Political Sciences and 'Citizenship' in the Classroom

The recent introduction of the concept of European Citizenship by Article 10 of the European Constitution seems to be at odds with the extremely low participation of European citizens in the political decision-making process. The historically low voters turnout at the European elections of June 2004, especially in the newly accessed member states, are signals that more and more people turn their back on the political system. We witness also a growing number of young people that take less interest in the political system or have an outspoken negative attitude towards it (cf. The large IEA research among 90.000 14- and 17-year olds in 28 countries by Judith Torney-Purta et al.). In the long run, this combination of poor knowledge and negative attitudes might lead to decreased political engagement and participation, which in turn will cause major problems to the functioning of our democracies. Therefore, in several countries the community of political scientists has been urged to reinvest in civic education programmes for pupils of middle and high schools. The Council of Europe for instance, has declared 2005 the European Year of Citizenship through Education, while several non-governmental institutions launched a call too. It is therefore the aim of this section to bring together both theoretical contributions on effects of political socialisation, the values of citizenship, and the construction of a European Citizenship, ... and more practical and instructional contributions on how to teach political sciences in the (pre-university) classroom, how to set up middle and high school curricula or handbooks, etc. We especially welcome contributions by scholars from both Eastern and Western European countries.