Developing a Multi-Level Approach to Democratic Citizenship Education

Democratic citizenship education is constituted on many levels, from the general value statements in national general education framework curricula and somewhat more elaborate descriptions in framework syllabi for various subjects to teacher training and school practice as experienced by teachers, pupils and others. Thus in order to understand which values and normatives (e.g. Heater 1999, Delanty 2000, Kalev, Sinivee 2017) are practically supported in citizenship education we need to analyse the congruence of various levels. In this paper we will analyse the coherence and contradictions in the citizenship normatives in practice as articulated on the various levels of Estonian general education. Estonia serves as a good case for the study as it has relatively developed framework curricula and syllabi, and has experienced the contestation of various normatives in citizenship education (Jakobson et al 2019). We will analyse the national framework curricula and syllabi of general education as well as focus group interviews carried out with teachers and students in schools. 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? We will discuss the Estonian case from the angles of policy implementation, interactivity and the front line agency of the teachers in democratic citizenship education (e.g. Heater 2004, Lipsky 2010, Westheimer 2015, Lester et al 2017). We will utilise qualitative content analysis and seek to highlight both the key emphasis and discrepancies and draw conclusions. After presenting and discussing the results we will also draw broader conclusions and make policy suggestions.