Learning for active citizenship: Are Australian youths Discovering Democracy at school?

Abstract

For democratic societies to sustain, it is important to educate young people for active and democratic citizenship. This article examines the long-term yields of temporary civics and citizenship educational policies with respect to student participation at school as a precursor of political participation in adult life. The focus is on the Australian Discovering Democracy initiative and whether it improved education for active and democratic citizenship at Australian schools and, thus, contributed to actively engaged citizens. Based on the Australian National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship, the analysis suggests that policy initiatives can support schools in the development of experiential civics and citizenship learning in school life, especially if national governments, states and teachers cooperate. The article identifies some gains in improving active and democratic citizenship among secondary school students and concludes that Australian schools laid the foundation of prospectively increasing numbers of active democratic citizens during the past two decades.

Keywords

active citizenship citizenship education civic education civic participation democratic citizenship school participation

It is commonly understood that democratic societies need engaged citizens to persist and to resist internal threats (Putnam, 2000; Dalton, 2004) and that adolescence is a significant period in life for becoming an engaged democrat (Youniss and Yates, 1997; Sherrod, 2006; Flanagan, 2009). When concerns were raised about a lack of political involvement of young Australians in the 1990s, the Discovering Democracy initiative was established to promote active and democratic citizenship, particularly among Australian adolescents (Kemp, 1997). The National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship (NAP-CC) was first conducted when Discovering Democracy matured to monitor the situation of and developments in Australian civics and citizenship education, but yet we do not know much about the long-term impact of this initiative and if it indeed happened positively to affect democratic citizenship education. The aim of this article, thus, is briefly to trace the developments in Australian civics and citizenship education during the past two decades, connect them to the concept of active and democratic citizenship and to examine whether education for active and democratic citizenship at Australian schools improved through and in the aftermath of Discovering Democracy and, hence, contributed to lay the preconditions of actively engaged citizens.

What is active and democratic citizenship and why is it important?

Democratic citizenship

The question what constitutes a democratic citizen may yield overlapping as well as differing responses, as it is a contested concept. Education for democratic citizenship, however, is commonly conceptualised by three dimensions or aspects: the development of cognitive, affective and behavioural competencies (e.g. Audigier, 2000; Kahne and Westheimer, 2003). These contain knowledge about democracy, democratic principles and processes, and historical developments as well as present issues in society; democratic attitudes and value choices; and active participation, cooperation and involvement in democratic problem solving and decision making. Thus, democratic citizenship education goes beyond instruction and mere knowledge transfer.

Westheimer and Kahne (2004) distinguish three kinds of democratic citizens (in a similar vein: Veugelers, 2007): The personally responsible citizen is an honest, law-abiding person who acts responsibly in his or her community. He or she believes that one must have good manners and act on citizens’ rights and responsibilities. The second kind is labelled participatory citizen. This citizen is an active member of society who participates within established societal and community structures and processes to improve society. Eventually, Westheimer and Kahne identify the justice-oriented citizen who is concerned about social injustice. This citizen critically questions existing systems and structures and aims at social change in order to achieve a just society.

Active citizenship

Particular attention has recently been paid to the active dimension of citizenship (e.g. Ross, 2012). The concept of active citizenship is linked to participation and engagement with a strong emphasis on skills development and motivated behaviour as a result of participation in various contexts, such as schools, communities or civil organisations (Nelson and Kerr, 2006). Kennedy (2006) identifies both active components, that is, behaviours such as participation in political activities or in the community, and passive components of citizenship that refer to values and comprise national identity, patriotism and loyalty.

In particular, the works by Hoskins and her colleagues (Hoskins et al., 2006; Hoskins and Mascherini, 2009) provide (empirical) conceptualisations of active citizenship. They suggest that active citizenship includes participation in conventional and unconventional forms of political action, in civic organisations and in community life. They also emphasise the role of ‘values of participation in democracy, human rights and non-discrimination’ (p. 467).

Education for active and democratic citizenship and the role of schools

In particular, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) demonstrate that the pedagogical approach affects the outcome of citizenship education and, thus, what kind of citizen emerges (see also Kahne et al., 2013). Yet we may agree that own experiences of democracy are especially powerful to promote active and democratic citizens. Or as Menthe (2012) concludes, ‘encouraging democratic practice is the most promising way to introduce democracy and democratic values and attitudes’ (p. 77). Hence, schools are significant socialisation agents when it comes to their contribution to education for active and democratic citizenship.

Already Dewey (1956 [1916]) argued that schools and communities enable students to acquire dispositions that are necessary for effective and active citizenship in a democratic society. Other scholars claim that school experiences promote the development of engaged citizens, suggesting that schools are important in preparing students for participation in democratic societies (Verba et al., 1995; Youniss et al., 1997; Hahn, 1998; Patrick, 1999; Torney-Purta et al., 2001; Keeter et al., 2002; Kirlin, 2002; Galston, 2003; Hart et al., 2007; Saha and Print, 2010; Geboers et al., 2013).

Moreover, Print (2009) argues that besides non-school factors like family, media, peers or community, school factors are important in learning democratic citizenship. In the realm of schools, he distinguishes formal and informal learning. Formal learning takes place in the form of school subjects, whereas the informal curriculum includes planned learnings that are not school subjects. The latter comprises instrumental and expressive activities: Instrumental learning develops civic engagement, such as student governance or student elections, and is probably among the best predictors of adult political engagement, whereas expressive activities such as sports, bands or social activities seem to be less important in building political engagement (Kirlin, 2002; Keeter et al., 2002; Print, 2009).

In addition, international research using the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study (CIVED) shows that the culture of the school is significant in engaging young people (Torney-Purta et al., 2001). Schools, the authors suggest, are effective places for developing student engagement through ‘supporting effective participation opportunities such as school councils’ (Torney-Purta, 2002: 210). Recent findings from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) indicate that active civic participation at school was common and a valuable predictor of later civic behaviour (Schulz et al., 2010).

Consequently, active and democratic citizenship is a valuable goal of civics and citizenship education. In fact, education for active and democratic citizenship is clearly a key aim of citizenship education in Australia and has been for almost two decades (e.g. Kemp, 1997; Ministerial Council on Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), 2008). The tremendous efforts undertaken to promote civics and citizenship education during the past two decades in combination with a triennial civics and citizenship survey among secondary school students make Australia a perfect case to examine whether attention towards the schools’ role in the development of active citizenship has yielded positive gains in terms of increased levels of engagement of students at school, which may be understood as precursors of later active and democratic citizenship in adult life.

Australian civics and citizenship education: the past two decades

In the 1990s, Australia experienced a dramatic concern about the state of civics and citizenship education, and the level of attention towards civics and citizenship education increased. In 1994, the Labour Prime Minister Paul Keating convened a Civics Expert Group ‘to provide the Government with a strategic plan for a non-partisan program of public education and information on the Australian system of government, the Australian Constitution, Australian citizenship and other civics issues’ (Civics Expert Group, 1994: 1).

In their report, the Civics Expert Group (1994) observed rather low levels of perceived knowledge about the Australian political system among Australians. Other research pointed into the same direction suggesting that young people reported rather low levels of interest in politics (Vromen, 1995; Beresford and Phillips, 1997; Mellor, 1998) and political efficacy (Mellor, 1998). Concerns were raised about low levels of political literacy and a lack of active citizenship, meaning that young people were less committed actively to get involved in politics (Civics Expert Group, 1994; Doig et al., 1994; Print, 1995). Hence, unsurprisingly the Civics Expert Group came to the conclusion that there was a need to improve civics and citizenship education.

Discovering democracy

As a consequence, a governmental funding initiative commenced in 1995, but it was David Kemp, then Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training in the newly elected Liberal-National Party Government, who launched a major civic and citizenship education initiative entitled Discovering Democracy (Kemp, 1997). From 1997 until 2004, Discovering Democracy provided massive funding for the development of curriculum resources, teacher professional development and national activities.

Discovering Democracy aimed to ‘help students to recognise the relevance of their political and legal institutions to everyday life, and to develop capacities to participate as informed, reflective citizens in their civic community’ (Kemp, 1997: 4). Besides citizenship knowledge and intellectual skills, Discovering Democracy clearly focused on education for active citizenship. One of the means to achieve this goal was to engage students in their everyday environments:

Students will be assisted to learn the skills of participating in voluntary associations and performing school and community services. They will learn how to deliberate on public issues, to research public issues and to speak before public bodies such as school councils. (Kemp, 1997: 6)

Discovering Democracy was endorsed by all states and territories in June 1997, and 2 years later, the MCEETYA agreed on the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. This declaration emphasised the key goal: ‘be active and informed citizens with an understanding and appreciation of Australia’s system of government and civic life’ (goal 1.4; Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA), 2000: 41).

The Erebus evaluations and Australia’s participation in CIVED

A first evaluation of the outcomes of Discovering Democracy was conducted by the Erebus Consulting Group (1999) after an initial period of 2 years. It took place from September to December 1999, yet most schools had scheduled the implementation of school materials for 2000. The evaluators nevertheless concluded that personal efforts of dedicated teachers had contributed to the programme’s success and that some schools had provided a wide range of activities outside the formal curriculum, such as student councils, class meetings, school rallies, organising community activities and conducting fundraising activities for less fortunate people. However, obstacles included, inter alia, competing school priorities, timing in relation to school planning and the reduction in the civics component to a historical study. Eventually, the assessments of learning outcomes were rather concerned with the understanding of content, but not with the active dimension of citizenship.

After the first Erebus evaluation, further financial support was made available by the government for an extension of the programme until 2004. The final evaluation of Discovering Democracy by the Erebus Consulting Partners (2003) concluded that the initiative had an impact on civics teaching in schools, including the belief that students should become active citizens and have a commitment to democratic civic values. Competition with other priorities in the school curriculum still remained a challenge, and as already stated by the Erebus Consulting Group in 1999, almost only knowledge outcomes were assessed. The evaluators also suggested that active citizenship and community participation projects were important aspects of many initiatives and that there was a need for active citizenship. However, only one-third of all schools included student citizenship participation activities in their curriculum, and about half of all schools were using materials developed specifically for Discovering Democracy within a setting that could improve learning outcomes, though in most of those schools this use was still limited.

Simultaneously to the first Erebus evaluation, CIVED was conducted among Australian ninth graders between September and November 1999 (Torney-Purta et al., 2001; Mellor et al., 2002). CIVED focused on, inter alia (Torney-Purta et al., 2001: 22ff), the status of citizenship education as an explicit goal for schools, instructional principles and formal programmes of civic education, and opportunities to participate in school decision making (goals 1, 3 and 12). The results yielded that civic knowledge of Australian students and their confidence about the effectiveness of participation at school was in the middle of the international average, but students’ views of citizenship participation and their willingness to participate in politics in adult life were less positive (Torney-Purta et al., 2001; Mellor et al., 2002). As a consequence, scholars argued for a more participatory approach and more opportunities to engage in school-based activities to increase the engagement of young Australians (e.g. Mellor et al., 2002; DeJaeghere and Tudball, 2007; Print, 2007).

Towards a national assessment programme

Substantive funding for Discovering Democracy ceased after June 2004, but the previously described situation of Australian civics and citizenship education in the 1990s, subsequent developments and results from research on civic education and participation among youths supported the argument for establishing the NAP-CC. NAP-CC is a triennial assessment of civics and citizenship performance in the domains civic knowledge, understanding of civics and citizenship, civic attitudes and civic participation. It was initially developed by Print and Hughes (2001) and has been conducted regularly since 2004 (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2011, 2014; MCEETYA, 2006, 2009). Thus, it provides the opportunity to examine whether Discovering Democracy has made a difference in the long term with respect to learning outcomes related to active citizenship, especially at school; and more generally to examine whether civics and citizenship education are preparing youth for active and democratic citizenship.

Further developments

After the termination of Discovering Democracy, only limited funding was available for civics and citizenship education in Australia, although the replacement programme Civics and Citizenship Education funded the development of a website and some national activities (MCEETYA, 2009). Although the Australian government made civics and citizenship education one of its priority areas in 2005, for which federal funding depended on the implementation of national statements of learning for all students by 2008, early in the previous decade the Commonwealth government also imposed several other measures unilaterally which rather reflected reactionary educational policy and increased tensions between Commonwealth, states and teacher associations (Macintyre and Simpson, 2009: 128f).

When the new Labour government, elected in late 2007, came into office, civics and citizenship education no longer remained a key curriculum priority (Macintyre and Simpson, 2009). By that time, all schools were provided with civics and citizenship education policy documents, and the national Statements of Learning for Civics and Citizenship (Curriculum Corporation et al., 2006) were implemented by 2008. Today, civics and citizenship education is among the subjects in the key learning area of Humanities and Social Sciences (ACARA, 2015a, 2015b). Although the Draft Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship was published in 2012 (ACARA, 2012), the subsequently developed full national curriculum in civics and citizenship had been awaiting final endorsement until September, 2015, due to another change in Australian government in 2013. Furthermore, the current version 8.1 of that curriculum covers only years 7 to 10 (ACARA, 2015b), while the civics and citizenship curriculum for primary school students (see version 7.5 as of 15 May, 2015; ACARA, 2015a) did not persist. For primary school, civics and citizenship has been merged into a humanities and social sciences learning area, which also incorporates history, geography, and economics and business.

Thus, Discovering Democracy was the most significant initiative aimed at improving civic and citizenship education outcomes in recent Australian history (Hughes et al., 2010). It is therefore reasonable to look at NAP-CC to examine whether Australian secondary school students indeed discover(ed) democracy at school. The 1999 findings of CIVED may be used in addition to examine the outcomes and the potential long-term impact of Discovering Democracy with respect to active and democratic citizenship learning at school.¹

Civics and citizenship learning in Australian schools: are students Discovering Democracy?

In order to examine how learning for active citizenship in Australian schools has improved during the past decade and, thus, to identify the potential gains of Discovering Democracy, and of democratic civics and citizenship education more generally, this analysis uses data from large civics and citizenship studies, CIVED (Torney-Purta et al., 2001; Mellor et al., 2002)² and NAP-CC (ACARA, 2011, 2014; MCEETYA, 2006, 2009). Although CIVED surveyed year 9 students, whereas NAP-CC surveyed both year 6 and year 10 students, it is nevertheless reasonable to compare CIVED and year 10 students in NAP-CC, partly due to the fact that civic learning may primarily take place in year 9, although partly also in year 10 in Australia. We would, therefore, by no means expect declines if civics learning and informal learning opportunities at school have improved during the past 10–15 years. Moreover, data from NAP-CC are usually available for several cycles, which allows us to focus on the developments since the termination of Discovering Democracy. It needs to be mentioned, however, that data for NAP-CC 2013 were collected online, which constitutes a change to previous data collections that relied on paper and pencil testing.³

In the following, this article will primarily – although not exclusively – focus on the informal curriculum for three reasons. First, civic education has not become an independent subject in Australian schools across provinces, but it is rather interdisciplinary taught in the context of social-scientific-oriented subjects and may be better described as ‘social studies’ (Davies and Issitt, 2005). Second, formal civics learning is almost only – and can almost only be – measured via the assessment of knowledge and conceptual understanding, whereas this analysis is predominantly interested in the more active ingredients of active and democratic citizenship education. Probably most relevant to the examination of active citizenship is, finally, the fact that particularly instrumental activities of the informal curriculum rather than the formal curriculum seem more promising to motivate young people actually to engage in politics (Print, 2009). Hence, when it comes to education for active and democratic citizenship, one has good reasons to focus on instrumental activities or the informal curriculum, respectively.

Perceived civics learning at school

CIVED and the first two cycles of NAP-CC asked students what they believe they had learned in school (4-point scale: strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree). Given the percentages of students who (strongly) agreed with the items provided (Table 1), we find a marginal increase in subjective learning over time: at least students seem to have perceived that they learn about civics at school.

Table 1.

Percentage of Australian students who agree or strongly agree having learned in school.

	CIVED 1999	NAP-CC 2004	NAP-CC 2007
About the importance of voting in elections	55	65	66
To understand people who have different ideas to me	88	92	93
To work co-operatively with other students	90	96	95
That I can contribute to solving ‘problems’ at my school	67	72	69
How to represent other students	–^a	70	70
To be interested in how my school ‘works’	–^a	63	63

CIVED: Civic Education Study; NAP-CC: National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship.

Sources: MCEETYA (2006: 77, 2009: 87) and Torney-Purta et al. (2001: 136).

Not measured in CIVED.

Specifically, we see that students surveyed in NAP-CC much more than students surveyed in CIVED believed that they had learned civics-related aspects. This may either be an age effect or an outcome related to Discovering Democracy, or both. Yet these figures show that at least the subjective learning outcomes of civics and citizenship education improve through civic education. Anticipating the figures that are to be presented in the next sections, we may indeed attribute some amount of the ‘increases’ to the increased availability of active learning opportunities in Australian schools, which may be due to Discovering Democracy.

Students’ confidence and efficacy in participating at school

In both studies, students were also asked about their belief in the effectiveness of student participation (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree; reverse coding in NAP-CC). However, these questions were not included in the first two cycles of NAP-CC. Given that the first two items were quite differently raised in both studies, the figures in Table 2 suggest no change between the populations of both studies. It is worth mentioning that students’ confidence in participating at school does not seem to vary much between younger and older students (Amadeo et al., 2002; ACARA, 2011, 2014). Hence, we may conclude that students are quite positive that student participation can make a difference as they were already at the turn of the millennium.

Table 2.

Percentage of Australian students who agree or strongly agree.

	CIVED 1999	NAP-CC 2010	NAP-CC 2013
If students act together at school they can make real change happen	85	89	90
Elected student representatives (such as student council or SRC members) contribute to school decision making	82	76	79
Organising groups of students to express their opinions could help solve problems in schools	84	82	85

CIVED: Civic Education Study; NAP-CC: National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship; SRC: Student Representative Council.

Sources: ACARA (2011: 95, 2014: 104) and Mellor et al. (2002: 87).

Reported participation at school

Student participation at schools was measured differently between studies and cycles. CIVED included only a few items on actual student participation at school, whereas NAP-CC asked for a number of activities. Moreover, in the first cycle of NAP-CC, students were only asked about the availability of student participation activities, which was inquired by principals and directors of schools in CIVED. While the second NAP-CC cycle also asked for actual participation in a separate question, both were put together into one item in 2010 and 2013.

We cannot identify an overall and clear development of student participation at their school across time (Table 3). Therefore, let us first look at the activities that were measured in CIVED and in NAP-CC. It seems that the availability of student councils has remained rather high during those years, and the percentage of students who actually report participation in a student council was only marginally higher in 2010/2013 than in 2007. Moreover, the relatively high percentage of students who reported participation in a student council in CIVED may be due to the item wording: whereas students were asked whether they had been represented in or respectively elected on to a student council in NAP-CC, CIVED rather asked whether they had participated in one.

Table 3.

Australian students’ reports on their participation at school (percentages).

	CIVED1999		NAP-CC2004^a	NAP-CC2007		NAP-CC2010		NAP-CC2013
	N/A^b	Yes	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	Yes
Have voted for class representative	–^c		37	35	63	18	59	16	60
Have been elected on to a Student Council […]	4	34	7	15	18	6	21	6	21
Have helped prepare a school paper […]	41	16	25	30	15	8	17	6	16
Have participated in peer support […]	–^c		20	22	35	7	43	4	47
Have participated in […] the community	9	–^c	7	12	54	2	69	1	74
Have represented the school in activities outside of class […]	–^c		3	6	72	1	78	1	77

CIVED: Civic Education Study; NAP-CC: National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship.

Sources: ACARA (2011: 84, 2014: 92), MCEETYA (2006: 74, 2009: 84f), Torney-Purta et al. (2001: 142) and supplementary analyses of CIVED.

In NAP-CC 2004, students were only asked about the availability of these activities at school.

In CIVED, principals and directors of schools were asked whether these activities were available at school (own calculations using the school weight; cf. Sibberns, 2005), whereas students only reported their actual participation in these activities.

Not measured in CIVED.

The number of schools that provided students the opportunity to prepare a school paper or magazine may have increased between 1999 and 2013. However, the amount of students who actually reported having participated in these activities remained rather stable between 15% and 17%. Yet the amount of students who reported participation in activities in the community, provided at their school, was much higher in 2010 compared with 2007, and again higher in 2013 than in 2010. Moreover, almost all schools seem to give their students the opportunity to participate in activities in the community nowadays.

It is noteworthy, though, that, for all three activities mentioned so far, the number of students who reported no such activity was available at their school went up in 2007, while it was smaller in 2004 and after 2007. This is a result that we can identify for most of the items on participation at school across NAP-CC. Elections for class representatives are the sole exception. The latter is surprisingly the only activity which – according to the reports by the students – was still unavailable in 16% of the schools in 2013, whereas in that year 1%–6% of year 10 students said they could participate in the other activities at their school.

Between 2007 and 2013, it also seems that the number of year 10 students who participated in activities at their school increased, with some activities being at the same level in 2010 and 2013. Most increases were rather small, but we find considerable inclines in the percentages of students who reported participation in peer support or mentoring programmes, in activities in the community and, to a smaller amount, in activities outside their schools. Only the numbers of year 10 students who had voted for class representatives dropped slightly between 2007 and 2010.⁴ Consequently, we may conclude that participation at school has increased, at least since 2004. The reason may potentially be found in the increased availability of participation activities at Australian schools, based on the data from NAP-CC. Yet it is surprising that for most of the activities, the number of students who reported unavailability of such activities at their school peaked in 2007.

Reported participation in civic organisations

CIVED and NAP-CC asked students whether they had participated in several civic organisations. The figures in Table 4 yield interesting results: given these percentages, it seems that the number of students who report participation in civic organisations was way higher among year 10 students in 2010 in comparison with ninth graders in 1999, and it slightly increased again in 2013.

Table 4.

Percentage of Australian students who report participation in civic organisations.

	CIVED 1999	NAP-CC 2010	NAP-CC 2013
An environmental organisation	19	31	35
A human rights organisation	4	14	18
A voluntary group doing something to help the community	33	52	58
Collecting money for a charity or social cause	47	65	65

CIVED: Civic Education Study; NAP-CC: National Assessment Program – Civics and Citizenship.

Sources: ACARA (2011: 86, 2014: 96) and Torney-Purta et al. (2001: 142).

Most students reported participation in community-related activities such as having collected money for a social cause or working in a group conducting voluntary activities to help the community. Civic activities with a wider scope – participating in an environmental or human rights organisation – were less common among secondary school students, yet considerably more frequently reported in 2010 than in 1999. If there was a constant increase or not cannot be said by these figures. However, data from 2004 and 2007 rather support the assumption that the number of students who participated in civic organisations may have slightly increased since 2004 (MCEETYA, 2006, 2009). It is hard to determine, though, whether the participation rates between CIVED 1999 and NAP-CC 2004 differed, due to the use of fewer items and a 4-point frequency scale in both NAP-CC 2004 and 2007.

Discussion

This article started by approaching the concepts of active and democratic citizenship, and we found that civics and citizenship education which aims at promoting citizens that actively participate in social, political and community life may be best advised by supporting this through democratic experiences, although the pedagogical approach will influence the kind of citizen that emerges (Westheimer and Kahne, 2004; Menthe, 2012). Schools are key agents in this regard because they often provide both formal citizenship learning and, more importantly, informal opportunities to learn for active and democratic citizenship (Print, 2009).

Policies are key to educational goals, however, and so they are to civics and citizenship education in schools. They consequently may affect what is taught in schools and which experiential learning opportunities schools provide. Considering that a major aim of Australian civics and citizenship policies since the mid-1990s has been an education designed to develop and promote active citizenship among Australian youths, it seems imperative to understand the potential outcomes and therefore the effectiveness of these policies.

The evaluations of Discovering Democracy (Erebus Consulting Group, 1999, 2003) indeed yielded that schools and teachers believed that students should become active citizens, and schools offered opportunities to participate in school decision making and community life. However, assessments focused less on active citizenship. Therefore, survey data on active citizenship learning provided by NAP-CC (ACARA, 2011, 2014; MCEETYA, 2006, 2009) were used to examine the potential long-term yields of Discovering Democracy in particular and of Australian civics and citizenship education policies in general, which emphasise(d) the necessity of improvements in civics and citizenship education and the very need to promote active citizenship among the young. The article compared results from NAP-CC across time and with CIVED (Torney-Purta et al., 2001; Mellor et al., 2002), although we need to be aware that the latter surveyed Australian ninth graders. Yet we may trust that this comparison nevertheless helps better to understand the impact of Discovering Democracy on active citizenship learning at Australian schools.

We also need to be careful with respect to comparisons that rely on NAP-CC 2013 due to the change in data collection mode (but see Note 3), but there is reason to conclude that students’ active citizenship learning outcomes have slightly improved during the past 10 or even 15 years. Their willingness to get involved in political realm may not have increased much, but it is probably only a matter of time to reap those fruits, too, if active citizenship learning at schools constantly continues to promote opportunities for experiential learning of democracy and active citizenship.

In particular, opportunities to engage in school decision making and to participate at school in general have seemingly increased, in particular between 2004 and 2010/2013. This is not simply a matter of increased opportunity, but in fact actual participation in school activities has also increased. This is quite surprising given that in 2007, only around two-thirds of secondary school students said that they had learned about the importance of voting, or that and how they can contribute to school decision making. On the other hand, they were quite positive that student participation can make a difference (as students were in 1999 as well), and they were convinced having learned to respect different opinions and to value cooperation between students.

Adding to an increased involvement in school decision making, participation in civic organisations was way higher among year 10 students in 2010/2013 compared with ninth graders in 1999. We may ask whether community participation has increased during that time, but there are no appropriate time series available. Figures from NAP-CC cycles in 2004 and 2007 do, however, rather suggest an increase in active community participation – at least since 2004, although the use of different measurement scales additionally cumbers a clear and definite interpretation.

The latter increase could also be understood as representation of the change in political participation during the past decades during which the repertoire and definition of political participation broadened and when people more often employed rather unconventional, less institutionalised means of political participation instead of conventional activities within political institutions (Norris, 2002; Zukin et al., 2006; Dalton, 2008; Fox, 2014; Van Deth, 2014). This is also reflected by a movement towards more locally and community-oriented Australian youths (Harris et al., 2008). Yet the reported findings indicate that more opportunities to participate result in more actual participation. Transferred to political realm, this may implicate that contributing to political decisions in the community and experiencing how the political process works, in combination with more opportunities or more obviously available chances to participate in the political process, might indeed result in higher levels of participation in politics.

We may wonder why fewer activities to participate at school were reported to be available in 2007 compared to 2004 and 2010/2013. It seems implausible to blame the differing measurements with one versus two items for the availability of and actual participation in activities at school (Note 3). On the contrary, we may speculate that the reduced funding after the termination of Discovering Democracy in combination with the subsequent introduction of reactionary educational policies and increased tensions between the Commonwealth government, states and teacher associations (Macintyre and Simpson, 2009) caused unease and demotivation among schools and teachers. Schools’ and teachers’ reduced scope for civics and citizenship pedagogies might have contributed to the identified developments. The fact that the figures were more positive in 2010 and 2013 may be attributed to the implementation of the national statements of learning for all students, which occurred only by 2008, and the development of an Australian Curriculum in Civics and Citizenship Education.

Conclusion

This article dealt with the behaviour-related dimension of democratic citizenship rather than with the value or cognitive dimension, with particular focus on informal civics and citizenship education and participation at school, in civic organisations and in students’ communities. This is of significance because experiences of and involvement in democratic decision making processes are very promising ways ‘to introduce democracy and democratic values and attitudes’ (Menthe, 2012: 77). Schools and communities can thereby help students to acquire dispositions that are necessary for effective and active citizenship in civic life and democratically constituted societies in general if students learn that and how they actually can contribute to and influence decisions made at their schools (Dewey, 1956 [1916]; Schulz et al., 2010).

This article has contributed some promising, yet by no means overwhelming insights in that policy initiatives can support schools in the development of experiential civics and citizenship learning in school life. This may apply especially to Discovering Democracy – although the programme’s benefits seem rather little compared to the financial support; and it is particularly true if national and state governments as well as teachers act in concert instead of inaccurate cooperation between these players. Australian schools laid the foundation of prospectively increasing numbers of active democratic citizens, and we could already identify some gains in improving active and thereby democratic citizenship among secondary school students. We still have a long way to go, but we may encourage schools and policy makers to pursue the politics of experiential learning for building active and democratic citizens. The students who participate in school and community decision making today are probably those citizens who make our democracy last and, through their participation, also legitimate democracy.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The work was carried out while I was an affiliate member of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories, Bamberg, Germany, and a visiting fellow at The University of Sydney.

Notes

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