University of Oslo Workshops June 29-30 Conference July 1-3 ...

form of civic and citizenship education. The variation in students’ European civic attitudes
are explained by employing multi-level analysis with the type of school/curriculum (ELOS
versus ICSS) being an important explanatory variable
Although a general test-score could not be compared, ELOS students perform significantly
better on six of the cognitive items of a set of nine items from the ICCS European Module.
Moreover it seems that better scores are achieved by ELOS students in each of the Dutch
school tracks (from pre-vocational to pre-university). As expected, students in the ‘Europe
focused’ ELOS schools report a (slightly) greater sense of European identity than their
peers in other schools. Multilevel analysis, employed on two conceptual scales, shows that
ELOS students value equal chances for European citizens more than their peers in ICCS
schools. A significant school effect was found. The scale scores on attitude towards a
(possible) enlargement of Europe however did not indicate such an effect. In general the
results of this study provide some empirical support for the ELOS programme.
Keywords: European civic and citizenship education; secondary analysis; ICCS; ELOS
The Influence of Education Reforms in Latvia on the Quality of Civic
Education and Democracy in the Teaching/Learning Process
Ireta Cekse, University of Latvia, Latvia
Andrejs Geske, University of Latvia, Latvia
Andris Kangro, University of Latvia, Latvia
The transition to a democratic state management form has been taking place in Latvia since
regaining the independence. The changes have most directly affected also the education
system which has been continuously improved. The transformation of paradigms is one of
the aspects of education reforms. The teaching/learning methods used in the lessons have
essentially changed. The aim of this study is to find out how the change of the education
paradigm from teaching to learning has influenced the quality of civic education and the
use of democratic study forms in the lessons. In order to achieve the given aim, the study
will search for the relations between the achievement of Grade 8 students of Latvia in civic
education and students’ attitudes. Special attention will be paid to a democratic learning
environment and the differences in students’ who learn in the Latvian language and who
learn in the Russian language attitudes to the freedom of word when discussing political
and social political issues in the lessons. The study performed the secondary analysis of
Latvia’s data in IEA CIVED and IEA ICCS, using the descriptive statistic methods.
Keywords: IEA ICCS; IEA CIVED; international comparative studies; quality of civic
education; CIVED; international comparative studies; education reform in Latvia; quality
of civic education
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