicators of Civic Engagement (ready made scales) - PISA 2009 and ICCS national context study for indicators of ability grouping and school autonomy - Ability grouping: age of first selection + within school ability grouping - School autonomy: curriculum planning + curriculum delivery + textbooks Methods: - ICCCs to calculate cross-classroom gaps in CE - Proportions of explained variance to measure social and ethnic background effect

Descriptive stats: Comprehensivization (inverse of grouping by ability)

Descriptive stats: School autonomy

Educational differentiation and inequalities of CE (14 year olds) (correlations; N=22) ComprehensivizationSchool autonomy Between classroom differences in: Civic knowledge-.46*-.16 Civic efficacy Intention to vote-.50*-.26 Institutional trust * Gender equality Ethnic tolerance The effect of social background on: Civic knowledge Civic efficacy.47*.29 Intention to vote Institutional trust Gender equality Ethnic tolerance.09.13

Educational differentiation and inequalities of CE (16-19 year olds) (correlations; N=11) ComprehensivizationSchool autonomy Between classroom differences in: Civic knowledge Expected political participation Institutional trust Gender equality Ethnic tolerance The effect of social background on: Civic knowledge.15.89** Expected political participation Institutional trust Gender equality Ethnic tolerance

Conclusions Only Hypothesis 1a is supported: smaller classroom disparities in CE in states with comprehensive systems; The two modes of educational differentiation are not related to the strength of the social background effect; Why is educational differentiation not related in the same way to CE as to achievement? Low status of citizenship education; Youngsters only gain an interest in CE in late adolescence; Civic engagement only takes on a definite shape when youngsters enter the labour market and become aware of inequalities and exclusion; CE has become an identity marker for different education groups