Citizenship Education for Political Engagement: A Systematic Review of Controlled Trials

Steven Donbavand and Bryony Hoskins
Additional contact information
Steven Donbavand: Department of Social Science, University of Roehampton, London SW15 5SL, UK
Bryony Hoskins: Department of Social Science, University of Roehampton, London SW15 5SL, UK

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-19

Abstract: Citizenship Education could play a pivotal role in creating a fairer society in which all groups participate equally in the political progress. But strong causal evidence of which educational techniques work best to create political engagement is lacking. This paper presents the results of a systematic review of controlled trials within the field based on transparent search protocols. It finds 25 studies which use controlled trials to test causal claims between Citizenship Education programs and political engagement outcomes. The studies identified largely confirm accepted ideas, such as the importance of participatory methods, whole school approaches, teacher training, and doubts over whether knowledge alone or online engagement necessarily translate into behavioral change. But the paucity of identified studies also points both to the difficulties of attracting funding for controlled trials which investigate Citizenship Education as a tool for political engagement and real epistemological tensions within the discipline itself.

Keywords: citizenship education; civic education; controlled trials; political engagement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/5/151/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/5/151/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:151-:d:543323

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().