Adolescents' Ideas about Citizenship and Democracy Jennifer M. Bowes University of Sydney Denise Chalmers Edith Cowan University Constance Flanagan The Pennsylvania State University, USA Paper presented as part of the symposium: Education for Citizenship: Historical, Policy and Psychological Perspectives (Convenor: J. Bowes) at the annual conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Hobart, November 26-30, 1995. The research assistance of Rosalie Robinson and Olive Cherry is acknowledged with thanks as is the financial assistance of the Research Committee of the Faculty of Education, University of Sydney. Adolescents' Ideas About Citizenship And Democracy This paper presents a psychological perspective on one of the central questions of the symposium : What does citizenship mean in Australia? It explores the question from the viewpoint of students in our high schools, the potential targets of any initiatives in Civics Education. The level and nature of high school students' understanding of political structures such as democracy and their own ideas and attitudes about citizenship need to be known before appropriate curricula can be developed. Research and theory on adolescents' ideas about society and social issues such as poverty has been the focus of considerable interest amongst psychologists and sociologists in recent decades (Adelson, 1972; Connell, 1971; Cook, 1989; Furnham, 1987; Gallatin, 1980; Haste & Torney-Purta, 1992; Leahy, 1990; Lowe, Krahn & Tanner, 1988) with several researchers putting forward stage theories of the development of political thinking (Connell, 1971; Adelson & O'Neil, 1966). During secondary school (11 to 18 years) American students were found by Adelson and O'Neil (1966) to move from a concrete and egocentric view of politics, through to a more abstract grasp of politics at age 15 which was nevertheless hampered by a lack of political knowledge and a tendency to think of government in terms of a number of tangible services. At this age, students were not aware of the legitimate claims of society on the citizen and their concern was not with individual freedoms but rather with an authoritarian approach to keeping order in society. By 18 years, students were found to have more political knowledge and that knowledge was more likely to be integrated into a system of political thought and to include some ideas about the responsibilities as well as the rights of citizens (Adelson & O'Neil, 1966; Connell, 1971). The development of notions of social responsibility in adolescents was a central concern in the present study. As far back as 1949, Havinghurst listed civic competence and socially responsible behaviour as essential developmental tasks in adolescence. Reference to adolescents' relationship to their community is notable by its absence in recent texts on adolescent psychology (Feldman & Elliott, 1990; Santrock, 1993). From theory and research, we know a great deal about the development of independence and self-reliance in adolescents but comparatively little about the correlates of social responsibility and citizenship, especially those that focus on improving society (Greenberger, 1982, 1984). This research focus reflects a general preference in our society to consider the rights of young people in our society and neglect the issue of responsibilities and obligations (Bowes, 1994; Civics Experts Group, 1994). For young people to develop into citizens with a sense of their responsibilities to society in addition to knowledge about their rights in a democratic society, they need (a) a knowledge of political structures and (b) they need to know about and understand the responsibilities of citizenship. From recent Australian studies, we have some information about high school students' political interest and knowledge. In a discussion of aspects of adolescent identity, Noller & Callan (1991) reported that the many of the students they interviewed had little interest in politics and few had achieved a sense of their own political identity. Print's (1994) study of Year 10 and Year 12 students in NSW schools revealed low levels of political knowledge and understanding. Print found that only a third of Year 10 students, for example, demonstrated a good understanding of democracy, with 53% having no understanding of the term. In response to a question about effective citizenship, half of the Year 9 and Year 10 students studied by Print (1995) presented a purposive role for citizens (voting, asking questions of politicians, demanding their rights). These results suggest while students' political knowledge may not be high, they do have an idea of active citizenship. There is a need, however, to explore students' ideas further, to look at the frequency of different kinds of responses to questions about democracy and citizenship. The aim of the present study was to explore the nature of younger and older adolescents' ideas about a basic political concept in our society, democracy, and to interpret their ideas about what characterises a good citizen in the context of developing notions of social responsibility. The two age groups chosen for study, 13- and 16-year-olds, corresponded to the age groups identified by Adelson and O'Neil and the Italian researcher, Berti (1988) who found a dramatic shift in political thought between 12-13 and 15-16 years. Differences between boys and girls in their understanding of democracy and citizenship are also a focus of this paper as there is a consistent finding in the research on adolescents that boys have greater political knowledge and awareness than girls (Furnham & Stacey, 1991). Understanding and concern about issues of social responsibility are predicted to be higher in girls than in boys in line with the general tendency for girls to have a greater degree of social commitment than boys (Offer, Ostrov, Howard & Atkinson, 1987). Method Sample Five hundred and thirty-nine high school students took part in the study, 277 from Year 8 (mean age of 13 years, 4 months; SD of 9.4 months) and 262 from Year 11 (mean age of 16 years, 5 months; SD of 6.0 months) from ten secondary schools in Sydney and Perth. There were approximately equal numbers of girls (265) and boys (274). The sample was chosen to represent as far as possible the range of secondary schools found in urban Australia in terms of: government (4) and private schools (6); and girls (2), boys (2) and co-educational schools (6). The sample of government schools came from Perth which meant that all government schools in the sample were coeducational, the most common pattern for Australian government schools. Private schools came from the Catholic and independent sectors in the Western Sydney area. Given the nature of the questionnaire and its concern with politically related issues, schools were chosen on the basis of Commonwealth electorates to allow for the range of possible parental influence on adolescents' thinking about political and social issues. In the Perth sample there were two schools in each of four adjoining electorates: one safe Labor seat, one safe Liberal, one marginal Labor and one marginal Liberal. In Sydney, two schools were chosen from each of four adjoining electorates: one safe Labor seat, one safe Liberal, one marginal Labour and one marginal Liberal. Within the private schools, one Year 8 and one Year 11 class group from each school took part in the study (N=255) and for the government schools two classes at each grade level were involved (N=284). The classes were all mixed ability groups and were intact class groups studying a subject related to the study's concerns. Subject groups included Geography, Economics, Religious Education and Legal Studies. The sample reflected the wide multicultural composition of the Australian population. Sixty-nine percent of the students spoke English at home and the other 266 students spoke one of 40 specified languages, the most frequently spoken being Arabic (5.6%), Greek (2%), Cantonese (1.7%), French (1.5%) and Khmer (1.5%). Twenty percent of the sample had been born overseas in a wide range of countries (41 specified). On the basis of questions about country of birth, language spoken at home and a question about Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, the sample was divided into seven broad ethnic groups: Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (N=15, 2.8%), Anglo-Australian (N=354, 65.7%), European-Australian (N=66, 12.2%), Middle-Eastern Australian (N=31, 5.8%), African Australian (N=2, 0.4%), Asian Australian (N=61, 11.3%), and Pacific Islander Australian (N=3, 0.6%). Materials The questionnaire used for the study was developed by Dr Constance Flanagan of the University of Pennsylvania in conjunction with her team of international collaborators of which I am one for the purposes of a nine nation study of the development of theories of social justice and civic responsibility during adolescence and young adulthood. It consisted of a number of statements to which students responded using a Likert-type scale to rate importance of items or their degree of agreement. Student interest in politics and religion was measured through questions asking about the importance to the student of religion and of knowing about local and overseas events. An indication of students' values in terms of their aspirations for the future listed 24 items which students were asked to rate for importance to them on a 5-point scale. Items included purely individual concerns such as 'developing my talents' and 'earning a lot of money' and items that indicated a sense of social responsibility such as 'doing something worthwhile for society' and 'helping those who are less fortunate'. The questionnaire also included the open-ended questions, 'In your own words, what would you say are the characteristics of a good citizen?' and 'People have different ideas about what it means for a society to be a democracy. In your own words, what does democracy mean to you?'. Procedure Because of its length, the questionnaire was administered in two sections with the sessions held a week apart during normal class time. Each form took 20-35 minutes to complete, depending on grade level and reading proficiency. Results Results are presented in four sections: 1. students' stated interest in current affairs and religion 2. student values and aspirations 3. student conceptions of democracy, and 4. student definitions of a "good citizen" 1. Interest in current affairs and religion Students were asked to rate the importance of knowing about current events in their own country and in the rest of the world and were asked to rate the importance of religion in their lives. Percentages for the total sample are shown in Table 1. Table 1 Percentages of students indicating importance of knowing about local and world events, and of religion in their lives (N=538) Knowledge ofKnowledge ofImportance of Local eventsWorld eventsReligion Definitely not important2.23.0 21.9 Not important5.69.518 Somewhat important37.744.328.2 Important41.635.119.9 Very important12.88.011.9 It can be seen that more students rated knowledge of local and global events as important to them than they did religion although a third of the students said that religion was important or very important to them. Students' stated level of interest in current events was quite high with half (54%) saying that knowing about local events was important or very important for them and 43% indicating a similar interest in world events. 2. Values and aspirations Students were asked 'When you think about your life and your future, how important is each of the following for you personally to achieve?' Of the 24 items students were asked to rate, only six gained a mean rating of more than 4 ( in the range of important to very important). The items were: having close friends, getting a good education, having a secure job, developing my talents, being close to my family, and preserving the earth for future generations. When means were examined by grade and gender, one more item was included in the important range for Year 8 students and for girls: protecting animals. Two items which appeared consistently at the bottom of the list, with a mean rating of less than 3 (between not important and somewhat important) were following the principles of my religion and being active in politics. The main items indicating a sense of social responsibility seem to relate to protection of the environment and animals rather than to other people in society. While the items which were judged most and least important did not change when differences by grade and gender were examined, the order of items did change and some significant differences were found in the degree of importance given to some items. Year 8 students rated getting a good education, having close friends and being close to my family more highly than Year 11 students (F(1,530)= 13.31 p<.001; F(1,528)= 3.99 p<.05; and F(1,531)=3.94, p<.05 respectively). Girls rated close friends and close family as more important than did boys (F(1,528)= 4.93, p<.05; and F(1, 531)= 6.08, p<.05 respectively). 3. Conceptions of democracy In an open-ended question, students were asked 'What does democracy mean to you?'. The responses given (81 students did not attempt an answer), were analysed in terms of how many ideas students gave, and the type of idea given. Initial coding into 15 categories was collapsed into four for the purposes of this paper. The four categories were: 1. Representative government. This category included reference to government, voting, equality of representation (eg., "everyone has a say"), and equality of entitlements ("everyone gets a fair go"). Forty percent of responses were of this kind. 2. Freedom(s). This category included general references to freedom and references to specific freedoms such as freedom of speech, freedom to demonstrate and freedom of choice, where voting was not specified. Freedom was mentioned in 31% of responses. 3. Other. This category contained a variety of responses, some closely associated with democracy but not part of its definition, such as capitalism, others voicing opinions about current Australian political concerns (eg., "get rid of the monarchy") and others which indicated that the students were not sure of the meaning of the word (eg., "when someone criticises others" and "democracy means comonist"). Fifteen percent of responses were grouped into this category. 4. Don't know. This category was used for responses where students had written "Don't know" (14% of responses). The 81 blanks left for this question indicates that this category could well be larger. The frequency of the four kinds of response are presented by grade and by gender as a percentage of all responses in Figures 1 and 2. It can be seen that there were no differences between boys and girls in the frequency of the four types of response but Year 11 students seemed better informed than Year 8 students about representative government and freedoms associated with democracy and were less likely to say that they did not know the meaning of the word. The freedom category is interesting in that it may indicate quite a high awareness about the rights which our society confers on its citizens, whether or not the students were correct in attributing those freedoms to democracy. 4. Characteristics of a good citizen The "good citizen" question was attempted by more of the students (N=529) and many more gave multiple response answers (total responses = 1592). The initial 21 categories of response coded were collapsed into five types of answer (there were only 10 "don't know" responses to this question). The five main types of response were: 1. Personality characteristics. Perhaps as a result of the way the question was worded, the most frequent type of response referred to personal virtues (eg., "honest", "loyal"), personal attributes (eg., "physically strong", "smart"), and desirable features (eg., "educated", "a leader", "well-dressed", "someone who stands up for his own opinions"). Of 1592 (multiple) responses, 639 or 40% referred to personality characteristics. 2. Relationships with others. Responses which indicated a concern for other people were coded as relationships with others. These included "gives to society", "cares about others", good family relationships", "good relationships with others in the community" and "accepts other people wherever they come from". Thirty-one percent of responses were of this kind. 3. Responsibility. Responses of personality characteristics to do with responsibility ("hardworking", "responsible", "self-reliant" and "socially responsible" were included in this category which accounted for 11% of responses. 4. Conformity. This category included a number of ways in which a "good citizen " can conform to society. It included "law-abiding", "not involved in criminal behaviour" and responses that said a good citizen should fit into mainstream society in terms of language, culture, or sexuality (eg., "should speak English", "not a homo"). These accounted for 9% of responses. 5. Environmentally aware. Ninety-two or 6% of responses presented a good citizen as someone who cares about the environment. 6. Other. The remaining 3% of responses included "don't know", "would fight for their country", arguments that all citizens were different so that the question was unanswerable, and some amusing responses such as "has a pet and treats it like one of the family" and "grows pot for the community". Figure 3 shows that Year 8 students gave more personality characteristic responses than Year 11 students did but responses were similar for the two grades over the other categories. Boys and girls also showed similar patterns in type of response, with boys giving slightly more personality answers and girls more responses that referred to relationships with others. Discussion Three issues emerge for discussion from these results: (a) students' level of interest in events in society and in the world (b) their level of knowledge about democracy, and (c) the level of social responsibility revealed in their answers. (a) students' level of interest in events in society and in the world Over half of the students indicated that knowledge of local events was important or very important to them. Most of the others admitted to some interest with fewer than 10% saying that they were not interested in local events. This shows a higher level of interest in events in society than expected on the basis of other research (Noller & Callan, 1991). A sizeable proportion of the sample reported that knowledge of world events was important or very important to them. Only 12% said that world events were of no importance. It may seem that students were giving socially desirable answers but they did not do so for the accompanying question on religion which 40% indicated had little or no importance in their lives. (b) students' level of knowledge about democracy Fewer than half of the answers (40%) given to the question "what does democracy mean to you?" were related to voting or government by representation. Lack of knowledge about democracy was particularly evident for Year 8 students. Forty-five percent of their answers were in the "don't know" or "other" category. Many of the students (31% of responses) saw freedom or particular types of freedom (of speech, of assembly) as part of what democracy meant to them, and this kind of answer was more frequent amongst Year 11 students. It indicates a developing idea about the rights which this kind of political structure confers on its citizens. (c) the level of social responsibility revealed in students' answers. The values question and the question about the characteristics of a good citizen provide some indication of students' concern for others in society and their sense of the responsibilities of citizens. The most important things to students for their future related to individual aspirations: to have close relationships to friends and family, to have a good education and gain secure employment and to develop individual talents. One item indicating a sense of global responsibility which also came consistently high in student values was the need to help preserve the earth for future generations. Environmental concerns also emerged as important as one of the characteristics of a "good citizen" put forward in 92 responses. Responsibilities of citizenship were mentioned specifically in only 11% of responses but social responsibility was also evident in the responses categorised as "relationships with others" and about a third of responses were of this kind, indicating that many students were conscious of the responsibilities as well as the rights of citizenship. Although the results indicate some degree of social responsibility in students, particularly evident in one issue, the environment, understanding of the concepts of citizenship and democracy is not universal and many students did not know or had misconceptions about the meaning of democracy. Any teaching of citizenship at high school level will need to address these basic notions of our society with a view to increasing students' knowledge and appreciation of their rights and responsibilities as citizens in a democracy. References Adelson, J. (1972). The political imagination of the young adolescent. in J. Kagan & R. Coles (Eds), Twelve to sixteen: Early adolescence (pp. 106-143). New York: W.W.Norton. Adelson, J., & O'Neill, R. (1966). growth of political ideas in adolescence: The sense of community. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 295-306. Berti, A. (1988). The development of political understanding in children between 6-15 years old. Human Relations, 41, 437-446. Bowes J.M. (1994, November). Responsibility for self and beyond self. paper presented at the Eighth Australasian Human Development Conference, Melbourne. Carter, J. (1993). Parliamentary education-A strategy for teaching about politics in school. In K.Kennedy, O. Watts, & G. McDonald (Eds), Citizenship education for a new age. Toowoomba: USQ Press. Civics Expert Group (1994). Civics and citizenship education. Canberra: Australian governmnt Publishing Service. Connell R.W. (1971). The child's construction of politics. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Cook, T.E. (1989). The psychological theory of political socialization and the political theory of child development: The dangers of normal science. Human Development, 32, 24-34. Evans, K. (in press). Competence and citizenship: Towards a complementary model (for times of critical social change). British Journal of Education and Work. Feldman, S.S., & Elliott, , G.R. (1990). At the threshold: The developing adolescent. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Furnham A.F. (1987). The determinants and structure of adolescents' beliefs about the economy. Journal of Adolescence, 10, 353-371. Furnham, A., & Stacey, B. (1991). Young people's understanding of society. London: Routledge. Gallatin, J. (1980). Political thinking in adolescence. In J. Adelson, (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology. (pp. 344-382). New York: Wiley. Greenberger, E. (1982). Education and the acquisition of psychosocial maturity. In D.C. McClelland (Ed.), The development of social maturity. New York: Irvington. Greenberger, E. (1984). Defining psychosocial maturity in adolescence. In P. Karoly & J.J. Steffen (Eds), Adolescent behavior disorders: Foundations and contemporary concerns. Lexington, M.A.: D.C. Heath. Haste, H., & Torney-Purta, J. (Eds) (1992). The development of political understanding. New Directions For Child Development. San Francisco; Jossey-Bass. Havinghurst, R.J., Taba, H. (1949). Adolescent character and personality. New York: Wiley. Kennedy, K., & Print, M. (1994, November). Citizenship education for a new age. Keynote address to the International Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies, Phoenix, Arizona. Leahy, R.L. (1990). The development of concepts of economic and social inequality. In V.C. McLoyd & C.A.Flanagan (Eds), Economic stress: Effects on family life and child development. (pp.107-120). New Directions for Child development, 46, San Francisco; Jossey-Bass. Lowe, G.S., Krahn, H., & Tanner, J. (1988). Young people's explanations of unemployment. Youth & Society, 19, 227-249. Noller, P., & Callan, V. (1991). The adolescent in the family. New York: Routledge. Offer, D., Ostrov, E., Howard, K.I., & Atkinson, R. (1987). The teenage world: Adolescents' self-image in ten countries. New York: Plenum. Print, M. (1994). Student political understanding and attitudes. Canberra: Parliamentary Education Office. Print, M. (1995). Political understanding and attitudes of secondary school students. Canberra: Parliamentary Education Office. Santrock, J.W. (1993). Adolescence. Madison, WI: WCB Brown & Benchmark. Torney-Purta, J (1992). Cognitive representations of the political system in adolescents: The continuum from pre-novice to expert. In H. Haste & J. Torney-Purta (Eds), The development of political understanding. New Directions For Child Development.. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.