Civic Knowledge Framework

Abstract

An assessment of civic knowledge and understanding is a central element of ICCS 2022. Responses to questions in this assessment require students to apply cognitive processes to civic and citizenship content. The assessment encompasses student achievement that extends beyond the recall of information and includes students’ ability to reason with and apply relevant knowledge. The content that underpins this assessment is organized around four domains each containing several subdomains: civic institutions and processes (state institutions, economic systems, civil society); civic principles (equity, freedom, rule of law, sustainability, solidarity); civic participation (decision-making, influencing, community participation); and civic roles and identities (citizens, civic self-image, civic connectedness). In addition, the framework distinguishes two cognitive domains that reflect processes applied by students when they respond to the assessment: knowing and reasoning or applying.

2.1 Framework Scope and Structure

The ICCS test of civic knowledge and understanding is a central component of this study. To respond to test questions assessing students’ knowledge and understanding of civic-related issues, students need to apply distinct cognitive processes to civic and citizenship content. In the context of ICCS, civic knowledge has evolved as the term used to refer to demonstrable student achievement based on the application of the cognitive processes to content as measured by the ICCS test. In ICCS, the term civic knowledge encompasses student achievement that extends beyond their capacity to recall information and includes students’ ability to reason with and apply their knowledge.

The content that underpins the measurement of student civic knowledge in ICCS 2022, as in previous cycles, is organized according to four distinct content domains. To further support a complete representation of the cognitive aspects that underpin expressions of students’ civic knowledge, the ICCS 2022 assessment framework distinguishes between two cognitive domains that outline the types of cognitive processes applied by students’ when they respond to test items.

2.2 Content Domains

Content domains describe areas related to civic and citizenship education about which individuals may have developed knowledge and understanding. Each content domain is divided into subdomains, and each subdomain is related to a number of aspects that may overlap.

The ICCS civic knowledge framework frequently uses a set of key terms that are either related across all content domains, or specifically related to particular content domains. While recognizing that many of them are the subject of ongoing dispute (see, for example, Koyama, 2017; Haste, 2010), the definitions of key terms (both general and domain-specific) have been developed to support consistent understandings of the framework’s contents across the broad range of countries participating and interested in ICCS (see Appendix B for a list of relevant key terms).

The four content domains are:

• I. Civic institutions and systems

• II. Civic principles

• III. Civic participation

• IV. Civic roles and identities

The first content domain, civic institutions and systems, relates to the mechanisms, systems, and organizations that underpin societies. The second domain, civic principles, is concerned with shared ethical foundations of civic societies. Civic participation refers to the nature of the processes and practices defining and mediating the participation of citizens in their civic communities. ICCS recognizes the centrality of the individual citizen through the fourth content domain civic roles and identities. This domain refers to formal or informal civic roles, citizens and the individuals’ personal perception of being agents of civic action with connections to multiple communities. Together, these four domains describe the civic and citizenship content that will be assessed with the ICCS 2022 civic knowledge test.

It is important to emphasize that the content domains in ICCS do not presuppose an analytic structure. Across previous cycles of ICCS, civic knowledge has been reported as a single dimension (Schulz et al., 2010, 2018). The presentation of content across four domains is primarily intended to organize the content thematically in a way that is coherent with civic and citizenship curriculums, reinforce the content validity of the instruments, and make the framework content accessible to readers. With that in mind, the thematic differences across the four content domains may provide an analytic framework for further secondary analyses of students’ civic knowledge and will also be reviewed with ICCS 2022 main survey data.

The four content domains were originally defined in the ICCS 2009 assessment framework (Schulz et al., 2008) and retained with minor modifications in ICCS 2016 (Schulz et al., 2016). All content domains were retained in substance but with some modifications for ICCS 2022. While in the first two cycles aspects of individuals’ roles as citizens were described as part of the first content domain (previously called, civic society and systems), they are now incorporated into the fourth content domain (now called civic roles and identities). The content domain civic institutions and systems now includes economic systems as an additional subdomain. In the content domain civic principles, the subdomain sense of community was substituted with the content domain solidarity, while sustainability was added as another subdomain. In comparison with the ICCS 2009 and ICCS 2016 frameworks, this framework also includes more explicit references to content associated with global citizenship education and education for sustainable development. It is important to note that while structural changes were introduced in ICCS 2022, all civic knowledge aspects present in the previous assessment frameworks continue to be included.

2.2.1 Civic Institutions and Systems

The content domain, civic institutions and systems, focuses on the formal and informal mechanisms and organizations that underpin the functioning of the societies. The three subdomains of civic institutions and systems are:

• I. State institutions

• II. Economic systems

• III. Civil society

State institutions

The subdomain, state institutions, focuses on those institutions central to the processes and enacting of civic governance and legislation in the common interest of the people they represent and serve.

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Legislatures/parliaments

• Governments

• Supranational/intergovernmental governance bodies

• Judiciaries

• Law enforcement bodies

• National defense forces

• Public service providers

• Electoral commissions

Economic systems

The subdomain, economic systems, focuses on institutions, players, structures, mechanisms, and relationships that are relevant to the economy.

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Economic structures, mechanisms, and conditions

• Economic interest groups (e.g., chambers of commerce)

• Companies/corporations

• Financial institutions (national and supranational)

• Tariffs and trade relations between countries

• Taxation

Civil society

The subdomain, civil society, focuses on those institutions that can mediate citizens’ contact with their state institutions and allow citizens to actively pursue many of their roles in their societies.

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Trade unions

• Political parties

• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

• Advocacy groups (for example, pressure, lobby, campaign, special interest groups)

• Traditional media (for example, newspaper, television, and radio)

• New media (for example, web forums, blogs, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and podcasts)

• Religious institutions

• Schools

• Cultural organizations

2.2.2 Civic Principles

The content domain, civic principles, focuses on the shared ethical foundations of civic societies. The framework regards support, protection, and promotion of these principles as civic responsibilities and as frequently occurring motivations for civic participation by individuals and groups. The domain consists of five subdomains:

• I. Equity

• II. Freedom

• III. Rule of law

• IV. Sustainability

• V. Solidarity

Equity

The subdomain, equity, focuses on the principle that all people have the right to fair and just treatment, and that protecting and promoting equity is essential to achieving peace, harmony, and productivity within and among communities. The principle of equity is derived from the notion of equality—that “all people are born equal in terms of dignity and rights” (United Nations, 1948).

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Equal opportunities

• Equal rights

• Inequalities across and within societies

Freedom

The subdomain, freedom, focuses on the concept that all people should have fundamental freedoms, as articulated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948). Societies have a responsibility to actively protect the freedom of their members and to support the protection of freedom in all communities, including those that are not their own. However, there are situations where certain freedoms might have to be restricted when they conflict with others (e.g., to prevent hate speech aimed at the incitement of hatred toward others) or when this is necessary to preserve the safety of society as a whole (e.g., in national emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic).

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Freedom of opinion and expression

• Freedom of movement and residence

• Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion

• Freedom of peaceful assembly and association

• Freedom from fear

• Freedom from want

Rule of Law

The subdomain, rule of law, is related to the principle of governance that all persons, institutions, and entities (public or private and including the State itself) are subject and accountable to laws, which are publicly promulgated, independently adjudicated, equally enforced, and consistent with international standards and norms protecting human rights. It furthermore requires the establishment of “measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of the law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness, and procedural and legal transparency” (United Nations, 1948, 2004).

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Recognition of the supremacy of law

• Equality before the law regardless of their background and personal characteristics (such as gender, race, religion, authority, or social status)

• Fairness in the application of law

• Separation of powers

• Mechanisms and institutions for challenging existing laws

• Participation in decision-making

• Legal certainty

• Legal and procedural transparency

Sustainability

The subdomain, sustainability, is related to the principle that human development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (see Schulz et al., 2016; United Nations, 1987). The principle of sustainability requires both collective and individual activities to make human development more sustainable.

Aspects of sustainability include:

• Environmental sustainability as a “state in which the demands placed on the natural world can be met without negatively impacting on the natural world or reducing its capacity to support human life” (Schulz et al., 2016, p. 18).

• Social sustainability as a state in which current social practices, processes and systems support the capacity for future generations to have the same or greater access to social resources than the current generation to ensure human survival and promote the well-being of all human beings.

• Economic sustainability as a state in which an economy can support a defined level of economic production indefinitely through responsible consumption and production so that it can meet future demands in a sustainable way.¹

Solidarity

The subdomain, solidarity, reflects the notion that individuals or groups show support for each other. Solidarity is an expression of social cohesion based upon the interdependence which people have on each other and is a civic principle that is related to their sense of belonging and connectedness within societies.² Expressions of solidarity between members and groups in society tend to vary considerably across different national contexts (e.g., in terms of support provided to people in need). The notion of transnational solidarity is also of importance in this context and relates to the degree to which members of a national society develop recognition for support of those in other countries (see, for example, Domerath, 2012). It is important to note that there are also negative forms of solidarity, as, for example, when solidarity is promoted only within particular groups in the population at the expense of others.

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Social welfare

• Charity

• Mutual aid or support

• Transnational aid or support

2.2.3 Civic Participation

The content domain, civic participation, refers to the manifestations of individuals’ actions in their communities. Civic participation can operate at any level of community and in any community context (including schools as the imminent context for the age group under study). The level of participation can range from awareness to engagement through to influence. The three subdomains of civic participation are:

• I. Decision-making

• II. Influencing

• III. Community participation

Decision-making

The subdomain, decision-making, focuses on active participation that directly results in the implementation of policy or practice regarding the individual’s community or a group within that community. Aspects of this subdomain include:

• Engaging in organizational governance

• Voting

Influencing

The subdomain, influencing, focuses on actions aimed at informing and affecting any or all of the policies, practices, and attitudes of others or groups of others in the individual’s community. Aspects of this subdomain include:

• Engaging in public debate (including participation through social media)

• Engaging in demonstrations of public support or protest (including “virtual” engagement through the use of, for example, online petitions)

• Engaging in policy development

• Developing proposals for action or advocacy

• Selective purchasing of products according to ethical beliefs about the way they were produced (ethical consumption/ethical consumerism)

• Recognizing corruption

Community participation

The subdomain, community participation, focuses on participation, with a primary focus on enhancing a person’s connections with a community, for the ultimate benefit of that community. Aspects of this subdomain include:

• Volunteering

• Participating in cultural, community or interest-based organizations (including virtual/online communities)

• Acquisition of information (through traditional media, social media, internet sites or personal communication)

2.2.4 Civic Roles and Identities

The content domain, civic roles and identities, refers to knowledge and understanding of the individual’s civic roles and identities, and their perceptions of these roles and identities. Civic roles and identities include those that are related to concepts of nation, ethnic origin, and cultural heritage. ICCS assumes that individuals both influence and are influenced by the relationships they have with family, peers, and civic communities. Thus, an individual’s civic identity explicitly links to a range of personal and civic interrelationships. This framework asserts and assumes that individuals may have multiple articulated identities rather than a single civic identity. Civic communities include points of reference at many levels, ranging from family and local community to geographical regions or the global community. Furthermore, communities can be based on specific topics (such as sports or common interests) or even be formed through the use of digital technologies.

The content domain civic roles and identities comprises three subdomains:

• I. Citizens

• II. Civic self-image

• III. Civic connectedness

Citizens

The subdomain, citizens, focuses on students’ knowledge and understanding of formal and informal aspects of the civic relationships between individuals and their societies.

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Citizens’ roles within their civic society

• Citizens’ responsibilities within their civic society

• Citizens’ opportunities to engage within their civic society (e.g., voting rights)

Civic self-image

The subdomain, civic self-image, refers to students’ recognition of the differences in experience individuals may have regarding their place within and across different civic communities. Civic self-image focuses on individuals’ knowledge and understanding of their civic and citizenship values, their management of these values, and the extent to which these values can be in harmony or in conflict when individuals engage with their various civic communities. Civic communities may range from local groups to the global community, and may also consist of virtual communities (e.g., defined by those that are digitally supported).

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Global citizenship identity

• Supra-national identity

• National identity

• Cultural identity

• Ethnic identity

• Gender identity

• Religious identity

• Identifying with communities (local, interest-based, virtual)

Civic connectedness

The subdomain, civic connectedness, refers to students’ recognition of the sense of connection individuals may have regarding different civic communities. It also refers to a recognition of the communities’ individuals may feel connected to that may vary substantially and include global as well as virtual (e.g., digitally defined) communities.

Civic connectedness also includes students’ recognition and understanding of the definition and role of tolerance toward diversity (of civic ideas and actions) within and across their communities, and their recognition and understanding of the effects that different civic and citizenship values and belief systems across different communities may have on members of those communities.

Aspects related to this subdomain include:

• Acceptance of, respect for, and appreciation of difference (sometimes also referred to as tolerance)

• Global awareness

• Sense of community

• Social cohesion

2.3 Cognitive Domains

Each of the four content domains encompasses different types of knowledge concerned with civic and citizenship issues (factual, procedural, conceptual, and meta-cognitive). The civic knowledge framework considers the extent to which students develop the capacity to process the content of the four domains and reach conclusions that are broader than any single piece of knowledge. This includes the processes involved in understanding complex sets of factors influencing civic actions and planning for and evaluating strategic solutions and outcomes. The scope of civic knowledge as conceptualized for ICCS is not limited to direct applications of knowledge that reach conclusions about concrete situations. It also includes the selection and assimilation of knowledge, as well as the understanding of multiple concepts, so that conclusions about complex, multifaceted, unfamiliar, and abstract situations can be reached. To capture these distinct features of cognitive knowledge, ICCS 2022 distinguishes remembering or recalling information or processing content in terms of understanding from applying an understanding to new situations³.

When responding to the ICCS 2022 civic knowledge test, students need to know the civic and citizenship content that is assessed. They also need to be able to apply more complex cognitive processing to their civic and citizenship knowledge and to relate their knowledge and understandings to real-world civic action. Consequently, two cognitive domains are observable, the first, knowing, outlines the types of civic and citizenship information that students are required to demonstrate knowledge of. The second domain, reasoning and applying, details the cognitive processes that students require to reach conclusions and to translate their knowledge into civic actions. Similar definitions of cognitive domains can be found in the mathematics and science frameworks for TIMSS (see Mullis and Martin, 2013, 2017).

2.3.1 Knowing

The cognitive domain, knowing, refers to the learned civic and citizenship information that students use when engaging in the more complex cognitive tasks that help them make sense of their civic worlds. Students are expected to remember, recall or recognize definitions, descriptions, and the key properties of civic and citizenship concepts and content, and to illustrate these with examples. Due to the nature of ICCS as an international study, the concrete and abstract concepts students are expected to know in the core cognitive assessment are those that can be generalized across societies.

The cognitive domain, knowing, relates to the following cognitive processes:

• Defining: Respondents are able to identify statements that directly define civic and citizenship concepts and content.

• Describing: Respondents are able to identify statements that directly describe the key characteristics of civic and citizenship concepts and content.

• Illustrating with examples: Respondents are able to identify examples that directly support or clarify statements about civic and citizenship concepts and content.

2.3.2 Reasoning and Applying

The cognitive domain, reasoning and applying, refers to the ways in which students use civic and citizenship information to reach conclusions that are broader than the contents of any single concept and to make use of these in real-world contexts. Reasoning and applying includes, for example: the use of knowledge to reach conclusions about familiar concrete situations; the selection and assimilation of knowledge and understanding of multiple concepts; the evaluation of proposed and enacted courses of action; providing recommendations for solutions or courses of action.

The cognitive domain, reasoning and applying, relates to the following cognitive processes:

• Interpreting information: Respondents are able to identify statements about information presented in textual, graphical, and/or tabular form that make sense of the information in the light of a civic and citizenship concept.

• Relating: Respondents are able to use the key defining aspects of a civic and citizenship concept to explain or recognize how an example illustrates a concept.

• Justifying: Respondents are able to use evidence and civic and citizenship concepts to construct or recognize a reasoned argument to support a point of view.

• Integrating: Respondents are able to identify connections between different concepts across themes and across civic and citizenship content domains.

• Generalizing: Respondents are able to identify civic and citizenship conceptual principles manifested as specific examples and explain how these may apply in other civic and citizenship contexts.

• Evaluating: Respondents are able to identify judgments about the advantages and disadvantages of alternative points of view or approaches to civic and citizenship concepts and actions.

• Suggesting solutions: Respondents are able to identify courses of action or thought that can be used to alleviate civic and citizenship problems expressed as conflict, tension, and/or unresolved or contested ideas.

• Predicting: Respondents are able to identify likely outcomes of given civic and citizenship policies strategies and/or actions.