Learning network for citizenship education
- Period: 2024-2025
- Status: ongoing
Description
Civic education focuses, among other things, on promoting civic competencies. Following the introduction of the new Civic Education Act in 2021, schools will be assessed by the inspectorate from 2024 onwards on the effectiveness of their civic education and the extent to which they have insight into this effectiveness. Currently, only standardised quantitative measurement instruments are available to test this effectiveness.
At the same time, researchers point to various practical and ethical objections to
- a focus on citizenship skills, because it is based on a product rather than a practical approach to citizenship; is one-sided and/or apolitical; and may be at the expense of attention to tense issues that concern pupils and/or
- (one-sided focus on) effectiveness measurements, due to the multitude of tests in education, the professionalisation process and educational development that still need to take place, and questions about the assumed neutral unambiguity of what is being measured.
In this learning network, teachers, under the guidance of the experts involved, develop assessment/evaluation tools that:
- are in line with the new law;
- are in line with the school’s vision;
- be suitable for assessing the quality of various forms of citizenship education that are in line with the updated themes and attainment targets, and
- complement existing instruments that assess pupils’ competence development.
To date, no other parties offer such a professionalisation programme. Fellow teacher trainers and trainers at universities of applied sciences and advisory organisations also indicate that they need tools and professionalisation in this area.
Network meetings
A total of five three-hour network meetings will be organised on Thursday afternoons (3 to 6 p.m.). Four meetings will take place at the UvH. One meeting will be offered online. The first meeting will start in October. Meetings will take place every three weeks, so that there is sufficient time for the interim development and testing of intermediate products. Through discussion, co-creation and formative feedback activities, teachers contribute to the further development of each other’s assessment/evaluation products and cross-school products.
Researchers
(Co-)funding
- Expertisepunt Burgerschap (Expertise Centre for Citizenship)
- University of Humanistic Studies
Contact
Isolde de Groot, i.degroot@uvh.nl