**Towards a Comprehensive School E**ff**ectiveness Model of Citizenship Education: An Empirical Analysis of Secondary Schools in The Netherlands**

### **Manja Coopmans 1,\* , Geert Ten Dam <sup>1</sup> , Anne Bert Dijkstra <sup>1</sup> and Ineke Van der Veen <sup>2</sup>**


Received: 16 July 2020; Accepted: 4 September 2020; Published: 10 September 2020

**Abstract:** We still have only a limited understanding of the effectiveness of schools in promoting citizenship, the factors explaining this effectiveness and the way in which these aspects interact. Using elaborate cross-sectional data from students, teachers, team leaders and school leaders at 78 Dutch secondary schools, this study empirically examines a school effectiveness model of citizenship education in order to achieve a more comprehensive explanation of citizenship competence acquisition. Using multilevel structural equation models, we analyze direct and indirect school-level predictors of student knowledge, attitudes and self-evaluated skills regarding citizenship. Four aspects of citizenship education are examined: the school's policies regarding citizenship education, its teaching practices, and its professional and pedagogical learning environment (i.e., teaching community and classroom climate). With respect to school policies, positive effects are found for the attention paid to citizenship education in staff meetings. The professional learning environment is related to students' citizenship competences mainly indirectly, via the average classroom climate. Effects of teaching practices vary: more emphasis on monitoring is more frequently found at schools with lower average levels of citizenship competences, whereas schools that let students choose their own topics in class have on average higher levels of citizenship competences.

**Keywords:** citizenship education; citizenship competences; educational effectiveness; school policies; learning environment; classroom climate; teaching practices

### **1. Introduction**

In many Western countries, the last two decades have witnessed an upsurge in the debate about the social outcomes of education. Social outcomes include social returns, social cohesion and social capital, and social and societal competences (Dijkstra et al. 2014a). The latter, which are often referred to as citizenship competences, comprise a range of attitudes, skills and knowledge related to democratic conduct, socially responsible behavior and the ability to handle differences and conflicts (Ten Dam et al. 2011; Ten Dam and Volman 2007; Westheimer and Kahne 2004). In many countries, politicians and society at large are increasingly paying attention to citizenship and how schools can contribute to it (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2017). This development was inspired by the increasing diversification of society, declining social cohesion and the need to strengthen the foundations of the democratic society (Foa and Mounk 2016; Fukuyama 2014; Mounk, Yascha 2017. The People vs. Democracy).

It is unclear how schools contribute to the promotion of citizenship competences and what produces effective citizenship competences. Several recent large-scale studies (e.g., CELS, ICCS and COOL12-18)

suggest, however, that what schools do does matter. Various smaller datasets have also contributed to our slowly growing understanding of the relationship between education and the acquisition of citizenship competences by students (e.g., Amnå 2012; Dijkstra et al. 2015; Geboers et al. 2013; Isac et al. 2014; Keating and Janmaat 2016), an important observation being the substantial differences in citizenship outcomes between students from different social backgrounds and between academic and vocational tracks (Munniksma et al. 2017; Schulz et al. 2018).

While these studies have provided valuable insights into predictors of young people's citizenship competences, these mainly concern classroom characteristics (such as an open classroom climate) and characteristics of the school's context (such as the socioeconomic and ethnic diversity of its student population). Less is known about the potential contribution of more general effectiveness-enhancing factors that are known from the extensive tradition of school effectiveness research in the social domain (e.g., Hattie 2009; Reynolds et al. 2014), such as a school's educational policies, the organization of education, the professional learning environment and the interactions between these and other previously examined aspects of citizenship education.

Several scholars have argued for a comprehensive school effectiveness model of citizenship education that combines all potential aspects of citizenship education (cf. Dijkstra et al. 2014a; Maslowski et al. 2009; Reichert and Print 2018; Sampermans et al. 2018) and includes relevant general factors from the school effectiveness research into cognitive (and to some extent, non-cognitive) outcomes. Despite earlier attempts, however, to formulate such a model, so far little effort has gone into the empirical testing of a school effectiveness model of citizenship education. Those studies that did succeed in analyzing conceptual frameworks of citizenship education effectiveness have been either exploratory (Scheerens 2011) or cover potential relevant school factors, such as the school policy level and professional learning environment, to some extent only (Isac et al. 2014).

In a critical analysis of current approaches to modelling educational effectiveness, Creemers and Kyriakides (2006) tend to agree on the need for more encompassing models, arguing that a dynamic model of educational effectiveness should at least be specific about the dimensions on which the measurement of school effectiveness is based, and should define the relations among these dimensions. Recent studies support this argument.Whereas direct effects of factors at the school level are often small, as is consistently shown for a wide range of school outcomes, including citizenship outcomes (Dijkstra et al. 2015; Isac et al. 2014), indirect effects seem to be more substantial, for instance through their influence on classroom-level factors such as the teaching practice (cf. Creemers and Kyriakides 2010; Kyriakides et al. 2010).

To sum up, although we are slowly obtaining a better understanding of factors that contribute to the acquisition of citizenship competences, the range of variables that have been investigated is still modest and comprehensive model estimations are largely absent. Moreover, few datasets with information on citizenship education contain broad and sufficiently elaborated sets of variables to empirically examine this type of model, including multiple levels, dimensions and both direct and indirect effects. Consequently, we only have a limited understanding of the effectiveness of schools in promoting citizenship competences. Building upon previously constructed theoretical models of school characteristics underlying social outcomes and citizenship competences in particular (Dijkstra et al. 2014a; Isac et al. 2014; Maslowski et al. 2009), the current study, therefore, focuses on estimating a comprehensive school effectiveness model of citizenship education. To this end, we used large-scale omnibus-like data on a broad range of aspects of citizenship education collected in 2016 at Dutch secondary schools.

In doing so, we are able to test a framework combining previously tested aspects of citizenship education—more specifically, a school's teaching practices and average classroom climate—with aspects that have less often been empirically examined with regard to citizenship education, i.e., a school's educational policies and its professional learning environment, while controlling for relevant student and school characteristics. Using multilevel structural equation models, we analyzed direct and indirect predictors of students' citizenship knowledge, attitudes and self-evaluated skills. Following these

lines, we strive to provide a better understanding of school characteristics that contribute to citizenship outcomes.

As in many other countries, Dutch schools have an obligation to improve "active citizenship and social integration" as is stipulated in legislation since 2005 (Dijkstra et al. 2014b). Schools are free, however, to organize citizenship education according to their own ideas, as long as they respect the basic values of democracy. What content they teach, how much attention they pay to promoting citizenship, and how they meet their citizenship goals (e.g., as part of other subjects, through projects, teaching it as a separate subject, etc.) is up to each school individually. Schools are also free to choose if and how to assess whether students have met their citizenship goals. As a result, schools differ greatly with respect to content, organization, and the quality of citizenship education, and most schools do not measure the effects of their teaching (Inspectorate of Education 2016). Promotion of citizenship competences might be found in curriculum elements, the school's climate and/or aspects of its pedagogical approach, but it is often unclear whether and how various activities are related. Schools also differ in the outcomes of their citizenship education. Compared to other countries, outcome differences between schools are relatively large, including differences between schools offering vocational and academic tracks (Munniksma et al. 2017; Schulz et al. 2018). As a result of the high level of school autonomy and extensive differences between schools, the Dutch case is well suited to answer the research question of the current study.

### **2. Theoretical Framework**

The school effectiveness model of school quality and social outcomes constructed by Dijkstra and colleagues (Dijkstra et al. 2014a) builds on assumptions taken from general effective school models (e.g., Creemers and Kyriakides 2007; Reynolds et al. 2014; Scheerens 2016). For the purpose of this study, we specifically focused on the acquisition of civic or citizenship competences as social outcome, which, as mentioned earlier, refer to a range of attitudes, self-evaluated skills (also referred to as self-efficacy) and knowledge related to democratic conduct, socially responsible behavior and the ability to handle differences and conflicts (Ten Dam et al. 2011; Westheimer and Kahne 2004). According to Dijkstra and colleagues (Dijkstra et al. 2014a), the social quality of a school concerns all aspects of quality contributing to the acquisition of social competences by students, including a focused approach (e.g., clear goals and coordination), school ethos (e.g., the alignment of shared values, teacher behavior and expectations), classroom climate, and content (both the formal curriculum and opportunities to practice). At the school level, a democratic learning environment (e.g., teachers' participation and values in favor of learning) and democratic classroom climate (as visible in teacher–student and student–student interaction) are seen as substantial indicators of the quality of instruction. Additionally, the opportunity to learn about and practice democracy at school is considered an important element of effective citizenship education (cf. Dijkstra et al. 2014a; Isac et al. 2014; Maslowski et al. 2009; Scheerens 2011).

In the present study, we distinguish between four main types of school aspects related to citizenship education: (1) the school's citizenship education approach and policies as manifested in the citizenship vision and the organization of citizenship education; (2) the quality of the (professional) learning environment, focusing on teacher behaviors, expectations and school leadership; (3) citizenship-related teaching practices and opportunities to practice; and (4) the pedagogical learning environment, including students' perception of the classroom climate.

*The school's citizenship education policies*. Educational effectiveness researchers consider school policies as one of the main indicators of the extent to which a school pays attention to a specific topic and hence the level of educational effectiveness (for an overview, see Creemers and Kyriakides 2010; Kyriakides et al. 2010). Examples of school policies are the school's educational vision, the formulated guidelines, and the resources spent on the organization. School policies are believed to impact student outcomes both directly and indirectly, most importantly by providing guidelines and offering support to teachers and other stakeholders for the implementation of the policies in teaching practices

and the learning environment. In a meta-analysis of studies on the dynamic model of educational effectiveness, Kyriakides et al. (2010) indeed found that effective schools were able to develop policies and take concrete action in order to improve their teaching practice and learning environment. In addition, educational effectiveness research emphasize the importance of school policies that support the improvement of these factors, such as resources for the professionalization of subject teachers (Hopkins and Reynolds 2001).

The above can be expected to apply to citizenship education too. Although research on this particular aspect of school is limited, a previous study found that students at schools that had formulated clear visions on citizenship education were more positive about their citizenship skills and also reflected on citizenship themes more often. Reflection on citizenship themes was also more frequent among students from schools that emphasized the learning of social skills. No effects were, however, visible for citizenship knowledge or citizenship attitudes (Dijkstra et al. 2015). In view of relatively modest school effects on citizenship competences as shown by earlier studies (Isac et al. 2014; Schulz et al. 2018), we expect that the effects of school policies on citizenship education will be mainly indirect, by way of their impact on other processes such as the teaching practice and classroom climate. To examine this, we include in our model both school policy-related aspects (the importance attached to citizenship themes) and organizational aspects (the attention paid to citizenship education in staff meetings and the resources available for the organization of citizenship education).

*Professional learning environment*. The school environment intermediates between the inputs and outputs of a school by functioning as a social system (Hofman et al. 1999). Another important aspect of the school context promoting educational effectiveness is, therefore, the extent to which a positive learning environment has been created at the school (Creemers and Kyriakides 2010; Kyriakides et al. 2010). A distinction is often made between the professional and pedagogical learning environment. The former focuses on the 'professional' community of the school, such as (the relationships between) its teachers and the school's educational or administrative leadership. Various authors on citizenship education have emphasized the importance of a cohesive teacher community, with a strong sense of belonging, a shared vision, common values and practices, and committed to reconciliate potential conflicts (Dijkstra et al. 2014a; Isac et al. 2014; Maslowski et al. 2009; Scheerens 2011). Dijkstra and colleagues (Dijkstra et al. 2014a) use the term school ethos for this, referring to teacher behaviors and expectations towards each other, other staff members, as well as towards their students.

A meta-analysis of the impact of school factors on student achievement found that school leadership did not influence student outcomes directly, or only in a minor way. The authors suggest to focus instead on the impact of the 'end result' of school leadership, such as the development of teaching policy (Kyriakides et al. 2010). Important in this respect is paying attention to, for example, the conditional aspects of effective teaching through the formulation of specific citizenship learning goals or providing sufficient time for citizenship teaching. The same can be expected for the expectations of teachers towards each other, and towards their students. Not only do teachers serve as important role models towards their students—especially when it comes to the development of citizenship skill—their expectations and interactions also contribute to a positive classroom climate and the social safety that is required to establish a culture fostering professionalization and growth. Willemse and colleagues (Willemse et al. 2015), for example, found that collaborating and exchanging ideas among colleagues strengthened the relevance attached to citizenship education and its (implicit) presence in teaching practices. In addition to school policies on citizenship education as described above, the model, therefore, includes three elements of the professional learning environment: teachers' experienced support from the school leadership, their interactions with each other, and their expectations of their students.

*Citizenship teaching*. A third aspect argued to be crucial for educational effectiveness is the quality of the educational content or teaching and learning practices (Creemers and Kyriakides 2010; Hattie 2009; Kyriakides et al. 2010). Teaching and learning practices include, for example, the pedagogical behavior and teaching methods of teachers, their opinions about education, curriculum content, the opportunities

offered for participation in extracurricular activities, and the assessment or monitoring of that what is taught. These practices can also be expected to be important in the domain of citizenship. Opinions differ, however, on the relative impact of citizenship teaching practices. Whereas some authors claim that formal citizenship education through classroom instruction—mainly aimed at stimulating citizenship knowledge—plays an important role, others argue that this type of citizenship education is not enough to promote active, democratic citizenship (Maurissen 2018).

Many studies on citizenship education stress the importance of the *type* of teaching or learning strategy, highlighting the role of experience-based, active learning strategies (Schuitema et al. 2007; Veugelers 2009). Examples are student participation in school policies, simulations of democratic processes or roleplaying, service-learning and extracurricular activities. Results involving the effects of service-learning and extracurricular activities are, however, mixed (Geboers et al. 2013; Hoskins et al. 2012; Keating and Janmaat 2016). According to recent studies, these mixed results can be explained by the extent of attention paid to in-depth reflection during these activities, and when discussing citizenship-related themes in general. (Knowles et al. 2018; Reichert and Print 2018; Schuitema et al. 2017; Van Goethem et al. 2014). Other classroom practices seen as affecting citizenship competences are those that focus on students sense of ownership and decision-making powers, for example by creating opportunities for them to give their opinion on curriculum content (Bron 2018; Torney-Purta et al. 2008). Finally, the assessment of student outcomes with regard to citizenship education has been argued to matter (Keating et al. 2010).

To be able to provide more insight on the effectiveness of teaching and learning practices and their relation to other aspects of citizenship education, as well as to different citizenship outcomes, we look at a wide variety of practices, ranging from the citizenship themes addressed in class, opportunities for students to choose their own preferred themes in class and role playing in class, to the monitoring of students' citizenship competences, extracurricular activities and outside school projects.

*Classroom climate*. The characteristics of the pedagogical learning environment—or more specifically, the classroom climate—is one of the most frequently studied aspects of citizenship education. Research on citizenship education has shown that an open climate in the classroom is one of the most consistent predictors of students' citizenship competences (Geboers et al. 2013; Maurissen 2018). An open classroom climate is one where students experience their classrooms as safe places to investigate social and political issues and to explore and (respectfully) discuss their opinions and those of their peers (cf. Torney-Purta et al. 2001). Such a climate was found to be a necessary requirement for citizenship education to be effective (Knowles et al. 2018; Maurissen 2018). In addition to an open discussion climate, other aspects that have been argued to be positively related to citizenship outcomes are supportive interpersonal relationships, both among students and between students and teachers (Sampermans et al. 2018; Wanders et al. 2019), and strong feelings of school belongingness (Isac et al. 2014; Maslowski et al. 2009; Scheerens 2011). The relevance of a positive classroom climate is thus related to both a safe atmosphere as a condition for learning (cf. Hattie 2009) and a setting in which people are encouraged to form opinions (cf. Geboers et al. 2013; Isac et al. 2014). We examine this by including students' experiences of the room for discussion, their view on the support from teachers, and their feelings of belongingness at school.

### *Research Question and Hypotheses*

The goal of the current study is to give a general impression of the factors contributing to the promotion of citizenship competences by schools. To this end, we will provide a rigorous empirical test of a comprehensive school effectiveness model of citizenship education based on a broad estimation of potentially relevant school effects of factors that seem specifically relevant to the acquisition of citizenship competences, more general quality aspects that may be expected to have an indirect influence and the interplay between the pertinent variables. The research question is as follows: What school characteristics contribute either directly or indirectly to an explanation of differences in students' citizenship competences?

Based on the above overview of the available knowledge, we formulated the following hypotheses.

**Hypothesis 1 (H1).** *Students' citizenship competences are positively related to how much attention is paid to citizenship education in the school's policies, both (H1a) directly and indirectly* via *the school's teaching practices (H1b) and* via *the classroom climate as experienced by the students (H1c).*

**Hypothesis 2 (H2).** *Students' citizenship competences are positively related to the professional learning environment of the school, both directly (H2a) and indirectly via the teaching practices (H2b) and the classroom climate as experienced by the students (H2c).*

**Hypothesis 3 (H3).** *Students' citizenship competences are positively related to the teaching practices of the school, both directly (H3a) and indirectly via the classroom climate as experienced by the students (H3b).*

**Hypothesis 4 (H4).** *Students' citizenship competences are positively related to the classroom climate as experienced by the students.*

### **3. Methodology**

*Data.* The model was tested using data from 78 Dutch secondary schools, 54 of which were part of a sample that was randomly drawn from a list of the full population of secondary schools that have third-grade classes. A stratified random sample of 100 schools was drawn, with a distinction being made between three school tracks: vocational, general, and mixed. For each school, two replacement schools were selected in the event that a school from the first or second sample did not want to participate. A total of 54 schools from this sample participated. In addition, 24 schools were approached via existing contacts to ensure a large enough sample size and sufficient power for the model estimations. The resulting sample proved to be representative of the Dutch secondary school population with respect to the distribution of school track, geographical location, sector (public, private-religious and private non-religious), level of urbanization of the school's location and school size.

At each school, digital questionnaires were completed by a school leader, a team leader, 15 third-grade teachers (including the mentors of the participating students) and all students in 3 third grades. During the survey, trained test leaders were present to guide the process and answer questions. Students filled out two questionnaires. The first contained questions on their background, societal trust, classroom climate, and citizenship activities at school. In the second questionnaire, students' citizenship competences were tested. Within each classroom, 14 different versions were distributed. The analyses in this paper are based on the questionnaires of 5172 students, 643 teachers, 62 team leaders and 49 school leaders in 78 schools. An overview of the main characteristics of the four respondent groups can be found in Appendix A.

*Dependent Variables.* Citizenship competences of students were measured using the Citizenship Competences Questionnaire (CCQ; for an extensive description, including information on its construct validity, see Ten Dam et al. 2011; for an analysis of social desirability bias, see Ten Dam et al. 2013). The CCQ distinguishes between four social tasks that are considered to be representative of citizenship practices among young people aged between 11 and 16 years: acting in a democratic manner, acting in a socially responsible manner, dealing with conflicts and dealing with differences (see Appendix B for the conceptual framework and a description of the content of the scales). The CCQ provides information on the knowledge, attitudes, and self-evaluated skills relating to these four social tasks.

As part of the present study, a new comprehensive test was developed to measure students' citizenship knowledge (for a description, see (Ten Dam et al.). This test was also based on the four social tasks. The knowledge test was comprised of multiple-choice questions with three response options. Students were asked, for example, when a country could be called undemocratic. The answer categories were (a) if political parties criticize each other, (b) if people have to pay high taxes, and (c) if people are not allowed to criticize the government. The students had to choose what they considered

the best option. Correct answers were coded as 1. After item analysis, a reliable IRT scale (thetas) was constructed based on 163 items (accuracy of measurement Macc well over 0.90)<sup>1</sup> .

Citizenship attitudes and (self-evaluated) citizenship skills were measured with 4-point Likert scales. To measure attitudes, pupils were asked to what extent various statements applied to them (e.g., 'People should listen to each other, even if they have different opinions'). The answer categories ranged from (a) not applicable at all to (d) very applicable. To measure skills, pupils were asked how well they could do certain things such as defending their opinions in a discussion. The answer categories ranged from not good at all (a) to very good (d). The reliability of both scales was high, with Cronbach's alphas of 0.90 for attitudes (24 items) and 0.86 for skills (15 items).

*Independent Variables*. If multiple items were available to create citizenship education constructs, exploratory and confirmatory multilevel factor analyses were performed to examine patterns among the pertinent items and construct factor scores. The model fit indices of the constructed scales can be found in Table 1 below. A more extensive description of the items, response categories and factor loadings can be found in Appendix C. The various constructs are briefly described below.

School policies on citizenship education were measured by using information from principals. The school's citizenship vision was operationalized as the importance attached to various citizenship education themes (e.g., learning about other cultures and learning about democracy), ranging from very unimportant (1) to very important (5). The organization around citizenship education comprised items querying, for example, whether a school regularly addressed citizenship education in staff meetings, whether a continuous learning line existed and whether arrangements were made for the organization of citizenship education. The answers could range from not applicable at all (1) to very applicable (5). The attention paid to citizenship in meetings was measured for seven types of meetings, with answer categories ranging from (almost) never (1) to (almost) always (5).

The professional learning environment was operationalized as the extent to which teachers: (i) felt supported by school leadership (e.g., by taking their opinions seriously); (ii) agreed on how to treat each other, their students and their work; and (iii) trusted (the competence of) their students. The answer range was totally disagree (1) to totally agree (5).

Teaching practices related to citizenship teaching were measured using information from team leaders and teachers. In the case of the teachers, the school-level means were calculated<sup>2</sup> . Teacher-based factor scales comprised (i) the amount of attention paid to citizenship themes in class, such as learning about other cultures and about democracy, with answer options ranging from no attention (1) to daily attention (5); and (ii) the extent to which teachers actively monitored their students' citizenship development, with answers ranging from not applicable at all (1) to very applicable (5). Furthermore, three one-item constructs were used, measuring the extent to which teachers let students: (iii) choose the topics discussed in class; (iv) take part in roleplaying; and (v) work on projects for which they have to collect information outside the school (e.g., neighborhood interviews and small-scale research). Answer categories for these items ranged from almost never (1) to almost always (5). In addition, one one-item construct was submitted to team leaders to measure whether extracurricular citizenship activities were organized, with possible answers being no (0) and yes (1).

<sup>1</sup> The test consisted of 163 items, distributed over 14 versions with 21 of the items occurring in all versions. 77 items covered acting democratically, 23 on acting in a socially responsible manner, 23 dealing with conflicts and 39 dealing with differences.

<sup>2</sup> Teacher means were only calculated if a minimum of 5 teachers had responded.


**Table 1.**Model fit estimates of citizenship education factor scales.

Note:1 based on multilevel factor analyses, SRMR values are depicted for within| between.

The perceived classroom climate was operationalized as individual-level and school-level means<sup>3</sup> of student experiences with respect to (i) an open classroom climate when discussing societal or political topics, with answers ranging from almost never (1) to almost always (5); (ii) teacher support (e.g., 'My teachers take the time to talk about what is important for me'), with answers from totally disagree (1) to totally agree (5); (iii) a sense of school belonging (e.g., 'I feel part of this school'), with answer options totally disagree (1) to totally agree (5).

*Control Variables*. Previous studies have shown that students of various socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds vary in their citizenship competences, have unequal access to various aspects of citizenship education and that the effects of citizenship education also vary in these groups (Geboers et al. 2014; Hoskins et al. 2017; Isac et al. 2014; Janmaat et al. 2014; Knowles et al. 2018; Neundorf et al. 2016; Reichert and Print 2018).

Furthermore, classroom composition in terms of the students' social background also impacts citizenship outcomes (e.g., Deimel et al. 2019; Isac et al. 2011, 2014). We, therefore, controlled for the students' socioeconomic status (SES) and ethnic background, both at the individual level (i.e., variation between students) and at the school level (i.e., variation between schools in terms of student composition). Student SES was indicated by the average number of books at home. Further, the students' level of education, distinguishing between senior general and pre-university education (HAVO/VWO) and pre-vocational education (VMBO) was used as a proxy. Regarding ethnic background, a dummy variable was included for students with a non-Western migration background<sup>4</sup> .

In addition, we controlled for school size and the level of urbanization of the municipality which the school was part of. Descriptive statistics of dependent, independent and control variables can be found in Table 2.

*Method*. First, a measurement model of citizenship education was constructed at the school level. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in Mplus7 (Muthén and Muthén 1998–2017), we selected several constructs comprised of factor scales complemented by various one-items constructs, which together measured a broad range of citizenship education elements. In addition, multilevel factor analyses were performed to examine the various constructs measuring students' citizenship experiences at the individual and school levels. In total, 11 factor scores were retained for further analyses (see Table 1 and Appendix C).

To keep the number of parameters below the number of clusters (*N* = 78), we had to build our models stepwise. Factor scores were saved and (combined with the one-item constructs and control variables) used for correlational analyses and multilevel structural equation modelling<sup>5</sup> . Variables measuring school policies, learning environment and teaching practices were then included in the model one by one in order to analyze both direct and indirect relationships via teaching practices and experienced classroom climate. Our outcome variables were analyzed in three separate structural equation models. To include missing values on our exogenous school-level variables, these variables were explicitly included in the model and given a distributional assumption.

<sup>3</sup> Student means were only calculated if at least 2 classes of at least 10 students at a school had completed the questionnaire.

<sup>4</sup> Non-Western migration background was operationalized as having at least one parent born in Turkey or a country in Africa, Asia (excl. Indonesia and Japan), or South America (Statistics Netherlands 2018).

<sup>5</sup> Revised factor score regression has been shown to produce consistent estimators (Skrondal and Laake 2001).


**Table 2.** Descriptive statistics (N = 78 schools; N = 5148 students).

Note: <sup>1</sup> raw mean scores are depicted for the factor scales.

### **4. Results**

### *4.1. Variation in Citizenship Competences across Schools*

An examination of the intraclass correlations (ICC) of our three dependent variables at the school level indicated an ICC of 0.304 for citizenship knowledge, 0.052 for attitudes and 0.038 for skills. This shows that schools differ most in the average level of their students' citizenship knowledge: 30 per cent of the variation in citizenship knowledge is explained at the school level. The between-schools variation with regards to the students' mean citizenship attitudes and skills is significantly lower (5 and 4 per cent, respectively). Variance coefficients and intraclass correlations for models including control variables and independent variables can be found in Appendix D.

### *4.2. Relationships between Citizenship Education and Citizenship Competences*

The pairwise correlations between the school-level constructs can be found in Appendix E. In addition to the expected positive correlations between the various variables corresponding to the same theoretical construct, we found that the school's citizenship education policies, and the organization of citizenship education in particular, correlated positively with various citizenship teaching practices. A professional learning environment, on the other hand, correlated positively with the experienced classroom climate. Interestingly, it also correlated negatively with the attention paid to citizenship themes in class and the monitoring of student citizenship development. The latter two concepts also correlated negatively with the experienced classroom climate.

The results of the multilevel structural equation models for citizenship knowledge, attitudes and skills can be found in Tables 3–5. Table 6 offers an overview of the conclusions, in which a plus sign indicates findings supporting the formulated hypotheses. Below, we will shortly describe the results for each aspect of citizenship education, as well as our control variables.


**Table 3.**Total, direct and indirect effects on citizenship knowledge (standardized betas).

Note:*p***(2-sided)**<**0.05 (bold);***p (2-sided)*<*0.10 (bold italics)*; model fit:χ2 (39)=108.060,*p*<0.001, RMSEA=0.019, CFI=0.941.


**Table 4.**Total, direct and indirect effects on citizenship attitudes (standardized betas).

Note: *p***(2-sided)**<**0.05 (bold);** *p (2-sided)*<*0.10 (bold italics)*; model fit: χ2 (39)=116.007, *p*<0.001, RMSEA=0.020, CFI=0.920.


**Table 5.**Total, direct and indirect effects on citizenship skills (standardized betas).

Note:*p***(2-sided)**<**0.05 (bold);***p (2-sided)*<*0.10 (bold italics)*; model fit:χ2 (39)=109.294,*p*<0.001, RMSEA=0.019, CFI=0.916.


**Table 6.** Conclusions with regard to the formulated hypotheses.

Note: <sup>1</sup> since only total indirect effects were found to be significant, no conclusions can be made regarding specific indirect pathways via teaching practices or classroom climate.

### *4.3. Citizenship Education Policies*

Examination of Table 3 shows no total (direct or indirect) effects of the school's citizenship policies on student citizenship knowledge. Further examination of the specific indirect effects did, however, reveal two indirect (borderline significant) negative effects of the amount of attention paid to citizenship themes via the monitoring of student citizenship development (β = −0.100, *p* = 0.094) and via citizenship projects outside the school (β = −0.071, *p* = 0.089). Both monitoring and outside school projects were found to be negatively associated with levels of citizenship knowledge (see paragraph 4.5 below). The amount of attention school leaders paid to citizenship themes was also negatively related to student citizenship skills (Table 5), both directly and indirectly (borderline significance).

The attention paid to citizenship education in staff meetings was positively related to both citizenship attitudes (Table 4) and skills (Table 5). Interestingly, in addition to this direct positive relationship between citizenship in staff meetings and citizenship skills, a negative indirect relationship was also found. Examination of the specific indirect effects did not reveal any individual significant indirect effect.

Based on these findings, Hypothesis 1a on the positive relationship between attention for citizenship education in school policies and students' citizenship outcomes can only partially be confirmed: more attention paid to citizenship education in staff meetings is associated with more positive citizenship attitudes and more citizenship skills, yet not with more citizenship knowledge. Hypotheses 1b and 1c on positive *indirect* relationships between school policies on citizenship education and students' citizenship outcomes—either via teaching practices (H1a) or via the classroom climate (H1b)—are not supported.

### *4.4. Professional Learning Environment*

An examination of Table 3 revealed no significant total (direct and indirect) effects of a school's professional learning environment on student citizenship knowledge. Examination of the individual indirect effects did reveal two (borderline significant) indirect effects. A negative indirect effect was found of teacher assessment of school leadership via the frequency of letting students choose their own topics, which was in turn positively associated with citizenship knowledge (β = −0.066, *p* = 0.086)—and a positive indirect effect of teacher trust in students via students' feeling of school involvement (β = 0.098, *p* = 0.080).

A positive indirect effect of the teachers' average trust in students was also found for citizenship attitudes (Table 4)—partially explained by a (borderline significant) positive indirect effect via the students' average feeling of school involvement (β = 0.122, *p* = 0.080)—and for citizenship skills (Table 5). For the latter, none of the individual indirect pathways proved significant.

In addition, a (borderline significant) positive direct relationship was found between the extent of agreement on education between the teachers and student citizenship attitudes, and a (borderline significant) positive indirect relationship between the teachers' opinions of school leadership and student citizenship skills. Again, none of the individual indirect pathways was significant.

These findings partially support Hypothesis 2a, on the direct positive relationship between the professional learning environment and student citizenship outcomes: more agreement between teachers on the provided education is associated with more positive citizenship attitudes of students. Hypothesis 2c on indirect positive relationships between the professional learning environment at school and citizenship outcomes via the classroom climate, is supported for all three types of citizenship competences. The findings provide no support for Hypothesis 2b, on an indirect relationship via teaching practices.

### *4.5. Teaching Practices*

When we examined the total direct and indirect effects of teaching practices, several significant relationships came to the fore. First, letting students choose their own topics had a direct positive relationship with their citizenship knowledge (Table 3) and an indirect positive effect on both citizenship attitudes (Table 4) and citizenship skills (Table 5). For both attitudes and skills, our data did not show which aspects of the perceived classroom climate explained these relationships, since none of the indirect pathways were significant by itself.

For extracurricular citizenship activities, too, positive (borderline significant) effects were found on knowledge, attitudes and skills. Again, indirect effects were visible for both attitudes and skills (however, none of the individual pathways was significant), while for knowledge only the total effect proved significant.

Roleplaying in the class had a (borderline significant) positive relationship with student citizenship attitudes but not with citizenship knowledge or skills. Interestingly, monitoring of student citizenship development was negatively related to student citizenship knowledge and (with borderline significance) to student attitudes, and—indirectly—skills. Organizing citizenship projects for which students had to collect information outside the school (e.g., through neighborhood interviews or small-scale research) was also found to have a negative (borderline significant) relationship with both citizenship knowledge and skills. Although the latter effect was mainly indirect, none of the individual indirect pathways proved significant.

These findings provide mixed evidence for Hypothesis 3 on the positive relationship between teaching practices and citizenship outcomes. In line with our expectations, letting students choose their own topics and organizing extracurricular citizenship activities is positively related to their citizenship competences: a direct relationship is visible for citizenship knowledge (Hypothesis 3a), an indirect relationship for citizenship skills (Hypothesis 3b), and both direct and indirect relationships for citizenship attitudes. The opposite is true for monitoring student citizenship development and organizing outside school citizenship projects: both practices are found to be negatively related to citizenship outcomes, either directly or indirectly.

### *4.6. Perceived Classroom Climate*

Of our three indicators of the perceived classroom climate, the students' average feeling of school belonging was (borderline significant) positively related to their citizenship knowledge (Table 3) and attitudes (Table 4). An open discussion climate was also positively related students' citizenship attitudes. No significant effects of classroom climate were found on student citizenship skills (Table 5).

These findings support Hypothesis 4 on the positive relationship between the perceived classroom climate and student citizenship outcomes, yet only for citizenship knowledge and attitudes.

### *4.7. Student Characteristics and School Context*

In our final, comprehensive models of citizenship education, student SES, as indicated by the number of books at home showed positive effects: students from more favorable backgrounds had more citizenship knowledge (Table 3), more positive attitudes (Table 4) and more skills (Table 5). Levels of citizenship knowledge and attitudes were also higher for students from senior general and pre-university education than for students from vocational education. Moreover, students with a non-Western background had less citizenship knowledge than students with a Western background, but more positive attitudes and more skills.

Most of these effects were also present at the school level, with a few exceptions. At schools with more students with a non-Western background, citizenship skills were found to be lower. Furthermore, in addition to a positive direct effect of the number of students with a non-Western background on citizenship attitudes, a (borderline significant) negative indirect effect was present.

School size also mattered: levels of citizenship knowledge and skills were higher at larger schools, while scores on citizenship attitudes were lower. An indirect negative association between school size and citizenship skills was, however, also present. Finally, schools located in more urbanized areas reported, on average, higher scores on citizenship skills.

### **5. Conclusions and Discussion**

In this paper, we empirically tested a comprehensive school effectiveness model of citizenship education, including a broad range of school factors that could be expected to explain the differences in the school's citizenship outcomes either as general characteristics of effective schools or characteristics that specifically contribute to citizenship. In doing so, we followed up on calls for a more complete picture of the role of schools in the acquisition of citizenship competences, including school leaders' vision and goals, teachers' actual classroom practices, as well as the practices as perceived by students (Dijkstra et al. 2014a; Kerr et al. 2009). The citizenship outcomes examined concern both the cognitive dimension of citizenship (i.e., knowledge) and the active and affective dimensions (i.e., self-evaluated skills and attitudes). Applying multilevel structural equation modelling, we examined direct and indirect effects on student citizenship outcomes of citizenship school policies, the professional learning environment, citizenship teaching practices and the perceived classroom climate.

After controlling for student and school context characteristics, almost half of the investigated hypotheses on positive relationships between aspects of citizenship education and student citizenship knowledge, skills and particularly attitudes appeared to be supported—albeit effects were small. An examination of the magnitude of the effects furthermore indicated stronger relationships for students' citizenship knowledge than for students' citizenship attitudes and skills. The average level of citizenship knowledge also varied more between schools than it did for attitudes or skills. Even though school effects were small, various authors have emphasized that these effects are to be considered important, bearing in mind that a school is able to reach a large number of students, and that the underlying factors can be steered through the school's policies (Dijkstra et al. 2014a; Isac et al. 2014; Sampermans et al. 2018; Reichert and Print 2018). At the same time, since the examined school factors seem to explain only a modest part of the variation found in students' citizenship outcomes, we should be careful when drawing conclusions. With these reservation in mind, the following conclusions can be drawn from the results presented here.

Although the number of significant relationships is modest, we found evidence that aspects of school policies are important for students' citizenship development. First of all, the importance attached to citizenship themes in school policies correlated with several teaching practices which in turn proved relevant to citizenship outcomes. In our explanatory analyses it was also shown that the attention paid to citizenship education in staff meetings related positively to student citizenship outcomes. At the same time, several negative relationships were found, in particular with regard to citizenship skills. Even though a more explicit emphasis on citizenship education in school policy might thus be part of the solution to effective citizenship education, it is not necessarily related to all aspects of effective citizenship education.

Our findings furthermore highlight that the importance of school climate and the characteristics of teacher–student and student–student interaction for the development of citizenship competences is not restricted to the experiences of students (often referred to as the pedagogical learning environment), but extends to the professional learning environment as well (cf. Willemse et al. 2015). Positive relationships were for instance visible for the teachers' amount of trust in their students and students' citizenship skills and attitudes. Relationships between student citizenship attitudes and the extent to which teachers agreed on the educational vision of the school (e.g., how to assess student results and interact with students) were also found, as well as between student citizenship skills and the extent to which teachers perceived support from their school leadership. Feelings of community created by and between staff members, of which the above elements can be considered examples, thus seem to be an important aspect of (effective) citizenship education. Looking at teaching practices, effects varied depending on the type of practice. The positive relationships found for letting students choose their own topics for upcoming lessons (on both knowledge, attitudes and skills) were the most robust. The positive results found for extracurricular citizenship activities also underline the potential influence of the school. Furthermore, citizenship attitudes were on average more positive at schools where roleplaying in class was more often encouraged.

Interestingly, at schools where teachers paid more attention to monitoring of the development of their students' citizenship competences, students were found to have on average less citizenship competences than at schools where teachers had less insight into their students' citizenship development. A good interpretation of these results, which seem to deviate from earlier findings (cf. Keating et al. 2010), requires more specific analyses of interpersonal interactions within the school with possible explanatory factors, such as the use of monitoring as a response to lagging results, disruptive behavior or the (more authoritarian) approach of teachers. The findings could also reflect the school's efforts to more closely tutor struggling students, rather than a negative effect of monitoring per se. This is equally true for external projects (e.g., neighborhood interviews or small-scale research), which also appeared to be negatively related to students' citizenship knowledge and skills. Both findings illustrate that further research is needed to investigate these and other aspects of citizenship education and their link to various citizenship outcomes. It would for instance be interesting to further examine whether the found relationships are typical for a certain school culture, context or school type.

Finally, in our analyses, the effects of classroom climate seem less pronounced than reported elsewhere (cf. Geboers et al. 2013). Although students' average feelings of school belongingness were positively related to their citizenship knowledge and attitudes, an open discussion climate was only positively related to students' citizenship attitudes, and no relationships were present for the experienced teacher support. As expected, supplementary analyses show that all three aspects of the perceived classroom climate relate positively to student citizenship outcomes when examined in separate univariate models (Appendix F). A notable finding (based on relevant correlations) is that classroom climate also seems to interact with the professional learning environment and with the in-class teaching. Therefore, the way in which these aspects interact is a relevant subject for further research aimed at supporting educational practice and policy.

In view of the cross-sectional nature of our data and the complexity of our model, it is too early to draw causal or final conclusions about the effectiveness of the elements of citizenship education that we examined. Although the models fit the data well and the variance explained is as could be expected, the stability of the models requires replication studies involving comparable data. It is important to consider that the relationships found, both the negative and the positive ones, are descriptions of correlations between the type of citizenship education adopted by the school (i.e., policies, learning environment, teaching practices and classroom climate) and the citizenship knowledge, attitudes and skills of their students. For causal interpretations, longitudinal research is necessary.

It should also be taken into account that we have focused on general effects, leaving group-specific effects aside. The results did, however, indicate a consistent positive relationship between socioeconomic status (measured by the number of books at home) and citizenship competences, not only at an individual level, but also at the school level. This points to a confirmation of findings from earlier studies that point out both unequal access to as well as varying effects of citizenship education with regard to students' socioeconomic background (Hoskins et al. 2017; Janmaat et al. 2014; Neundorf et al. 2016). Moreover, it emphasizes the importance of paying particular attention to social inequality and disadvantaged students in relation to citizenship education. Future research focused on mechanisms explaining the differences found between students from various socioeconomic backgrounds and between schools that vary in their socioeconomic composition can provide support in this respect.

The model presented here provides a first step to further improve the effectiveness of citizenship education. In particular for youth that already start with a disadvantage, or students or schools that are not doing too well regarding citizenship competences, the current study provides guidelines on which citizenship education elements are associated with positive student outcomes, and which elements add to this. The model estimations illustrate the importance of a comprehensive explanation of differences in school effectiveness as expressed in citizenship outcomes, with not only direct effects being investigated but also the interplay between various factors such as teacher activities, the influence of the wider school setting in which teachers make their choices and how students perceive these. The relevance of citizenship for students and society and—as our study shows—what schools can contribute through a well-considered arrangement of teaching practice, contextual factors and school policies underlines the importance of the further development of a comprehensive school effectiveness model of citizenship education.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, M.C., G.T.D., A.B.D. and I.V.d.V.; Formal analysis, M.C. and I.V.d.V.; Funding acquisition, A.B.D.; Methodology, M.C., G.T.D., A.B.D. and I.V.d.V.; Supervision, G.T.D.; and A.B.D.; Writing—original draft, M.C.; Writing—review & editing, M.C., G.T.D., A.B.D. and I.V.d.V. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by NWO, the scientific research organization of The Netherlands, under Grant #411-12-035 (project ESC, Understanding the Effect of Schools on Students' Citizenship).

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to express our gratitude towards Isil Sincer, Willemijn Rinnooy Kan, Sabine Severiens and Monique Volman for their assistance in conducting this study.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of this study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

### **Appendix A**


Note: <sup>1</sup> the variable 'age' for students is a categorical variable: (1) 13 years or younger, (2) 14 years, (3) 15 years, (4) 16 years, and (5) 17 years or older.

### **Appendix B**


### **Table A2.** Conceptual framework citizenship competences (components and social tasks).

Source: (Ten Dam et al. 2011).

### **Appendix C**


**Table A3.**Citizenship education factor scales: descriptive statistics at the item level.

**Table A3.** *Cont.*


**Table A3.** *Cont.*


 Note: 1 for student-level constructs, factor loadings are shown at the*within*and*between*level (w|b); 2 [r] recoded item.

### **Appendix D**


**Table A4.** Variance and intraclass correlations of citizenship competences.

Note: Model 0 = intercept-only model; Model 1 = Model 0 + control variables at the student school level; Model 2 = Model 1 + control variables at the school level; Model 3 = Model 2 + citizenship education elements (full model).

### *Soc. Sci.* **2020**,*9*, 157

### **Appendix E**


**TableA5.**Correlationsbetweenschool-levelconstructs(correlationcoefficientsand*p*values;*N*=78).

Note: *p* **(2-sided)** ≤ **0.05 (bold)**; *p* (2-sided) ≤ *0.10 (italics)*; (1) CE themes school; (2) CE organization; (3) CE in meetings; (4) teachers' opinion on leadership; (5) agreemen<sup>t</sup> between teachers; (6) Teacher trust towards students; (7) CE themes in class; (8) monitoring of citizenship development students; (9) CE projects; (10) roleplaying in class; (11) choosing own topics; (12) extracurricular activities; (13) school belonging; (14) teacher–student relationships; (15) open discussion climate.

### **Appendix F**

**Model 1 Model 2 Model 3** β *P* β *p* β *p* **Student level variables** *Classroom climate* School belonging 0.014 0.319 Teacher support 0.002 0.888 Open discussion climate 0.007 0.626 *Control variables* Number of books at home 0.106 0.000 0.105 0.000 0.106 0.000 Senior general/pre-university (ref. pre-vocational) 0.214 0.000 0.214 0.000 0.214 0.000 Non-Western background −0.048 0.002 −0.048 0.002 −0.049 0.002 **School level variables** *Classroom climate* School belonging 0.198 0.004 Teacher support 0.192 0.006 Open discussion climate 0.183 0.017 *Control variables* Average books at home 0.279 0.004 0.333 0.001 0.291 0.003 Average senior general/pre-university 0.459 0.000 0.493 0.000 0.452 0.000 Average non-Western background −0.163 0.077 −0.145 0.122 −0.186 0.042 School size 0.209 0.010 0.220 0.008 0.214 0.010 Level of urbanization 0.016 0.841 0.009 0.903 −0.010 0.890

**Table A6.** Classroom climate effects on citizenship knowledge (standardized betas).

**Table A7.** Classroom climate effects on citizenship attitudes (standardized betas).




### **References**


Skrondal, Anders, and Petter Laake. 2001. Regression among factor scores. *Psychometrika* 66: 563–75. [CrossRef]


© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

## *Article* **Citizenship Educational Policy: A Case of Russophone Minority in Estonia**

**Nikolai Kunitsõn \* and Leif Kalev**

School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia; leif.kalev@tlu.ee

**\*** Correspondence: nikolai.kunitson@tlu.ee

**Abstract:** In the contemporary era, societies are divided, and political polarization is increasing. One of the most powerful instruments the government can use is general standard education, specifically citizenship education. We will look at the case of Estonia, because Estonia's main political cleavage is the ethnic cleavage between the Estonian and the Russophone community. Our main research question is as follows: How would it be possible to use democratic citizenship education to decrease in the future the socio-economic inequality between different communities in Estonia? We will outline the context of ethnic socio-economic inequality in Estonia and show how these differences have been at least partially influenced by the current education system in Estonia and how citizenship education can be used to reduce these inequalities in the future. We will conduct an empirical analysis of the curriculum, and this will be followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews. In the discussion, we will make suggestions to the current Estonian citizenship education policy and offer various insights into tackling this issue.

**Keywords:** citizenship education; inequality; minority education; democratic citizenship

### **1. Introduction**

When Estonia regained its independence in 1991, it inherited a rather segmented society where the Russophone minorities made up more than one-third of its population. During the following decades, various policies have been implemented to improve the integration of different communities in Estonia. Although there have been some improvements (e.g., increased proficiency in the state language), the socio-economic status of the Russophone minority is still considerably lower. In addition, the Estonian de facto bilingual education system, which separates those two communities from an early age, raises the question: Can the Estonian education system offer equal opportunities for young people from different ethnic backgrounds?

On a broader scale, in the contemporary era of heterogeneous lifestyles and increasing political polarization, having a common societal culture and basic political coherence is increasingly a challenge for the whole society as political community. Citizens have grown distrustful of politicians and of the democratic institutions and process in general (e.g., Dalton 2004; Hay 2007; Papadopoulos 2013). As Hay (2007, p. 11) has noted, "Our sense of political citizenship in national democracies appears to be under threat."

One of the most powerful instruments the governments can use to balance these trends is the general standard education, through which a common societal frame of reference is developed. A democratic state needs conscious citizens with knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These are mostly generated via the education system, which usually includes some kind of civic and citizenship education, whether it be a separate course, a crosscurricular topic, or something else (e.g., Crick 1998; Stoker et al. 2012; Stoker [2006] 2016). This kind of democratic citizenship is vital for common identity in multi-cultural societies.

At the same time, these abstract ideas need to be implemented in concrete contexts, which can not ignore the realities of inequalities of different groups in society. Schools are

**Citation:** Kunitsõn, Nikolai, and Leif Kalev. 2021. Citizenship Educational Policy: A Case of Russophone Minority in Estonia. *Social Sciences* 10: 131. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci 10040131

Academic Editors: Liyuan Liu, Steven Donbavand, Bryony Hoskins, Jan Germen Janmaat and Dimokritos Kavadias

Received: 27 February 2021 Accepted: 1 April 2021 Published: 6 April 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

seen as a place wherein students from different socio-economic backgrounds could have a sense of common democratic citizenship, which is crucial for democratic citizens in the state. Empowering minorities goes beyond language skills and personal contacts; people also need competences to act as proactive societal, political, and economic citizens in a democracy. Those who lack those knowledge, skills, and values are in danger of further marginalization, including socio-economic aspects.

In this article, we will study the case of Estonia, analyze the citizenship educational policy with a special focus on democratic citizenship in the case of minorities. We focus on the civics and citizenship education course (hereafter civics) in Estonian secondary school with a key interest in selected aspects of public policy implementation and design. Estonia serves as a good case for the study: it has relatively developed framework curricula and syllabi and a separate civics subject. We study the content of civics and its reflection and implementation by the teachers.

Our main research question is, how would it be possible to use democratic citizenship education to decrease in the future the socio-economic inequality between different communities in Estonia? More specifically, we will explore, what are the suggestions of teachers to improve democratic citizenship education policy? First, we will outline the context of ethnic socio-economic inequality in Estonia by focusing on the demographic change that occurred in the 20th century, including the differences in language skills, education system, and regional differences. We will show how these differences have been at least partially influenced by the current education system in Estonia and how citizenship education can be used to reduce these inequalities in the future. More specifically, we will focus on the factors that are mentioned by the civics teachers in teaching children from minority groups.

Our approach is based on the concept of integration. We will not discuss normative proposals on arranging the Estonian society, but we will focus on democratic citizenship education based on the existing regulation with a special interest in educating minority students, based on the civics course, with the aim to understand the practical challenges and possibilities to improve the implementation of policies. We are not proposing an assimilation approach toward integration. We are broadly based on John Berry's (1997) acculturation model, which differentiates four approaches toward integration differentiated, depending on both the majority and minority group. This approach can be seen in Figure 1.

This model is based on two dimensions: whether the immigrants find it important to maintain their ethnic culture and wherever they find it important to adopt the mainstream culture. In this article, we are suggesting that some kind of common societal frame is needed, which is provided by the democratic citizenship education in a formal education system.

This is especially relevant because in Estonia, the children from the biggest minority group—Russophone minority—often have the beginning of their education in the Russian

**Figure 1.** Berry (1997).

language and they learn in separate schools. However, using education as a programming instrument is not simple. The focal point is the role of teachers, since they are in the key position as front-line bureaucrats (Lipsky [1980] 2010). Their role is crucial both in designing the real-life educational content and integrating the top–down frameworks and pupils' everyday feedback into personalized practical strategies. In addition, we use Taylor's theory of curricula and Dewey-based pragmatist education to elaborate on selected aspects of policy design and implementation. We will illustrate our discussion with examples from curricula and from interviews with civics teachers with experience in schools with the minority population students.

We will start by explaining the context of Estonia and its socio-economic inequalities, with a special focus on its school system, which are followed by relevant concepts of citizenship education and Lipsky's front-line bureaucracy theory. This is followed by Taylor's curriculum theory and Dewey's practices of learning. Then we develop the methodology and conduct an empirical analysis of the relevant parts of the national framework curricula and subject outlines, followed by interviews with civic teachers from Estonian–Russian schools, with a special focus on teacher perspectives on their agency in qualitative interviews. Then, the results are elaborated in the Discussion and Conclusion sections.

### **2. Contextual and Theoretical Background**

### *2.1. Estonian Society and Education System*

Estonia is a small North European state with a population of 1.3 million people, which has experienced a significant demographic change in the demographic during the 20th century. In the second half of the 20th century, during the Soviet occupation period, Estonia experienced a change from a mono-ethnic state, where more than 95% of the population were ethnic Estonians, to a multi-cultural society, where the share of minorities rose up to 39% in 1989 (Tammaru and Kulu 2013). This largely Russophone minority is mostly characterized by their native language, which is Russian, and they constitute roughly one-third of the population of Estonia.

The minority issue has been one of the main cleavages in Estonian society and politics (e.g., Vetik 2012, 2015; Saarts 2017). This social, economic, and political problem has been addressed by the government by different measures, including neglecting, assimilation, and integration strategies, and one cannot say that there has not been progress (for example, the obtaining of Estonian citizenship, increase in proficiency in the Estonian language, etc.), but there are still a number of unresolved challenges. For example, in the capital Tallinn, more than one-third of the population consists of the Russophone minority; also, in one of the eastern counties in Estonia, called Ida-Virumaa, the Russophone community makes up more than 80% of the population. This makes the integration policies, also the school systems reform quite challenging. Around 86,000 people have Russian citizenship, and around 78,000 have no citizenship at all. In addition, recent migration statistics from the last decade show that a significant part of immigrants have either Ukrainian or Russian citizenship, which shows that this issue will be prominent in the near future (Estonian Statistics 2021).

Even though the Russophone community is not intrinsically homogeneous, in general, they have a notable disadvantage compared to Estonians in their socio-economic status (see further Soosaar et al. 2017; Pohla et al. 2016). For example, on average, the yearly disposable income shows that Estonians with Estonian citizenship earn more than 20% more than non-Estonians. In addition, non-Estonians with Estonian citizenship earn about 10% more than non-Estonians without citizenship (see Table 1, Estonian Statistics 2021) In addition, their willingness to acquire Estonian citizenship is decreasing, and trust for state institutions is lower in comparison to Estonians (Kaldur 2017). In addition, the Russophone community is under-represented for example in the national governmental sector (Ivanov 2015). In addition, the communities are separated in media consumption, geographical location, and crucially, in the education system.


**Table 1.** Equalized yearly disposable income by ethnic nationality and citizenship in euros (Estonian Statistics 2021).

As a legacy result of Soviet Union policies and demographic changes that occurred in Estonia, the education system has what is now called a "bilingual education system". The state-funded school system is in Estonian, but there are also state-funded schools that also use the Russian language in a significant amount, mostly for Russophone community children (Skerrett 2013). About every fifth student is studying in an Estonian–Russian comprehensive school (Põder et al. 2017). The differences in educational outcomes by PISA (OECD's programme for International Student Assessment) testing show a one-year gap between these communities in different schools (Põder et al. 2017; Täht et al. 2018). On one hand, this reflects the segregation and separation of these two communities, and on the other hand, it reinforces it (Hogan-Brun et al. 2008), having direct implications on the possibilities of integration and crucially, to the future socio-economic lower status of the Russophone community.

To be clear, Estonia has, strictly speaking, one school system with the same curricula, but there are different languages of instruction. The Estonian school system is based on four levels: pre-school, basic, secondary, and higher education. The basic compulsory education system is a nine-year comprehensive school. At this level, it is possible to study either in Estonian or in Russian. At the secondary level, it is possible either to study in Estonian or in the model 60/40, whereas 60% of the courses have to be taught in Estonian, including civics courses. These schools are mostly located in the capital Tallinn or in the northern–eastern part of Estonia, where the Russophone community is a majority in the cities such as Narva, Sillamäe, or Kohtla-Järve. Formerly, the instruction in these schools was entirely in the Russian language. The different school communities do not interact with each other during the compulsory education period, meaning that their social networks will differ significantly, which has a direct influence on the future labor market perspectives. Lindemann (2013) shows that the existing school system reproduces inequalities in the future; for example, the students from Estonian-Russian schools are less likely to continue their education in the higher education system (Lindemann and Saar 2011). In addition, data show that the results of students in Estonian–Russian schools are considerably worse than in Estonian schools. PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results show that by the age of 15, the gap between Estonian and Russian schools is 39 points, which equals approximately one year of education (Põder et al. 2017). These results are also evident in previous studies—2006, 2009, 2012, and 2015 (Täht et al. 2018, p. 5). Usually, these differences are explained by the language barrier, but the case of Estonia is exceptional in comparison to many other countries with minorities. There are two key distinctions. First, minorities in Estonia study mostly or partly in their own native language, meaning that the quality of their education is not based on the proficiency of state language, which is often the case for lower educational achievements. The second issue is related to larger socio-economic inequality. As mentioned above, the socio-economic cleavage between the minorities and Estonians exists in Estonia, but it is smaller than in other Western European countries (Lindemann 2013; Vetik and Helemäe 2011). In addition, PISA results show that there are no major differences in school background and organizational settings.

An ICCS (International Civic and Citizenship Education Study) 2009 study (Toots 2011) showed that interest in political and societal topics is higher amongst the schools with Russian language instruction, but in Estonian schools, students rate their knowledge of politics higher than their peers from Estonian–Russian schools. In addition, the same study showed that minority students' knowledge about democracy, rule of law, civil rights, etc. is poor compared to their peers in Estonian schools (ibid, p. 35). A similar divide occurs from the perspective of teachers. The biggest difference is in teachers' approach of developing knowledge about social, political, and public institutions in the civics class. In Estonian schools, 49% of teachers thought it is important, but in Estonian–Russian schools, the figure was only 11% (ibid, p. 40). In contrast, teachers from Estonian–Russian schools seem to emphasize critical learning skills more than their Estonian peers. A more recent ICCS study (Toots and Idnurm 2018) shows that children who study in Russian schools know less about society and their civic participation is also lower and there are two main reasons for this. They claim that the Russian children are still looking for their role as citizens in Estonian society and that institutions are not so important for young people, and they conclude that value-based state identity strengthening could be an important part of active citizen participation.

In addition, as we will demonstrate later, the distinguishing of knowledge, skills, and values is crucial. In democratic citizenship education, more focus is needed on the aspect of practical skills, which is more complicated in the Estonian–Russian schools. There are three aspects to this issue. The first is related to the weaker state identity of minority students, and second is their relative lower socio-economic status, which means that their background knowledge of civics is already weaker, which means teachers have an even more salient role in this educational process. The third is that enhancing the practical skills and readiness to take an active role as a citizen needs more support and experience for the more detached students.

To sum up, the bilingual education system in Estonia fails to address the issues of minorities from two different aspects. First, students still struggle to achieve sufficient proficiency in the Estonian language, which has clear implications for their future studies and also for their future socio-economic status in general. Secondly, since the communities are separated also in terms of their media consumption, their common democratic citizenship is weaker in comparison to Estonians (Kaldur et al. 2017), which presents future problems in terms of their education and future as democratic citizens in Estonia. To be clear, it is not a problem in itself if people follow different media. The problem is if they do not follow Estonian media at all, as it is in some cases in practice (people follow the media of the Russian Federation). This means that the people even lack key information, not to mention sufficient knowledge of the host society, which in turn means that they lack the basis to act as democratic citizens in a state.

One of the solutions to the above-mentioned issue could be an institutional reform, which means implementing a "common" or "unitary school" system, where children with different native languages would study together. This could tackle the above-mentioned two problems: (1) students from minority backgrounds would achieve sufficient Estonian language skills, which would help them in the future in the labor market and therefore reduce the socio-economic inequalities; and (2) it would increase the democratic citizenship of minorities, which is a necessary component in order to be a successful citizen in Estonia. This model has not yet been implemented because of different political preferences and strategies, and there has been somewhat strong resistance from the Russian minority. However, recent studies (Kaldur et al. 2017) show that the majority of the Russian-speaking minority is now favoring this model and there is a rhetorical consensus in Estonian political parties, considering this issue.

### *2.2. Democratic Citizenship Education*

Broadly, the good democratic citizen is a political agent who takes part regularly in politics locally and nationally, not just on primary and election day. Active citizens keep informed and speak out against public measures that they regard as unjust, unwise, or too expensive. They also openly support politics that they regard as just and prudent. Although they do not refrain from pursuing their own and their reference group's interests, they try to weigh the claims of other people impartially and listen to their arguments. They

are public meeting-goers and joiners of voluntary organizations who discuss and deliberate with others about the politics that will affect them all, and who serve their country not only as taxpayers and occasional soldiers but by having a considered notion of the public good that they genuinely take to the heart. The good citizen is a patriot (Shklar 1991, p. 5).

However, on a slightly deeper look, citizenship is a manifold concept (e.g., Heater 2004; Guillaume and Huysmans 2013; Shachar et al. 2017). This is further amplified in citizenship education where different approaches, aspects, and normative perspectives are complemented with the organizational and pedagogical considerations: whom to educate, via which structures, in which ways, with which aims, etc. (see e.g., Reid and Gill 2013).

Citizenship education can be a powerful tool for preparing and developing citizens for political and also broader societal and economic life (e.g., Crick 1998; Stoker et al. 2012; Westheimer 2015; Stoker [2006] 2016). Thus, it is potentially one of the key areas of education for empowering minority students.

Citizenship education can be studied as a focused course of civics or as the outcome of various courses that support some social and political competencies. An even broader perspective would follow a Dewey (1910) understanding of all education as integrating citizens and society through an approach based on democratic values and practices. In this paper, we focus on citizenship education as regulated by the government and conducted in general schools, i.e., civics. This allows studying how the public authorities seek to steer the preparation of citizens, and how it is implemented and experienced in practice.

From this perspective, citizenship education can be analyzed as policy design and implementation, combining top–down and bottom–up perspectives and emphasizing meaning-making (e.g., Jennings 1996; Spillane 2004; Lester et al. 2017). We start from the national framework curriculum for secondary school (Estonian Government 2011b) that establishes the general aims, objectives, competencies, and other items every school is expected to follow. Then, we study how these are further developed in the national curriculum of social studies and the implementation practices of civics teachers. Then, we move to the experiences and reflections of educational practice by teachers who teach at schools with minorities.

Teachers can be seen as street-level or front-line bureaucrats who engage people directly and shape the practice of implementation. The policy-making roles of street-level bureaucrats are based on two interrelated aspects in their positions: relatively high degrees of discretion and relative autonomy from organizational authority. The position of streetlevel bureaucrats regularly permits them to make policy with respect to significant aspects of their interactions with citizens (Lipsky [1980] 2010, p. 13).

Street-level bureaucrats exercise wide discretion in decisions about citizens with whom they interact. This is also the case in teachers' decisions on the content of teaching. The individual actions of street-level bureaucrats are an important part of agency behavior. The discretion arises of the character of their professional activity that calls for human judgment that cannot be fully programmed and for what machines cannot substitute (Lipsky [1980] 2010, p. 161). Here, sensemaking is important in understanding how educators think about the implementation of policy and more broadly understand their work (Spillane 2004; Hogan et al. 2018; Tan 2017), including one's own role and strategy and how it relates to both the top–down and bottom–up contexts.

Partly opposite to this, Scott and Lawson (2002) express reservations about the efficiency of schools and teachers. They claim that a curriculum is not a neutral document. Any statement of what is to be learned is permeated with objectives and intentions. If learning outcomes are closely defined, it is both possible and likely that the achievement of those outcomes will be assessed and quantified. Manifest and palpable assessment goals—learning by objectives—inevitably lead to learning and teaching patterns that are dominated by the requirement to meet the defined and measurable objectives, leaving aside the ones that are difficult to measure. This is more powerfully expressed by Westheimer (2015, p. 19): due to standardization, "no teacher is left teaching".

We will not approach teaching as entirely top–down, mechanical, and performance measured, nor as developed entirely bottom–up by the street-level bureaucrats. This also means a middle way in terms of implementation studies. Traditional implementation studies have typically looked at whether bureaucrats' practices align with formulated policy goals (Hupe et al. 2015), or how lower-order bureaucrats carry out orders of higherorder principals (e.g., Brehm and Gates 1997). In the newer studies, researchers have turned their attention toward the practices influenced by policy as well as the ways in which these practices influence policy development (Raaphorst 2019). Our key focus will be on teachers, their understanding, and contexts, but we will discuss this in the broader picture of civics as a national policy resource.

The key aspects in citizenship education are knowledge, skills, and attitudes (Heater 2004, p. 343). Knowledge is related to facts, interpretation, and personal roles. Attitudes are related to self-understanding, respect for others, and values. Skills are related to intellect and judgment, communication, and action. This distinction is salient: a democratic citizenship policy should contain all three elements because only then do they complement each other.

### *2.3. The Practices of Curricula and Learning*

In analyzing the Estonian civic education system, it is important to see how the curriculum is developed and how the learning process is happening. We will use an approach for curriculum analysis broadly based on Tyler (1949) and the perspective on the learning process broadly based on Dewey (1910). We see these as mutually complementing, not opposite.

Tyler (1949) provides a linear rationale for viewing, analyzing, and interpreting the curriculum, which is one of the most widespread ways to view curriculum as an instrument of education. His model consists of four basic principles: (1) defining the learning objectives, (2) establishing useful learning experiences, followed by (3) organizing learning experiences, and (4) evaluating the curriculum. The first step is considered to be the most important one, or as Tyler (1949, p. 3) has put it, "If we are to study an educational program systematically and intelligently, we must first be sure as to the educational objectives aimed at." Tyler sees education as experience; he approaches this from the perspective of the problem-solving process and sees assessments as evaluations rather than measurements.

Similarly, Dewey (1910) discusses education as the process of changing the habits of people. Dewey has stressed that when teachers teach—no matter if it is "good" or "bad"—students are still developing habits. The habits that children have acquired from their previous experiences work fine until they are encountered with problem-situations, something where their previous habits do not work anymore. This is where the learning takes place—when students encounter problem-situations, they reflect upon these, identify different possible solutions, and ideally find a contextual resolution to the case.

The aim of a problem-situation is to "generalize", but generalization should not be an end, rather as a means to better deal with future problems. The key idea of the Deweyan model of education is that the role of the teacher should be creating a problem-solving mindset in students.

We use the model of Taylor to elaborate on the Estonian curricula and civics course outline and Dewey educational practices in explaining the role of skills in democratic citizenship education.

### **3. Methods**

The empirical research consisted of two parts. In the first part, the text of the high school framework curriculum and social subjects outline was analyzed via content analysis. In the second, semi-structured qualitative interviews with teachers from Estonians and Estonian–Russian schools were conducted, and they were analyzed also via content analysis. Our results are presented in three categories: curriculum analysis, teacher interpretation, and discussion following democratic citizenship education in Estonian–Russian schools.

As stated above, our main research question is as follows: how would it be possible to use democratic citizenship education to decrease in the future the socio-economic inequality between different communities in Estonia? We have shown how inequality in socio-economic spheres is connected in the case of Estonia at least partly with democratic citizenship education and identify the challenges brought on a separated education system. Our empirical analysis research questions are the following:


In Estonia, the core document for the content of education in general schools is the national framework curriculum that states both general aims, values, cross-curricular topics, etc. as well as the subject-related objectives, topics, etc. There is one national curriculum for basic schools (Estonian Government 2011a) (grades 1–9) and another for secondary school (grades 10–12); we focus on the latter. We study the curriculum on two levels. First, we analyze the general values, competencies, and cross-curricular themes that are in principle binding for all the subjects. Second, we will take a closer look at how this is elaborated in the civics subject outline.

As a next step, the semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with the civics teachers in secondary school who teach in Estonian–Russian schools or in schools with a majority of Russian background students. First, a draft framework for the interview was developed. This was based on our previous analysis of the national framework curriculum and civics subject outline. We had an interview frame, which was used based on the context (available in Estonian) and if needed, we added some question to discuss issues in-depth.

Then, the interview was piloted in an interview with a civics teacher and further developed based on the reflection of this experience. This was done via the Internet due to the COVID-19 situation. We followed the frame and elaborated upon the aspects in case of shallow answers but also encouraged the teachers to discuss the aspects they recognized as important to understand teachers' subjective perspectives and rationalization strategies as well as to further enhance our understanding of the practical educational context. We proceeded with the interviews up to the saturation of the sample, in a total of 10 interviews. We chose the people based on a set of predefined values: they had to have an experience in teaching civics class in Estonian–Russian language schools. We contacted teachers via various sources and used a snowball method to find other participants.

Saturation was assessed based on the new perspectives the interviewees presented on the teacher's role and teaching strategy. Before the interview, all the teachers received outlines of high school curricula and of civics subject themes. The use of the materials during the interviews was voluntary and teachers used them in different amounts. As the autonomy of teachers is significant, we approached them as experts.

We used content analysis, based on our research interests. Both authors analyzed the interviews separately, and later, we discussed the findings and then deliberated and synchronized the main findings, similarly to the curricula analysis.

### **4. Results**

### *4.1. Curriculum Analysis*

The framework curriculum starts with the underlying values, which are differentiated into two groups—humanistic (honesty, justice, etc.) and societal (freedom, democracy, etc.). The curriculum goes on to outline the "culture and value competencies" (the title of the subsection) that consist of general humanistic and moral claims. The competencies also stress active citizenship.

The general objective of social studies is stated as "developing students' social competence", with the emphasis on "understanding the causes and effects of the social changes". This is followed by "knowing and respecting human rights and democracy" and other similar objectives that point to the obligations and rights of the citizen but are not treating the citizen as an active agent in society. The first mention of active citizens is in the aims of civics. From four area topics and 14 topics that are most emphasized, only two are directly related to the role of citizen. Most topics are connected to the level of knowledge, and in particular, they tackle the issues of society, politics, economy, and international relations. This means that on the level of citizenship, the citizens are mostly portrayed as rather "consumers" or passive subjects, not carriers of active democratic citizenship. To conclude, it can be said that the general aims of social studies relate vaguely to democratic citizenship.

The learning outcomes of social subjects are more specific. For example, it is written that the student must "know and value the principle of democracy", and it is essential that he identifies himself in society, taking into consideration his possibilities, ability to manage in a market economy, etc. Most of the topics are addressing the system level, ranging from national and local political and legal systems to societal stratification, consumer behavior, domestic and global economy, international political system, and the operation of the European Union. However, as in the general framework curriculum, also here the role of the citizen is in the background.

The framework syllabus (subject outline) of civics subject consists of two courses— "Governance of democratic society and citizen participation" and "Economy and world politics". The first one is of key interest here, as it covers the political, social, and legal topics.

The subject outline mostly focuses on introducing different institutions but lacks the connections of citizens to institutions. There is a significant mismatch between the course description and the learning outcomes that emphasized personal development as a citizen. In the subject outline, the focus is on knowledge. Skills and attitudes are mentioned only briefly. There is a missing link to the citizen being an agent, having an active role. The second "civics" course is not directly focused on the role of the citizen, encompassing the general operation of the economy and the international system.

In sum, the national documents contain elements of democratic citizenship but do not present a balanced and systematic strategy remaining eclectic and partly controversial. For example, if we take the well-known divide of normative perspective to citizenship (liberal democratic, civic republican, and national communitarian) (see Delanty 2000; Lister and Pia 2008), then all the citizenship normatives are represented, but the active citizen, which is mostly related to civic republican normative, is the least mentioned one. Our result show that it does not present a balanced a systematic strategy from the state, meaning it is eclectic and partly controversial.

The emphasis on knowledge leaves skills and values little addressed. We interpret it as a problematic point. This shows that on the declarative level, the democratic citizenship is addressed, but it is unclear what kind of "good citizens" the formal education system should shape. Thus, the role of the teacher as the practical designer and implementer of the course becomes substantive. However, the current teacher training curricula provide at best a limited basis for this (Jakobson et al. 2019). In addition, as we have shown previously, the students in Estonian–Russian schools are already lagging behind in this field, which means that without a clear aim and implementation policy, they might be even more marginalized in the future.

### *4.2. Teachers' Perspective*

In this subsection, we first examine the understanding of teachers about citizenship education and therefore the role of the citizen. We also address the issue of national curricula. This is followed by the peculiarities of the Estonian–Russian school system in Estonia. The outlines from interviews are translated by the authors.

The interviewed civics teachers are broadly familiar with the secondary school curricula as could be expected. They have a general knowledge of curriculum aims, knowledge, attitudes, and skills. The curriculum is considered to be a fundamental and basic part of the teaching framework but is not taken as a strict guideline, rather as a broad guidance and a large pool of objectives and topics, which is used by teachers to "cherry-pick" the knowledge, values, and skills they wish to address. They did not find that any of the curriculum aspects are irrelevant and mostly agreed with these, but some added further humanistic values there (e.g., honesty, creativity, personal integrity).

**Respondent:** They are like, fantasy, in some ways, fantasy, maybe, it is like this idealistic approach.

**Respondent:** In high school, they are very abstract, that the student is a responsible citizen, who knows the main principles of how the society works and this is what I have formulated the most for myself.

Teachers stressed that their job is to influence and prepare the students for adult life in society. This emphasis fits well with the idea of street-level bureaucracy, where the self-aware bureaucrats see themselves as confident and influential actors, e.g., as "activist teachers" (Leonard and Roberts 2016).

**Respondent:** If we talk about competencies, then you need to stress that the student would be aware of what democracy is and why we need it.

**Respondent:** Well, hmm, I think, it is important that the students know how the state is operating. And another thing, that all citizens should know, is their basic rights and responsibilities.

**Respondent:** I personally educate a simple person, who feels himself needed in the society, who feels that he can achieve a change in society, who knows his rights, and well, that he is a fully valued member of society.

Teachers reflected on their active role in the civics course. They saw that it was a two-sided role—on one hand, they had the freedom to design the course, but at the same time, it was time-consuming and therefore also depends a lot on the teacher's agency.

**Respondent:** And every teacher like, he swims in the sea, he doesn't have a boat, he needs to build it himself, and I tell you, I tell you honestly, this is very hard, that I, as a teacher, have to develop all these materials, first of all, it is tiresome, second, well, maybe I'm not competent enough for this.

**Respondent:** Estonian teachers are actually very happy, she is very free in her decisions, she chooses her own method and the way she does things, but there is the thing that for active learning methods, the curriculum is too much.

Teachers mostly discussed knowledge, while the attitudes and practices were not reflected in the same depth. As a result, democratic citizenship is largely unattained, or to be more precise, it is mostly addressed on the level of knowledge. However, to an extent, this is balanced by the personalized design of the course. As mentioned before, teachers' agency plays a key role in the teaching process. All the interviewees stressed their role of the "banking model" education, where they are the holders of information and transfer it to students. For this, they used their personal experience and practical examples to engage students meaningfully. Teachers did not believe that they had a significant influence on students' values and skills; rather, they hoped that by focusing on knowledge, the values and skills will follow.

**Respondent:** Oh, that state tries to achieve via curriculum, I'll tell you honestly, that this curriculum doesn't do anything without a teacher, teachers always can shape the student like he wants and curriculum doesn't stop it...

**Respondent:** Hmm, I think, they are enough to achieve, but at the same time, my experience as a teacher shows that they can't be always achieved. They are in some ways, like fantasy, it is this kind of idealistic approach.

While teachers are familiar with the curriculum, their personal reflection of their role and personalized teaching strategy (consciously or unconsciously) influenced the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they aimed to "transfer" to students. This reflects Dewey's idea of the role of the teachers' habits in the process of education and aligns our study with previous findings that teacher agency plays a salient role (Hogan et al. 2018; Tan 2017).

The teachers emphasized in-class interactive methods, such as group work, debates, and other practical exercises. Those methods were used to keep the students interested, to make the class more interesting. Most of them did not address methods as a possibility to influence the values and skills of students. So, in general, the practical assignments provided students with even more knowledge but no real practice in being a "citizen". Teachers were not overly optimistic about the perspective of students obtaining practical experience outside the classroom. For example, the connection to local government, politics, and communities seemed much to depend on the personal connection of teachers with these institutions.

**Respondent:** By using these active teaching methods, you actually can develop and bring forward those values and skills.

**Respondent:** If Narva wouldn't be that far, from the center, where all these meetings take place. No, we don't do these kinds of simulations.

**Respondent:** Yes, I have heard about these methods, but I don't use them. Well, yes, I know, that people use them.

Teachers also discussed the overload of the curriculum. The course has a vast number of topics but not nearly enough time to cover all of them. The topics range from the basic knowledge about the state and institutions up to the economy, European Union, and international politics. Teachers reflected on the need to make optimizing choices.

**Respondent:** But the question is at the expense of what? I know that 20 min is not enough for discussion, there are different questions and then a question arises—should I deal with the structure of parliament or I forget about it and do it next time? Okay, that is possible, but in the next class, there is another topical issue, for example, the closing of EU borders? And again, the question arises, how?

**Respondent:** And yes, if you want to do something practical, or some active learning method, it takes time and because of that, you can not introduce some basic principles of European social welfare.

### *4.3. Challenges with Democratic Citizenship Education in Estonian–Russian Schools*

In comparison to Estonian students, teachers who taught Russian students mentioned several key issues that differentiate them from the teachers in Estonian schools. One of the key issues was the different media sphere where students and their families live, which is often the one of the Russian Federation. This is problematic from to aspects: first of all, teachers need to put in extra work to provide the basics contextual information and knowledge on Estonian society to the Estonian–Russian-school students in comparison to the students who study in Estonian schools, meaning that this leaves less time and possibilities to develop other aspects of democratic citizenship. Secondly, Russian statesponsored media propaganda is often promoting anti-democratic tendencies, which also undermines principles of democratic citizenship.

**Respondent:** Oh yes, Estonian news—they do not read it. And of course, it depends, if the students are more focused on learning, they follow Estonian news. But if I look at the typical high school, then I need to force them to follow Estonian news.

**Respondent:** Teachers can't influence a lot; well, the children come from home, then the role of the teachers is to guide them and to offer alternatives to what is taught to them from home.

**Respondent:** Just recently was this simulation, but unfortunately, I didn't invite my students, my students are in that sense more passive, but maybe they wouldn't be so passive if Narva would not be so far from the center, where all these meetings are happening. So no, we don't do these simulation activities.

**Respondent:** Well, we have to fight very viciously with this Russian propaganda machine, and refute a lot of myths like this.

**Respondent:** It is largely the question of the information sphere and in what country they think they live. Well, if they need to draw a president, then some of them draw Lukashenka.

A related feature is the underlying cultural differences that influence not only attitudes but also self-esteem and learning habits. In case a student is less interested in society and politics and less disposed to work with skills and attitudes, it will be harder for the teacher to develop him or her toward more agency and engagement.

**Respondent:** I think it influences because my students are used to just memorizing things.

**Respondent:** Since I have a lot of students from Russian families, then, well, very often they try to explain to me that look, for Russians, everything is different from Estonians, we value totally different things.

**Respondent:** It also depends on the home environment, well, if the family is with lesser culture and societal interests...

Another main issue that teachers brought up was the separation of skills, knowledge, and practices. The majority of the teachers agreed with our finding in curriculum analysis, that while the role of active citizens was emphasized in general, the curriculum does not elaborate the practical objectives, strategies, examples, and possibilities to implement it.

**Respondent:** One thing is theory and another thing is practice. They can be full of theories, but if they don't know how does it exactly work, then the theory is not very useful.

**Respondent:** Well, basically, I think you might be correct, but another thing is how to implement this practical learning, because the school here is quite conservative, and if you have, like, this, outside school activities, then, to be honest, it is very difficult. It is easier in Estonian schools.

**Respondent:** But yes, in that sense, doing it yourself, there is not clear enough of this in schools. Everybody is in classes, and they do a small PowerPoint presentation.

On the positive side, it is worth mentioning that all the students who reach the 12th grade in Estonia usually speak already fluent state language, so the issue of language is not so salient. The larger question is that the students with weaker language skills do not enter high school.

**Respondent:** But still, sometimes, you don't explain some things, don't discuss some things, because of my language skills and because of their inability to express their feelings in a foreign language.

**Respondent:** Those people, who get more forward, there are so few of them, the Russian-speaking ones.

Several teachers supported the institutional reform of the education system, to reduce segmentation. However, this is not enough. For developing democratic citizenship, we need to focus more on aspects such as enhancing personal and civic competences and agency, balancing the influence of the Russian media sphere and the home environment. In addition, more emphasis is needed upon the methodology and language skills of teachers. This will be further elaborated in the discussion part.

**Respondent:** We need a common education system. It is as easy as that.

**Respondent:** Yes, earlier language teaching, and I would like it to be two-sided.

### **5. Discussion**

Our discussion is divided among two main lines: first, we will discuss the findings from the analysis of curriculum and teachers' interviews. Second, we will examine these results in a more general overview of the Estonian civics education sphere.

Estonia has clearly structured and elaborated national high school general curriculum and civics course subject outline. One of its main aims is to develop active citizens, but unfortunately, it does not provide comprehensive logic on how to achieve it. This is a classic example of policy design with an open implementation—the general aim is clearly stated, but the implementation of it is left largely to the street-level bureaucrats, in this case, the teachers. However, it is not clear that this is entirely planned, as there is a relative mismatch between the objectives and subject outline and there is little training for the teachers in terms of the content of civics. High school teachers in Estonia have a relatively large autonomy, which on one hand, allows them to individually design the course, but at the same time, it can be very time-consuming and challenging.

Based on research, by implementing the Taylor curricula analysis, even though the general curriculum has stated its goals and aims, the curriculum is still mostly knowledgebased, leaving the aspect of skill and values in the background. This is not sufficient to teach democratic citizenship to the students. In addition, following the Deweyan pragmatic education model, more focus is needed to develop the curriculum and teaching toward more practical examples, such as group work, role-play exercises, etc. and practice in the community, in order to learn via practice, not just on a theoretical basis, because democratic citizenship is not only theoretical but also it consists of practices—acts of citizenship.

Our interviews with teachers showed that there are few main points that need to be clarified and addressed. We address the issue from two perspectives: general and Estonian– Russian school specific. From the general perspective, the curriculum is overloaded with different topics and themes, and while it seems they might be covered with the length of 2 × 35 h in high school, in order to truly grasp the active citizen concepts, it is not sufficient. In addition, the curricula and teachers stress the importance of knowledge, which is crucial, but the levels of skills and values are therefore left in the background. The teacher's agency, from the Lipsky street-line bureaucratic theory, is two-sided: it provides teachers with autonomy but requires a tremendous effort from teachers.

The analysis of the interviews with Estonian–Russian school teachers revealed that they have some specific issues that require further attention. Therefore, teachers need to make an extra effort with the Estonian–Russian school students in order to increase their democratic citizenship. We see the emancipatory power of democratic citizenship in the next aspects: First of all, because of the lower language skill, a home influence that comes from a lower socio-economic status, and the Russian state media influence, students have lower knowledge of Estonian society and democratic practices, which means that teachers need to emphasize the basic elements of the society even more. Secondly, teachers need more time and to put in extra effort in order to enhance the possibilities, knowledge, skills, and values in order for these students to participate in society as democratic citizens.

Our results show that even when teachers' autonomy is large, this alone is not sufficient to reach the aims of citizenship education in Estonia. Some additional tools and resources are needed, especially with regard to time and solutions for interaction and practicing. The current situation has its benefits, but it also can further increase the inequality in education, based on teachers' capacities and willingness to put in the extra work. More emphasis is needed toward methodological issues, such as how to develop practices of democratic citizenship, not only the knowledge. This could be achieved not only by changes in curricula and civics course subject outline but also in teacher training.

### **6. Conclusions**

From a broader perspective, the Estonian separated school system reproduces the inequality not only in socio-economic or labor market aspects but also in terms of common democratic citizenship. The current solution in citizenship education remains rather thin, and thus, pre-existing differences in civic competences are not sufficiently mediated. Furthermore, it is doubtful as to whether it reaches its aims and objectives in Estonian– Russian schools or in Estonian schools, which means that not only democratic citizenship is not reached on the same level, but this also has negative effects in the future considering the larger socio-economic cleavage.

This study, among others, shows the potential solution to this issue by proposing the idea of the common or united education system in Estonia. However, the development of citizenship education is not only a matter of institutional reform. More emphasis is needed upon the critical skills to balance the Russian media influence and sometimes also the home environment. This is necessary in order to reduce marginalization and to develop democratic citizens, not just subjects. There are different options for this, for example on the institutional level of the curriculum design, but also on a more practical level, the methodology of teaching, such as interactive methods, for example, group work, discussion, simulations, etc.

**Author Contributions:** Both authors have participated in all of sections, except for conducting, transcribing and translation which were done by N.K. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was partly funded by EU Horizon2020, grant number 857366, project MIRNet—twinning for excellence in migration and integration research and networking.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the ethics of Tallinn University.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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