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If refugees are unexpected and undesired arrivals, there is a risk that they will be regarded as grit in the smooth functioning of existing society, institutional arrangements and culture. Of cours...

IEA surveys traditionally include a teacher questionnaire among the contextual questionnaires aiming at collecting data on school factors that could be associated with students’ cognitive outcomes. This chapter discusses how data collected from teachers has played a role in IEA studies on civic and citizenship education from the Six Subjects Survey to the Civic Education Study (CIVED) 1999 and the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009 and 2016. Elements of continuity and discontinuity are identified over time in relation to the content and the structure of the teacher questionnaires adopted in each survey, looking at the conceptions of civic and citizenship education that informed the instruments’ development and at the changes that occurred over time in the delivering of civic and citizenship education at school. The use of data collected through the teacher questionnaire in IEA international reports as well as in secondary analyses is presented. A substantial increase in informative secondary analyses using teacher data has been registered in the last years, confirming the importance of the teacher questionnaire despite the difficulties in finding direct strong associations between teacher data and students’ outcomes. Civic and citizenship education is one of the school education areas most characterized by gaps between principles and official regulations, between intended and implemented curricula, and between theory (or ideals) and practices. The information gathered through the teacher questionnaire is of great relevance for a better understanding of the characteristics of the schools as learning environments and provides policymakers and researchers with data from the perspective of teachers on the democratic experience students actually have at school.

This article presents the results of the trials carried out within the Advenus project - Developing online resources for adult refugees (funded with the support of the European Commission, project ref. no. 2016-1-NO01-KA204-022090). Advenus aims at improving and extending the offer of high quality, culturally sensitive open access e-learning resources to adult refugees between the age of 18-40 and their trainers and teachers in EU countries. In detail, some preliminary considerations are made on the trials of five e-learning courses carried out in four countries, i.e. Norway, Italy, Portugal, and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, for a total number of 267 refugees and asylum seekers involved in the project. Results show an high variability of the starting levels of learners with reference to the language of the hosting country, to basic e-skills and to education levels, and therefore the crucial need to design eLearning resources for different entry levels, connected with learners' needs and daily life experiences, preferably in hybrid forms of ICT supported learning, with face-to-face interventions. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Gaston Mialaret (Cahus, 1918-Garches, 2016) was one of the most prominent scholars in the field of psycho-pedagogy. This contribution tries to present briefly his career and principal works, and analyses specifically his study on Teacher Education (La formation des enseignants, Paris, Puf, "Que sais-je?" 1977) as it still provides meaningful insights on open and debated issues, in Italy and abroad. Mialaret’s clear and concise view on the link between education and research, on a progressive and controlled future teachers’ sense of responsibility, on the continuous monitoring and evaluation needed casts a light on the interpretation of the current state of Educational Research.

Reading a mathematical problem can be often challenging for students. To be successful, they need to understand the words, transposing their meaning on an abstract level, to identify the relations stated in the problem and the task requested. Even if the meaning of the words is known, the case can be given that the student cannot grab the global meaning, nor inferring useful implications to solve the problem. This article offers an overview on reading comprehension issues linked to mathematical texts, and then proposes a set of common mistakes made by young readers, emerged in a first exploratory field experience carried out with grade 7 students. Given that learning activities were carried out on the Pythagorean Theorem, specific attention was devoted to the transposition of words into geometrical figures.

Within its overarching purpose of investigating the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens in a range of countries and through its questionnaire for students in participating European countries, the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016 (ICCS 2016) addressed issues related to the specific European context and to the problems currently facing Europe. Decreased solidarity together with the increase in populist, nationalist, anti-establishment political parties in several European countries are the factors complicating dynamics linked not only to the original project of European integration but also to the economic and political relationships between countries (Archick, 2017). Furthermore, in recent years, public debate in Europe has been characterized by broad questions relating to citizens’ sense of belonging to Europe, the need for stronger cooperation among European countries, and concerns about immigration and the effects of the financial crisis.

The ICCS 2016 assessment framework (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016) identified several contexts that have the potential to influence not only students’ learning outcomes in the field of civic and citizenship education but also their civic engagement. These contexts include the wider community, the school and classroom, the home and peer environment, and characteristics of individual students.

This chapter provides findings on students’ attitudes toward European citizens having the freedom of movement that allows them to work and live throughout Europe. The chapter also considers findings on students’ attitudes toward equal rights for immigrants (e.g., voting, education). These constructs reflect the content domain related to students’ attitudes toward civic principles that is included in the affective-behavioral dimension of the ICCS 2016 assessment framework (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016).

This chapter examines constructs related to students’ attitudes toward civic society and systems (i.e., students’ attitudes toward European cooperation and the European Union, and students’ perceptions of Europe in the future). It also examines a construct related to students’ attitudes toward civic identities (i.e., students’ perceptions of their own individual future) (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016).

This chapter addresses Research Question 3 of the ICCS 2016 assessment framework (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016): What is the extent of students’ engagement in different spheres of society and which factors within or across countries are related to it?

Civic and citizenship education aims to provide young people with the knowledge, understanding, and dispositions that enable them to participate as citizens in society. It seeks to support emerging citizens by helping them understand and engage with society’s principles and institutions, develop and exercise informed critical judgment, and learn about and appreciate citizens’ rights and responsibilities.

The ICCS 2016 assessment framework (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016) states that any study of civic-related learning outcomes and civic engagement must consider the contexts in which civic and citizenship education occur.

ICCS regards civic knowledge as fundamental to effective civic participation. Within the context of ICCS, civic knowledge refers not only to familiarity with the civic and citizenship content described in the ICCS 2016 assessment framework but also to the ability to apply relevant cognitive processes to this content (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Losito, & Agrusti, 2016). Civic knowledge is important in all four of the framework’s content domains.

This chapter explores data relating to ICCS 2016 Research Question 4: What beliefs do students in participating countries hold regarding important civic issues in modern society and what are the factors associated with their variation?

Il volume presenta i risultati del modulo europeo dell'indagine comparativa internazionale sull'educazione civica e alla cittadinanza (ICCS 2016), promossa dall'International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).

This chapter presents some results of the multivariate analyses of ICCS 2016 data that we conducted in an effort to explain variation in three commonly investigated outcomes of civic and citizenship education: civic knowledge, expected electoral participation, and expected active political participation.