Implementing Citizenship Education Policy. The Case of Estonia.

In this paper we study citizenship education in Estonian secondary school with a key interest in policy implementation. The content of civics and its implementation is analysed based on the normative perspectives on citizenship. We discuss the multi-layer implementation process focusing on teachers as street level bureaucrats exercising a wide discretion in decisions. We are broadly based on the tradition of educational policy implementation studies and consider the cultural or argumentative turn in policy sciences where language is of central importance. Our key focus is on teachers and their understandings and teaching and learning contexts, but we discuss this related to civics as a national policy resource and as reflected by the students. The questions for the empirical analysis are: (1) How are the main normative perspectives to citizenship constructed in the secondary school framework curriculum and civics subject outline? (2) How do civics teachers transform the regulations in curricula into the content of their subject? What is the role of the teacher agency in this process? (3) What is the teachers’ interpretation of students’ perception of civics topics? How is it reflected in students’ experience? The article concludes with discussion of the results and policy suggestions.