Table of Content

1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Theory ................................................................................................................................................. 5
2.1. Citizenship education ................................................................................................................ 5
What is citizenship education?..................................................................................................... 5
Why is it important? ....................................................................................................................... 5
Active citizenship education ......................................................................................................... 6
The schools’ role in fostering citizenship education ................................................................... 7
What citizenship education aims for............................................................................................ 7
Values in citizenship education .................................................................................................... 9
Different approaches to teaching citizenship education ......................................................... 10
How is it organized in schools?................................................................................................... 11
2.2. Formative assessment ............................................................................................................. 13
What is assessment and feedback? .......................................................................................... 13
Summative vs. formative assessment ....................................................................................... 14
Formative assessment of citizenship education ...................................................................... 16
3. ALiCE project and method of the results ....................................................................................... 19
4. Country differences ......................................................................................................................... 20
4.1. Citizenship education .............................................................................................................. 20
4.2. Assessment .............................................................................................................................. 21
5. ALiCE results .................................................................................................................................... 23
5.1. Citizenship education .............................................................................................................. 23
How is citizenship education approached? .............................................................................. 23
Professionalization ...................................................................................................................... 26
Challenges.................................................................................................................................... 27
Whole school approach .............................................................................................................. 28
5.2. (Formative) assessment of Citizenship education ................................................................ 29
Teacher approaches and challenges ......................................................................................... 29
Professionalization ...................................................................................................................... 33
Different subjects and perspectives .......................................................................................... 35

1
6. Lessons learned............................................................................................................................... 40
6.1. For teachers on assessment ................................................................................................... 40
6.2. For teachers on biases when assessing ................................................................................. 45
6.3. Lessons learned for policy makers ......................................................................................... 48
6.4. Lessons learned for educational support and trainers ......................................................... 51
7. Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 52
8. References ................................................................................................................................... 55

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the
author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European
Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can
be held responsible for them.

2
1. Introduction
In this E-book we want to describe the results and trajectory of the ALiCE-project. ALiCE is an
Erasmus+ KA2 project that was born out of a common European need. This E-Book is
complementary with the ALiCE learning platform https://eduface.app, where all the inspiration
of the project is gathered with good practices, online training, and a self-scan for teachers. We
add an E-Book to gather the most important insights of this project.

During the past decade several EU countries have implemented citizenship education. Policies
on citizenship education are often based on the framework of competences for democratic
culture published by the Council of Europe (2018) which leans on a rich European tradition of
Bildung. The concept of Bildung focuses on formative process of psychological, social and moral
growth of a person. Consequently, citizenship education resembles this project in raising active,
participative and responsible individuals. This requires a free space in which teachers can
organize meaningful educational activities where students can act upon and embody knowledge,
skills and attitudes they have been taught.

“An imaginary space in which no one owns the truth and in which every single person has the
right to be understood. This imaginary space is born together with modern European societies, it
is the image of Europe, a dream that often failed or even was violated, but still strong enough to
unite us all in the brotherhood that far exceeds this little continent.” (Kundera, 1987)

Thus, providing such a space to foster global citizenship education within schools has gained
significant attention from policymakers, practitioners, and researchers worldwide. Rapid societal
changes have prompted a re-examination of the notion of citizenship, focusing not only on its
traditional status but also on citizenship education being an active practice.

Although each European country emphasizes different aspects of citizenship education, a lot of
partner countries were struggling with assessment of these citizenship competences. The
Eurydice report (2005) already highlighted that assessing pupils in citizenship education is a
challenging and complex task. Although assessing theoretical knowledge in citizenship education
is relatively straightforward, measuring the other two non-theoretical aims—adopting positive
civic attitudes and values, and active participation or actual behavior—is much more difficult.

As the framework of the Council of Europe (2018) states out, it can’t be the purpose of citizenship
education to judge a student as a passed or failed citizen. But how can teachers and schools
approach citizenship formative assessments while keeping growth and life-long learning in mind?
Even more so, when schools don’t take assessment into account for citizenship education,
teachers nor students don’t have data to further optimize or learn within citizenship education
lessons and make more informed decisions. This question was the starting point of the ALiCE-
project and led to a professionalization program and the development of a learning platform to
bundle good examples and materials on the subject.

3
In the first part we will zoom in on the theoretical framework of citizenship education and
formative assessment. In the second part, we’ll present the project and method of the results. The
third part will briefly describe country differences and similarities within the projects to provide
some more context. The fourth part will give an overview of several results. We’ll conclude with a
discussion, outlining challenges and questions that followed out of the project.

The search for meaning, truth, value and morality is quite central in citizenship education. It is a
common quest and reflection that binds us together, that lies at the heart of what it means to be
a European citizen. We are very thankful to have received the opportunity to contribute to this
European citizenship canon. Together with our Portuguese (ULisboa), Bulgarian (NTCenter),
Lithuanian (SPI), Norwegian (Oslomet), Czech (Euroface), Italian (CIRPE), Belgian (AGSO and
KdG) and Slovenian (LUV) partners we worked for three years closely together, resulting in
beautiful discussions and reflections, inspiring training sessions and the development of
innovative materials. We inspired each other and listened to the best practices and struggles of
teachers within our countries and abroad, building bridges in education throughout Europe. We
hope we can inspire you and your team with this ALiCE e-book.

“A democracy is a community of listeners.” (Bjung-Chul Han, 2018)

4
2. Theory
We aim to describe the main concepts – citizenship education and formative assessment - and
clarify what formative assessment of citizenship education might consist of. First, we will discuss
citizenship education and its relevant competences and second, we will discuss formative
assessment. Third, we examine the possibilities and challenges of assessing citizenship
education, especially in a formative manner.

2.1. Citizenship education

What is citizenship education?
Citizenship education seeks to ensure that young people become active and responsible citizens
who can fully participate in civic and social life, based on the understanding of social, economic,
legal and political concepts and structures, as well as global developments and sustainability
(Eurydice, 2005; European Commission, 2019). Citizenship competences are generally divided
into two categories: interpersonal competences and societal competences (Ten Dam & Volman,
2007). For that matter, citizenship encompasses how to deal with other people at a micro level –
relations with others - and a macro level – related to society in general such as the relationship
with politics, decision-making, human rights and dealing with differences (Eidhof, 2016).

Why is it important?
Citizenship education is increasingly considered as an important educational topic because of
several reasons. Firstly, we live in a knowledge society where all citizens need information, both
on the job market but also to participate in society as citizens (Bîrzea et al., 2002). Secondly,
increasing distrust in political institutions and declining social cohesion has placed citizenship in
the spotlight (Kavadias & Dehertogh, 2010). In light of these two societal trends, schools started
to ‘rediscover’ the importance of value formation and citizen education from the 1980’s onwards
(Bîrzea et al. 2002). Even when a school gives no attention to citizenship education or value
formation, education is never value free and whether teachers want to or not, unconscious values
and norms are transmitted to students (Schultz, Abdi & Richardson, 2011). This probably applies
even more to citizenship education than to some other fields of education. For example, teacher
values are interwoven in their decisions on certain class rules or educational content. Even the
decision not to discuss something in class is value driven and shows a teacher does not see an
educational value in a certain topic. Therefore, it is important to consciously and coherently
impact students’ values and attitudes as school actors (Brint, Contreras & Mattews, 2001).

Third, an open and democratic society does not function by itself, and students are not born with
a so called ‘democratic gene’ (Hahn, 1998). Students are not inclined to have democratic values
without addressing them. Therefore, education plays an important role in developing this
democratic gene, as all students spend (a) a lot of time in schools and (b) spend this time with
other students with different backgrounds (Nieuwelink et al., 2018). Thus, schools provide a key
space to develop citizenship knowledge, competences and attitudes (Kavadias & Dehertogh,
2010).

Fourthly, there are major differences in civic competences between schools (Kavadias &
Dehertogh, 2010). Students from a disadvantaged socio-economic background are given less
opportunities to develop civic competences, attitudes and gain civic knowledge. On the one hand
5
schools can play a ‘compensating’ role in that matter when diminishing the gap in citizenship
between high and low SES-students. On the other hand, schools can increase the educational
inequalities in terms of citizenship between students (Nieuwelink et al., 2018).

Teacher reflection question

Why is it important to develop citizenship competences for all students?

Active citizenship education

When citizenship is approached in a minimal and formal way, it is referred to as ‘civics education’,
which is largely knowledge-based. In a more maximal interpretation, citizenship education
includes knowledge components, and it also actively encourages students to understand and
participate in the world. It is not merely the content that matters but the process of teaching and
learning that is central (Kerr, 1999). Furthermore, active citizenship means people work towards
changing unjust situations, which often requires collective action. In this respect, Torney-Purta,
Lehmann, Oswald and Schulz (2001) refer to (1) conventional and institutionalized forms of
participation in addition to (2) social movement activities that citizens engage in. Conventional
participation is citizen behavior that complies with social norms and democratic duties, such as
the willingness to learn about one’s country’s history or voting in elections. Social movement
participation refers to participation in society to improve life circumstances or specific societal
problems through collecting signatures for petitions, protest movements, or raising funds for a
social cause (Schulz, Ainley, Fraillon, Kerr & Losito, 2010). Active citizenship entails both kinds of
participation.

6
Biesta (2020) describes the three functions of education: qualification, socialization and
subjectification. First, we want to qualify students and teach them knowledge, skills and
attitudes. In order to act in the world, one must know the world. Second, the school is a place
where students come in contact with other people and other groups. Students learn to cope with
social structures and learn how to be part of a group and/or community. Finally, students become
a subject/person in their educational career. This doesn’t mean they are not a person when they
start their education but rather it means that the process of education has a strong influence on
how we view the world and act upon it. We could describe education as a place of transit that
could become a place of transformation. When citizenship education not only covers knowledge
about our society but also pays attention to processes of socialization and subjectification, it
highlights the active and engaged part for students in schools.

The schools’ role in fostering citizenship education

Schools play a vital role in developing active citizenship and fostering the knowledge, skills and
attitudes students need to develop into politically aware and socially responsible individuals
(Torney-Purta & Vermeer, 2004). Alongside parents, peers and organizations, schools contribute
to this process of value formation (Eidhof, ten Dam, Dijkstra & van de Werfhorst, 2017). Research
has shown that especially an open classroom climate for discussion relates positively to civic
values such as tolerance and political trust (Torney-Purta et al., 2001).

Schools can be seen as ‘living labs’ where students live together and shape their ideas and
identities as citizens (Flanagan, 2013). Schools gather students of different backgrounds
regarding social class, religion and/or ideological background. As adolescents live together in this
public area outside the family environment, they encounter a diverse set of values. These
circumstances make schools promising places to experience democracy for students.
Nonetheless, we must keep in mind that school effects on citizenship are rather small, and
especially impact students’ knowledge about citizenship (Isac, 2015; Sampermans, Isac & Claes,
2018). Studies have indicated that 5 to 15 percent of differences in citizenship competences are
explained by the school context (Munniksma et al., 2017). Even though school effects are not
large, the effects are considered important since schools reach such a large group of students
and have a far-fetching potential to engage students in citizenship (Isac, 2015).

What citizenship education aims for

Citizenship addresses different interests and moral values which reflect a pluriform society.
Whether citizenship is approached from a traditional, liberal, critical, feminist, multicultural or
other viewpoint, it contains a cognitive, applied and moral aspect. Heater (2004) developed a
model consisting of three axes related to citizenship education, which can be valuable for
detecting the focus of citizenship education in a specific educational context. The several axes
interact with one another:

7
• The x-axis divides citizenship knowledge, competences and attitudes into five elements:
the notion of identity, virtue, a civil and legal element, a political and social element.
However, these five elements can be combined as they function as typologies.

• The y-axis aims to allocate a geographical level to the way citizenship education is
approached. This can be done at a local, national, continental or global level, or a
combination of these levels. In the last century, citizenship has expanded from being very
exclusive, and only a privilege for white men who were usually landowners, to being
granted for most people within the nation, based on the ‘imagined community’ of the
nation-state (Anderson, 2006). More recently, there has been a shift from a national to
global citizenship driven by globalization and an increased international perspective on
education (Oxley & Morris, 2013; Yemini & Maxwell, 2020).

• The z-axis reflects the kind of education that is provided. In this sense, knowledge,
competences and attitudes are distinguished. First, civic knowledge focusses on the
cognitive transfer of societal issues, political systems and democracy. This is often framed
as a more formal citizenship education (Quintelier, Dasonneville & Claes, 2012).
Nonetheless, this kind of knowledge is contextual, and value driven. According to Milner
(2002), civic knowledge is essential in order to create agency and an active form of
citizenship. Second, competences relate to the idea that citizenship should be a practice
rather than a theoretical artefact (Heater, 2004). Third, civic attitudes are influenced by
one’s norms, values, identity and what it means to be a ‘good citizen’. Different ideological
perspectives strongly impact citizenship attitudes, but also competences and
knowledge.

8
Values in citizenship education
Heaters’ model (2004) does not discuss value education. However, values are also a core element
of citizenship education. It is important to distinguish them from attitudes, as they are closely
related yet distinct. Blankson (2005) describes attitudes as a "complex mental state of values,
beliefs, and a disposition to act in a certain way," with attitudes expressing values through
judgments and behavior (Berkowitz, 1997; Veugelers & Vedder, 2003). Thus, values are often more
underlying features of attitudes. In the past, values were implicitly transmitted in citizenship
education without being explicitly questioned or discussed (Halstead & Taylor, 2000), whereas
now there is a greater emphasis on articulating and discussing values explicitly (Turnbull, 2002).
However, organizations often keep values abstract, leading to various interpretations in practice
(Veugelers & de Kat, 1998); for example, while schools generally support democratic values, there
is ambiguity in how these values are enacted and reflected in school culture (Nias et al., 1989).

Schools are also places where different values may collide, leading to tensions. There may be a
gap between the values officially espoused by a school ("espoused theory") and the values
actually practiced by teachers and students ("theory-in-use"). For instance, teachers may agree
with democratic principles in theory but fail to implement them in practice by disregarding
students' voices. Similarly, individuals may support values like tolerance until those values
contradict personal beliefs or opinions (Halliday, 1999; Turnbull, 2002).

To understand how values and beliefs influence attitudes, Costello's model (1987) categorizes
classroom beliefs into three types: Category A beliefs, which are based on facts (e.g., "Triangles
have three sides"); Category B beliefs, where multiple well-informed positions are possible (e.g.,
differing political ideologies); and Category C beliefs, which are generally accepted and taught
without question (e.g., "Torturing animals is morally wrong"). Reflecting on these categories helps
teachers and students analyze their own beliefs.

Teachers inevitably convey and enact values, whether implicitly or explicitly; even avoiding certain
topics signals a lack of importance placed on those subjects. Teachers should reflect on and learn
about their own values regularly, showing students how to engage in such reflection and
acknowledging the possibility of different values, arguments, and opinions (Veugelers, 2000).

Teacher reflection question

Do you stimulate discussions on different types of beliefs?

How do your values or the values of the school relate to the values of your students?

9
Different approaches to teaching citizenship education
Citizenship is a normative concept as it deals with the question of how people should organize
society and which roles citizens should play within this organization (Eidhof & Nieuwelink, 2014).
Hence, there are many different perspectives on citizenship (Lister, 2008). Consequently, there
are also several perspectives on how to educate citizenship. First, we will distinguish two
perspectives that take another perspective on the content of citizenship education: (1) soft forms
of citizenship education and (2) a more critical form of citizenship education. Nonetheless, these
are not static categories and can be seen as a continuum.

Many educational practices promote a softer viewpoint on citizenship issues, namely that through
‘easy’ solutions global problems can be dealt with rather than striving for systemic change
(Andreotti, 2011; Bryan, 2014). Soft forms of citizenship education approach problems such as
global poverty through an individualized and voluntaristic point of view, characterized by ‘feel-
good’ actions that tend to focus on charity or ‘the capacity to care’ (Chouliaraki, 2013). This
perspective of humanitarianism reinforces stereotypes on people living in the global South,
reduces them to recipients of benevolence and creates a dependency relationship through
discourse to the global Northern countries (Scott-Smith, 2004). A more critical approach on the
other hand addresses the structures of oppression which contain the root of the problem. The
focus on global justice aligns with the discourse on privilege. This privilege discourse redirects the
focus from people in need or victims of social injustice to the group who has the privilege and is
not within the at-risk category (Angus, 2012). This view shifts the perspectives: social injustice is
a matter of individuals who have a privileged position and use it to maintain and solidify their
position or avoid critic on their position (Juchtmans & Vandenbroucke, 2013; Van Ongevalle,
Knipprath, Juchtmans & Pollet, 2016).

There are many different takes on ‘a good citizen’. Westheimer and Kahne (2004) make the
distinction between the ‘personally responsible citizen’, the ‘participatory citizen’, and the ‘social-
justice citizen’. These result in various views on how citizenship education should be
enacted. The individual take on citizenship is educating students to be responsible in their
communities through recycling, giving blood, making a donation to charity (Bryan, 2014). This
relates most to the so-called soft approach of citizenship education. Citizen education
emphasizing the participatory citizen, focuses on how governments and institutions work and
how participating in these can attribute to an increased care for those in need. The social justice
orientation towards citizenship explicitly calls for attention to matters of injustice and strives to
create collective strategies that challenge injustice and address the root causes of social
problems (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). The last one relates most to the critical approach. The
main difference between a focus on the individual and, although to a lesser extent, the
participatory citizen on the one hand and the social justice orientation on the other hand, is that
the latter challenges rather than sustains existing political-economic structures (Banks, 2008).

Besides the content on citizenship, the manner it is taught to students can strongly differ. A first
approach on how to teach citizenship education is an adaptation-oriented citizenship, where
norms and values are prescribed and are ought to be transferred through a direct instruction of
the teacher (Leenders & Veugelers, 2008). This model is based on knowledge building and often
promotes a rather conformist view of – often national - identity. This approach has not seemed to
actually accomplish the preferred outcomes with students. A second approach is a more indirect
and transformative approach, where students themselves construct meaning and are actively involved
10
 in societal topics. In this model, teachers encourage critical thinking and let students bring their own
realities to the classroom and school. For example, when provided an open and safe class climate,
students gain citizenship competencies through discussing controversial social issues without
the teachers’ vision being imposed on students (Geboers, Geijsel, Admiraal & Ten Dam, 2013).

How is it organized in schools?

How schools organize citizenship education strongly differs from school to school and remains
country-specific (Van Ongevalle et al., 2016). Nonetheless, there are several ways that citizenship
can be introduced in schools: education in schools: (1) as a school-wide issue (2) as a cross-
curricular issue e.g., through projects (3) as an integrated component within different subjects (4)
as a separate, stand-alone subject within the curriculum (Unesco, 2015). As reported by Eurydice
(2005), citizenship as a subject can be offered as mandatory or optional, or it can be integrated
into one or more subjects, generally from the social Sciences such as history or geography.
Kavadias and Dehertogh (2010) have developed a model with four levels of embeddedness of
citizenship education: embedded, balanced within lessons and social skills, basic form of
citizenship education and few citizenship education initiatives.

Table 1: adaptation of Kavadias & Dehertogh (2010)’s model of embeddedness of citizenship

education

Educational
Type of Strategies to
Sustainability importance
citizenship teach Pedagogical Adressed to
of citizenship of
education citizenship vision? whom?
education? citizenship
embeddedness education?
education?

All students in
Citizenship the school
Many education is who are
Sustainability is
Embedded strategies are specifically High obligated to
an explicit goal
used and broadly learn
addressed Citizenship
education
Sustainability is
not an explicit
All students,
goal but can be Citizenship High together
Balanced within Many partially
a consequence education is with other
lessons and strategies are obligated and
after partially educational
social skills used partially by
implementing a addressed themes
choice
successful
practice
Sustainability is Citizenship
Some Directed
Basic form of not an explicit education is Less than other
strategies are towards a
citizenship goal but can be addressed educational
used, mainly class or group
education a consequence under the themes
within lessons (strong
after ‘sense of
11
 and short implementing a values’ of the demarcation
projects successful school on groups)
practice
Citizenship
education is
addressed
Less than other Directed
under the
educational towards a
Few citizenship ‘sense of
Only within Sustainability themes (based class or group
education values’ of the
lessons within lessons on the (strong
initiatives school or is
priorities of the demarcation
not present in
learning goals) on groups)
the
pedagogical
vision

Schools can use different strategies to implement citizenship education such as:

• Work project-based (year projects, week projects, one or multiple days)

• Through the infrastructure of the school (posters, artwork, rooms where citizenship
education is visually shown)

• Within lessons (both working on knowledge as more active learning strategies)

• Student participation (student board, students’ input in school policy)

• Charity work or volunteering, visits to organizations and cultural activities

• School competitions concerning citizenship, exchange projects with other schools

• Guest lectures or debates for the students.

How many of these strategies are combined indicates to a certain extent how embedded
citizenship education is in schools, alongside how citizenship education is made sustainable in a
school and how it is incorporated in the pedagogical vision of the school (Kavadias & Dehertogh,
2010). Furthermore, the extent to which citizenship education is given educational importance
and who of the student population is targeted through citizenship education, impacts the level of
embeddedness. When citizenship education is strongly embedded within the school, it is more
sustainable, teachers and students are more involved and there is a clearer connection to the
learning goals of the government.

The first type of school is permeated with citizenship education. The school use different
strategies to ensure citizenship education for all students, physically show citizenship in the
school infrastructure, work sustainably to work towards long-term citizenship education goals
which are carried out through the pedagogical vision of the school. The second type of school
works in a cross-curricular way on citizenship themes and combines different strategies as well.
It is an important theme but not placed higher on the educational agenda than other educational
goals. The third type of school provides citizenship education in its minimal form by one or two
strategies and short projects such as one day project days. These schools refer to citizenship
education mostly when addressing the social skills of students. The fourth type of school neglects
12
citizenship education, reasoning that citizenship education is not an educational task although it
is addressed in lessons. However, it is not a priority for schools to encourage active citizenship for
students.

It is important to note that the more embedded types are not necessarily resulting in more
effective citizenship education, as schools are often subjected to many external factors (Reynolds
& Teddlie 2001). Nonetheless, there is an increased opportunity for schools to engage in
citizenship education when it is more deeply embedded in different aspects of school life.

Teacher reflection question

How do you organize citizenship education and how strongly is it embedded in your school?

2.2. Formative assessment

Assessing citizenship education does not take place in a vacuum but is influenced by broader
developments in assessment. Therefore, we discuss formative assessment in a general way first.

What is assessment and feedback?

Assessment is a judgement of student learning which can be justified according to a specific and
weighted set of goals and criteria (Taras, 2005). It serves several purposes within education
(Eisner, 1993): it determines whether course objectives are attained, it serves a gate-keeping
function for students who pass or fail their subjects, it helps teachers offer remedial help to
students in need. Thus, assessment not only provides feedback to students but also contributes
to the professional knowledge of teachers about their own teaching methods and about the
content of the subject. These purposes are internal in the context of the school. In addition,
external purposes also play a role, serving as a ‘temperature-taking’ of educational quality e.g.,
through national standardized assessments (Lifelong Learning Platform, 2021)

Thus, feedback plays a more key role in assessment for learning than in assessment of learning.
Nonetheless, not all feedback is effective. According to Hattie and Timperley (2007), there are
three important components of effective feedback. The first one is ‘feed up’. This addresses the
question ‘where am I going?’. In this feedup-phase teachers need to formulate and communicate
clear learning objectives. These objectives offer guidance to students in their work because they
have a goal to strive for. The second one is ‘feedback’, discussing the question ‘how am I doing’,
positioning the students where they are at a certain moment. Third, there is the feed-forward
phases, which addresses ‘where to next’ or which steps can be taken to proceed in the learning
trajectory. A combination of these three questions will help a student and the teacher gain
awareness of learning processes and consequently act to achieve learning goals.

13
The three feedback phases can be alternated to support students, creating overview and
awareness of the learning process. Key components in organizing qualitative formative
assessment are (Valcke, 2014):

• Ongoing Feedback: Continuous feedback helps students understand their level of

competences and areas needing improvement.
• Clear learning objectives (feedup): Teachers must establish clear, measurable
learning objectives that students understand.
• Adjustments to teaching and learning (feedforward): Based on assessment data,
teachers and students can modify their strategies to better meet requirements
regarding the learning process.

Students are active participants in this learning process, engaging in self-assessment and
peer assessment.

Feedforward: Bridging what is and what is desired

Feedback
Bridging what is and what is desired Feedup
Where am I?
Where am I going to?

Teacher reflection question

Do you clearly use a feedback, and feedforward phase in your lessons?

How do you strive for higher student involvement in the classroom?

This process fosters a learning environment where students are

encouraged to take ownership of their learning, develop critical thinking
skills, and engage in reflective practices. By consequence blended
learning tools can easily support formative assessment practices
(Panero & Aldon, 2016). Look on the ALiCE learning platform (ideas and
perspectives) for further inspiration on this topic.

Summative vs. formative assessment

Assessment generally has two major approaches: (1) summative assessment or assessment of
learning and (2) formative assessment or assessment for learning. The first type of assessment
serves as a final capstone, resulting in a grade for students which determines whether they pass

14
or fail. The second type, assessment for learning, has a different goal, namely to document and
enhance learning (Bjælde, Lauridsen & Lindberg, 2018). Assessment within this approach is used
to adapt and redirect the learning process of students based on feedback, both from the
perspective of the student and the teachers. Formative assessment is a dynamic and interactive
process that involves the continuous evaluation of student learning to provide ongoing feedback.
This feedback is used to improve both teaching and learning. Unlike summative assessment,
formative assessment is integrated into the learning process, allowing for real-time adjustments
and improvements.

To describe the difference between the two types of assessment very briefly, we use the example
of a chef who makes soup. Formative assessment is when the chef tastes the soup; summative
assessment is when the customers taste the soup. When you taste as a chef, you still know what
you can improve before the end result is delivered. When the customer only tastes the soup, the
mere end result is what matters.

However, summative and formative assessment are not two separately operating parallel
assessment systems. Summative assessment practices are often incorporated within formative
assessment (Taras, 2005). Thus, it can be seen more like a continuum. Nonetheless, there are
potential issues concerning summative assessments. Standardized tests and teaching to the test
can have a negative impact on students (Spann & Kaufman, 2015). Furthermore, summative
assessment implies an increased test-based accountability for teachers, which can negatively
affect them in their job.

Compared to summative assessment, formative assessment emphasizes continuous and self-

regulating learning, provides opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them (Nicol &
Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Further characteristics of formative assessment require
personalized assessment for each student and more involvement of the learners in their own
assessment, for example through self-assessment and peer assessment. In order to do so
qualitatively, formative assessment requires assessment literacy for both teachers and students.
Wiliam and Thompson (2007) state five key strategies for formative assessment:

1. Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success

2. Engineering effective classroom discussions and other learning tasks that elicit evidence
of student understanding

3. Providing feedback that moves learners forward

15
 4. Activating students as instructional resources for one another

5. Activating students as the owners of their own learning.

Learning and assessment are deeply intertwined. Thus, a teaching approach to learning will
consequently also influence assessments. James and Lewis (2012) distinguish three types of
learning: (1) learning is being taught, (2) learning is an act of individual meaning giving (3) learning
is a social process with others. If we see learning as a collaborative process (Vygotsky, 1978), it
has an impact on assessment as well. Assessment must be situated within the learning activity
and students receive feedback from multiple people such as teachers, students or external
community members (James & Lewis, 2012).

Formative assessment of citizenship education

Formatively assessing citizenship education entails several challenges and possibilities, which
we will discuss separately: (1) the assessment of attitudes and values and (2) the assessment and
involvement by multiple actors

Assessing attitudes and values

First, most citizenship education assessments focus primarily on knowledge (Veugelers & de
Groot, 2019) and are often conducted through written tests. Studies have shown that knowledge
on citizenship education is not strongly correlated with the attitudes and skills students acquire
(Komalasari, 2012). In other words, students who know a lot about citizenship do not necessarily
act upon them nor feel involved. Most activities on global citizenship education reflect the
following pattern: provide knowledge, an emotional experience (e.g., a site visit or witness
encounter) and, when it is a longer-lasting citizenship education program, students are taking
action such as corresponding with a school in the South or start a produce garden. However, such
a model does not necessarily result in more engagement of students. The assessment of the
different components of citizenship indicates that knowledge, skills and attitudes must be
evaluated differently on the one hand but also align with each other on the other hand.

Thus, teachers should have an understanding of what citizenship education entails and how to
assess it in all its aspects. When doing so, teachers must be weary of not alienating students
should they fail doing citizenship projects as they might feel they failed ‘as citizens’ (Keating, Kerr,
Benton, Lopes & Featherstone, 2009). Formative assessment plays a crucial role in motivating
students and guiding them toward achieving citizenship competences.

Regarding the assessment of values, there is much discussion about assessing students' values
or not avoiding that (Veugelers & Vedder, 2003). Most teachers state that assessing values is
subjective and that teachers should assess the skills for values and not the values themselves,
as this could be harmful (Veugelers & Schuiteman, 2013). In addition, there is a lack of school
guidance about such decisions. Nonetheless, certain values are assessed more than others.
Veugelers (2017) distinguishes four clusters within citizenship goals: (1) Adaptive values (2) Social
engagement (3) Autonomy (4) Political change. Their study shows that teachers are mostly
assessing the cluster of values regarding autonomy, for example working independently and in a
structured way, through an open mindset and by listening to each other.

16
Teachers often will have different strategies to indirectly assess students' values in a formative
manner. First, they avoid assessing students individually but assess the class group in a formative
manner. For example, teachers evaluate their own lessons on values and the students’ effort as a
class group. This mainly occurs during class dialogue on values yet avoids assessing one’s
personal values. Second, such values as such are not assessed but rather the reflective and
communicative skills students have about addressing values (Veugelers & Vedder, 2003). Such
discussions require listening to others and taking into account different opinions within a
classroom (Power et al., 1989). Third, assessing values is not limited to reasoning or cognitive
contexts but also while ‘doing citizenship education’. When students are able to show and enact
values in the school setting or within a broader community context, students can reflect on
actions according to values. Jointly shaping the values within the school culture related to the
idea of a democratic culture within the ‘hidden curriculum’ (Giroux & Purpel, 1983). This can make
sure value education is not too abstract or cognitive for students and stimulates them to
knowingly incite their behavior according to their values. Fourth, a different strategy of teachers
who assess socio-emotional learning is that teachers should assess taking on a strengths-based
approach and avoid having a diagnostic approach. Thus, teachers do not screen or diagnose
students for deficits but emphasize each students’ strengths (Chatterjee & Duraiappah, 2020).

Teacher reflection questions

Do you formatively assess the individual student and/or the class group?

Do you assess communicative skills about values?

Do you assess attitudes and values of students while ‘doing citizenship education’?

Would you use a diagnostic or strengths-based assessment approach for citizenship education?

17
Assessment and involvement by multiple actors

Formative assessment avoids imposing a fixed norm or standard for citizenship, unlike summative
assessment (Daas et al., 2016). This allows students to voice their opinions on what matters to
them as young citizens, what they should learn, and how they can be evaluated. This approach
encourages students to think critically about how certain attitudes relate to behavior and when
specific behaviors can be observed, enabling them to collaborate with teachers in creating
assessment methods.

In addition, formative assessment provides more opportunities for frequent feedback and student
self-reflection on their development of citizenship competences. It can also be integrated into a
"meaningful context," allowing students not only to acquire knowledge and skills but also to give
meaning to citizenship through active community participation (Lave, 1991).

Participatory assessment (Kruit, 2022) comprises the active involvement of students while
developing the evaluation criteria and during the evaluation itself through self-and/or peer
reflection. Afterwards, an action plan is developed together with the students. Students are
challenged to think which attitudes result in which behavior and then think about when certain
behaviors are observable. Rubrics are often used to visually show the long-term growth of
students, which are being designed for a specific assignment of project. Teachers and students
can co-design rubrics about citizenship education.

18
3. ALiCE project and method of the results
The ALiCE project consisted of different phases and had several results, which we will briefly
describe here. The overall goal of the project is to collectively contribute to improving citizenship
education across Europe. The first phase was to develop a framework that offers a comparative
perspective on citizenship education and its assessment across European member states. The
second phase included making an inventory of innovative educational practices in citizenship
education. The third phase was a repository of formative assessment methods adapted for
citizenship education. The fourth phase focused on sustainability, offering a learning platform to
inspire the use of innovative assessment methods, policy recommendations, and an online self-
reflection tool for teachers to assess their needs and select suitable methods. Additionally, an
interactive MOOC will support users in implementing these methods effectively. These outcomes
are developed in collaboration with schools across Europe. In addition, a professionalization
trajectory was developed for teachers with two international training courses and national training
courses.

The findings presented in this e-book are based on multiple data cycles. First, a needs analysis
was conducted through focus groups and interviews between May and June 2022 by teacher
educators and researchers from eight European education systems participating in the ALiCE
project. The interviews, conducted via Zoom or Teams, involved 84 secondary education
teachers with diverse profiles, including cross-curricular citizenship educators (STEM and social
sciences) and subject-specific citizenship teachers. Most focus groups were small (three to four
participants) due to the one-hour meeting time constraint. Second, field notes were made by
researchers during the training events and each training event was closed by an extensive survey
to evaluate the teachers experience of the content and training. With some teachers who were
interested in elaborating on their classroom practice and assessment tools, additional
interviews were done.

Teacher reflection questions

How is citizenship education organized in your country?

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4. Country differences

4.1. Citizenship education

Curricular structure
Cross- Integrated in Specific Compulsary
curricular particular subject
subjects
Norway x x X
Lithuania x x x X
Belgium x x x
(Flanders)
Czech x X X X
Republic
Bulgaria x x X X
Slovenia X X X X
Italy x x X
Portugal x x X

In almost every ALiCE country, citizenship education is approached in schools through a

combination of cross-curricular projects, it is integrated into certain subjects such as social
sciences, language and literature; science, ICT and ethics and religious education and it might be
a separate subject. This is what happens in the field and does not necessarily align with
governmental recommendations. Another remark is that compulsory means it is at least
compulsory for some students in secondary education. However, this does not mean all students
are obtaining an equal amount of citizenship education in all countries. For example, a
comparison between curricula for school-based initial vocational education and training (IVET)
and those applying to general secondary education reveals that the teaching of citizenship
education is the same in Norway, Belgium/Flemish Community, Italy, and Slovenia. Portugal,
Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria have differences in approaches between IVET and general
secondary education. The most important differences between general education and IVET relate
to the number of subjects integrating components of citizenship education, which are often fewer
in IVET.

Although the vast majority of countries address citizenship education in their national curricula
at each level of general education, not all specify the amount of instruction time to be devoted to
this subject area. Some recommendations regarding instruction time exist mainly in the countries
where citizenship education is taught as a separate subject.

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4.2. Assessment
Country Top three of most used assessment for
citizenship education (ICCS, 2016)
Norway Written tests, oral examinations, observation
of students
Lithuania Student observations, written tests, oral
examinations
Belgium (Flanders) Written tests, project work, observation of
students
Czech Republic No data
Bulgaria Oral examinations, written tests, observation
of students
Slovenia Oral examinations, written tests, project work
Italy Oral examinations, written tests, student
observations
Portugal No data

Previous analyses of civic education studies have shown that written and oral examinations are
the most used forms of assessment in 28 countries (Torney-Purta, 2001). Our analysis of teacher
survey data from the ICCS in 2016 (Schulz et al., 2018) indicates that oral examinations and
written tests are the two most frequently used assessment methods by citizenship education
teachers, followed by peer assessment, student observations and project work. Although current
school learning assessment practices in general lean towards summative assessment, scholars
argue that assessing democratic citizenship competence is more in line with formative forms of
assessment for several reasons (Keating, Kerr, Benton, Lopes, & Featherstone, 2009).

Regarding the assessment, in most countries there are no specific guidelines. In Belgium (Flemish
Community), Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Italy, there is more autonomy left to the local level,
to schools or teachers to develop assessment procedures. Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria
have a general framework for the assessment process. In Slovenia there are both general and
specific guidelines. Legislation determines the general assessment rules that apply to all subjects
taught at ISCED 2 and 3 (also Primary Education). Moreover, specific recommendations that apply
to the subjects dedicated to or integrating citizenship education are included in the supplements
to the respective subject curricula. For some countries, governmental policy recommends the
following assessment:

• Bulgaria: Oral assignments (examinations, presentations)

• Czech Republic: project-based assessment, self-assessment or peer assessment.
• Lithuania : multiple choice questionnaires, written compositions or essays, oral
assignments (examinations, presentations), project-based assessment, self-assessment
or peer assessment.
• Slovenia: multiple choice questionnaires, written compositions or essays, oral
assignments (examinations, presentations), project-based assessment.

21
Figure 1 Percentages of citizenship education teachers' often-used assessment methods (Data source: ICCS, 2016)

External evaluation of citizenship education is conducted by inspectors who report to local or

national authorities. For example, in the Czech Republic, inspectors assess whether teachers
support the development of democratic values, while in Slovenia, inspectors ensure that schools
promote national identity by commemorating holidays and displaying the national flag.

The International Civic and Citizenship education Study (ICCS) highlights that countries generally
provide schools with considerable autonomy in activities related to citizenship education,
especially in choosing teaching materials and assessment tools. However, autonomy is more
limited when it comes to curriculum planning, professional development, and organizing
extracurricular activities related to citizenship education.

This is related to the amount of external evaluation teachers in the different countries obtain.
Inspectors in different countries focus on different aspects. For example, In the Czech Republic,
inspectors look at whether teachers support the development of democratic values and
citizenship commitment. In Slovenia, inspectors oversee whether schools support national
identity and knowledge of the history of Slovenia and its culture by commemorating national
holidays.

“The more directive the government is on how to evaluate (give grades, central testing) and what
the curriculum should be, the less autonomy for the directors/teachers to develop ways for
formative evaluation.” - Teacher

Teacher reflection questions

How is citizenship education assessed in your organization and/or region?

What are the policies on assessment in your educational organization?

22
5. ALiCE results
5.1. Citizenship education
How is citizenship education approached?
During the first training session of the ALiCE project in Kroměříž, teachers from all partner
countries shared examples of citizenship education. However, it became clear quite quickly that
the notion of citizenship education in itself needed some clarification: what is meant by all
teachers in all countries? For example, a teacher in the training stated it as such:

“Some difficulties when assessing students in citizenship competences is firstly knowing what
citizenship is. There is no concrete framework with fellow subject teachers towards citizenship
education.” - Teacher

In addition, distinguishing citizenship education and mere general respectful school behavior was
important for the teachers. Referring to both the interpersonal and societal level of citizenship
education seemed important for teachers to illustrate what is meant and how it could be assessed
consequently.

These were diverse and inspiring, and it showed that within the EU, each educational organization
had a different translation on how to work on citizenship. Some schools put more emphasis on
remembrance education while others strived for societal engagement through implementing
projects outside of schools cooperating with social supportive organizations. Some schools
sought to combine those several parts.

In the examples that were shared by the teachers we’ve noticed common topics like politics,
sustainability, societal history, international cooperation, global and European citizenship, ... The
approach however was often different. In the following overview you’ll find some examples of our
participating teachers. Although, this doesn’t mean that those practices are embedded in the
whole participating country.

23
Country Example(s) of how the participating teachers worked on
citizenship competences

Portugal One of the Portuguese teachers, a science teacher, was deeply

concerned about the lack of female and minority role models in
the history of science. To address this issue, she decided to
present her students with a series of important female scientists
and scientists from minority groups. She carefully selected these
role models to highlight their significant contributions to various
scientific fields, which had often been overlooked or
underrepresented in traditional curricula.

The teacher integrated these role models into her lessons,

providing detailed biographies and discussing their
groundbreaking work. Students were encouraged to study these
scientists, delve into their research, and understand the
challenges they faced and overcame. This approach not only
broadened the students’ knowledge of scientific history but also
provided them with diverse and relatable figures to look up to.

As a result of this initiative, students gained a higher recognition

of the contributions made by women and minority scientists. This
newfound awareness led to increased involvement and interest in
science among the students, particularly among those who saw
themselves reflected in these role models. The initiative fostered
a more inclusive and inspiring learning environment,
demonstrating the importance of representation in education and
its impact on student engagement and aspiration.

Norway Teachers offer societal challenges to students, striving for a

maximum of engagement. In one of the examples the Norwegian
teacher offered a social media challenge where students learned
to contribute to societal discussions on these platforms in a
constructive way. The students were assessed on their ability to
discuss in English (this was a project in ESL) and not the content
of the discussion, as they were handed roles to act out.

In another example students build an invention to lessen and

recycle plastic waste. Therefore, it was necessary to cluster
knowledge, skills and attitudes from different teaching subjects
to the project resulting in multi-disciplinary research and
innovation. In groups students worked out this invention in a
technical process, clustering objectives from citizenship to
science and technology.

Slovenia In the example of the Slovenian teacher, knowledge of the

government and governmental structures was taught to the
students. The objective was to raise awareness and knowledge
on how policy makers work and influence society. Through

24
 organizing learning activities about the country, the teachers
aimed at a higher love for the country.

Bulgaria The Bulgarian teachers organized a series of dialogues between

local politicians and secondary school students with the primary
goal of enhancing students’ understanding of the political system
while simultaneously fostering greater youth participation in
political processes. These sessions were designed to be
interactive, allowing students to engage directly with politicians,
ask questions, and discuss various political issues.

Italy The Italian example was inspiring because this example did not
depart from teachers or a school but a supportive organization.
CIRPE works with youngsters that have a high grade of school
retention. By researching their interests like soccer, youngsters
were motivated to work on their education. Also, sports played an
important role in supporting these youngsters.

Netherlands Teachers from the Netherlands organized ‘BIN’, a course that

combines citizenship, IT and Dutch language where students
read texts related to citizenship. Through IT and assignments,
they get actively involved. Students read for example a novel
about a transgender youngster and get insight in the life and
struggle of this person. However, some students didn’t recognize
themselves in this personage. They discussed, researched and
presented their research about this novel. During this process
two teachers worked together closely in co-teaching where one
teacher focused on the language education aspect, the other
teacher supported the students in the citizenship aspect of the
course.

Belgium In Belgium, a secondary school teacher organized a project

where students collaborated with volunteer and welfare
organizations to contribute to society. This initiative aimed to
enhance students’ civic awareness, social responsibility, and
practical skills through hands-on community involvement.

Throughout the project, students maintained reflective journals,

documenting their experiences, challenges, and personal growth.
They also participated in regular group discussions facilitated by
the teacher, where they shared their insights and reflected on the
broader societal implications of their work.

In another example a teacher connected arts to citizenship

education. Students made a hierarchy of values, mapping out
values that mattered to them and connecting these values to the
artworks of Mondriaan. By associating values to the artworks,
students could address difficult topics and assess the hierarchy
of values.

25
 Czech Republic In the Czech Republic, secondary school students participated in
an innovative citizenship education project where they collected
personal narratives from their neighbors. The goal was to connect
these individual stories to broader societal and historical
contexts, thereby fostering a deeper understanding of their
community’s history and its impact on contemporary society.

Lithuania In Lithuania, secondary school students engaged in a

collaborative project that connected remembrance education
with language learning and other subjects. This interdisciplinary
approach aimed to deepen students’ understanding of historical
events and their relevance to contemporary society, while also
enhancing their language skills and civic awareness.

The project began with teachers from various disciplines,

including history, language, and social studies, working together
to design a curriculum that integrated these subjects.
As part of the project, students conducted research on these
historical events, exploring their causes, impacts, and the
personal stories of those who lived through them. They were
encouraged to use primary sources, such as diaries, letters, and
photographs, to gain a more personal and emotional
understanding of history.

These examples illustrate a lot of common objectives and goals. Most

teachers strive to engage students and to let students participate in
meaningful real-life contexts. Although participating teachers were
convinced of the importance of citizenship education, they also
struggled with several issues and/or challenges organizing citizenship
education. For more examples look on the ALiCE learning platform,
examples on citizenship education.

Professionalization
The partners and teachers within the ALiCE-project have learned a lot from this exchange. We’ve
collected from each partner country examples of citizenship education that can be accessed in
the relevant chapter on the ALiCE learning platform.

“I never saw or heard of these practices on citizenship education. Often, we tend to stick to our
teaching subjects (Math, language, history, ...). These training has shown me I can implement
societal challenges and enhance student involvement in my teaching.” - Teacher

During the second ALiCE training session in Palermo, Sicily, we’ve deepened knowledge and
practices on citizenship education and focused on the exchange of citizenship and formative
assessment practices. Furthermore, a connection was made with specific teaching subjects,
outlining opportunities for integrating citizenship education in other teaching subjects. Also, the
value of formative assessment in other teaching subjects was explored.
26
“I organize quite a lot of democratic dialogue in the classroom but during this training I learned
how to improve and enhance those classroom discussions. I never expected to learn this during
this training.” - Teacher

Challenges
• The nature of life-long learning and growth mindset within citizenship education was
often experienced as time consuming. Furthermore, teachers viewed this lack of time as
a challenge (Challenges for European teachers when assessing student learning to
promote democratic citizenship competences).
• A lot of teachers also experienced a lot of issues and even resistance on cooperating
together as a team on citizenship education. Also, not all competences are embodied in
how teachers act regarding students leading to inconsistencies in their overall approach,
leading to difficult relationships with students.
• The absence of clear learning objectives regarding citizenship education is perceived as
problematic because this leads to no clear obligations to work on citizenship education.
When these curricula are developed, it is important to design a good representation of
these objectives to educational practices. The cooperation between policy makers and
the educational field can offer better opportunities for these translations.
• Focusing on growth, life-long learning and transformational education leads to several
challenges for teachers. One of these challenges is the balance between knowledge and
the application of this knowledge supported by skills and attitudes. A too strong
emphasis on practice-based competencies leads to less fruitful citizenship education.

As we have seen in the Lithuanian and Czech examples, knowledge of history is needed
to connect the narratives of neighbors or the narratives in society to that broader set of
events in history.

In countries where citizenship education is taught as a separate subject, as in Bulgaria, teachers

see the usual 45 min a week for citizenship education lessons as an ‘insufficient number of
lessons [...]. Teachers do not have enough time to deploy elaborated methods or to assess in
practice acquired competencies.’ The second type is a lack of time set aside to develop good

27
practices and possibilities to work across different subjects, as reported in all country reports.
One teacher said: ‘One of my main goals is to work on youths’ openness to cultural differences
and to other beliefs, world views, and practices. At school, we have only one forty-five-minute
class per week of citizenship education.’

Teacher reflection questions

Which professionalization do you or does your team need to improve citizenship education and
assessment practices?

Which tools and materials do you need to enhance your activities on citizenship or assessment
practices?

Whole school approach

A common challenge according to the teachers was how to make formative assessment for
citizenship education something that is shared in the whole school. Such a whole-school
approach to citizenship education emphasizes collaboration and time to discuss. After the first
training session, a teacher highlighted the necessity to involve colleagues at her school:

“I will try to involve my fellow colleagues at school. Frist give them an introduction in citizenship
education and then we will brainstorm and develop assessment methods together. It is for the
best for the students that we all work in the same way. And besides, this should not be a single-
teacher-project.” – Teacher

Teachers should involve their colleagues in developing citizenship education methods,

recognizing that consistency across the school benefits students and avoids making it a single-
teacher initiative. Citizenship education is often integrated into different subjects. Co-teaching
or working project based can for example foster a more integrated approach, rather than merely
combining two subjects together.

Teacher stated different ways can support them to realize a whole school approach for
citizenship education:

- Shadowing other colleagues in their teaching

- Filming lessons of teachers and discussing those together
- Use of the student parliament and involvement of students in the curriculum
-

28
5.2. (Formative) assessment of Citizenship education
Teachers emphasize the meaning of formative assessment and how well it aligns with
citizenship education. Because a lot of citizenship competences are transversal and have a
character of lifelong learning, mapping growth through formative assessment is therefore of
added value in citizenship education.

“Doing formative assessment requires skills that are similar to how to become an active citizen
(discuss, self-assess...)” - Teacher

Teacher approaches and challenges

Generally, teachers often struggle with the assessment of citizenship. They are reluctant to judge
or grade a student on sometimes quite personal competences such as values and attitudes.
This is the reason why ALiCE focuses on formative assessment to reach out tools and materials
that teachers could use to support growth and learning in citizenship education. We distinguish
how teachers assess the different citizenship competencies: knowledge, skills, attitudes and
values.

Figure 2 Competence model 'butterfly'

29
 Knowledge Mostly summative
Skills Both formative and summative
Attitudes Mostly formative
Values Formative

Firstly, assessing civic knowledge is the easiest according to teachers. This is approached in a
rather summative manner.

“Currently, the knowledge component has the predominance in evaluation. Students and
parents attach more importance to points than to skills or attitudes. Parents and students are
not always following the provided feedback in terms of the language of the assessment.” -
Teacher

Teachers point out that students and parents also prefer to have a clear overview of the
students’ performances, which is easiest to communicate through grades. In particular to
parents, having a grade is a quick way of knowing how their child is doing regarding citizenship
competences. If teachers provide more formative feedback, it is crucial to frequently check if
both students and parents understand the given feedback.

Secondly, teachers often assess citizenship skills as well in both summative and formative
terms. For example, teachers provide more frequent feedback when students are actively
participating in a discussion on citizenship topics and might give a summative grade at the end
of a cycle of discussions as well.

“My students seek their own community service-learning project that aligns with their values,
they work there and reflect on their experience during and after the process.” – Teacher

The assessment for these teachers involves assessing for example their cooperative and
communicative skills during the community service learning. This is assessed formatively with
multiple one-on-one coaching discussions with the teacher, peer feedback from other students
and at the end of the year a summative assessment is given.

Thirdly, teachers assess attitudes in a more formative manner. It is perceived as important to

work on a mindset with students, by formatively giving feedback.

“The emphasis [when assessing citizenship competences] is on critical thinking, responsibility,

respect, ... Above all, attitudes are highlighted the most.” – Teacher

At times, this is combined with a summative assessment at the end of an assessment when they
are able to observe how attitudes are translated into teacher behavior.

Attitudes have a clearer behavioral enactment compared to values. As values are very much
‘under the surface’, teachers struggle most with its assessment. Thus, teachers can observe
students who are respectfully challenging other students’ viewpoints, but they cannot observe
the values underneath.

30
“Assessing empathy is very difficult. How do you give points for that? You are either empathetic
or you are not empathetic? Something like the knowledge of democracy is easier to assess.” -
Teacher

The reason why teachers struggle with assessing attitudes but even more so values, is that they
generally perceive assessments as summative assessments. Grading is central when they think
about assessment. Teachers need to further discuss the differences and possible relationships
between formative and summative assessment in citizenship education.

‘We talk about the description of the competences of citizenship, enhancing human dignity and
human rights, etc., but in concrete terms, how can I give a numerical vote to the values of the
person’s personality?’ - Teacher

This teacher sees assessment as something merely summative. When perceiving assessment
as a formative tool to increase students learning, assessing both attitudes and values is viewed
differently.

We distinguish 8 different strategies that are adopted to assess in a formative way.

1. Assessing discussing skills about their values

For example a teacher explains that assessing attitudes is one thing, but values is tricky .

“I don’t think I have the right to change that, but I can say: look, there are other ways of looking at
things, and when they see real life examples of something different they will think that there are
other ways to go”. – Teacher

She explains that she cannot interfere with other people’s way of looking at certain aspects, but
that acceptance of differences is also a part of citizenship education. Nonetheless, assessing
discussing skills about these values is an important goal of citizenship education.

2. Assessing discussing skills about other peoples’ values

Through role play exercises, students take on different viewpoints than their own. The assessment
here is more focused on whether students are engaged to step into other persons’ shoes and carry
out beliefs and values for the sake of a discussion. The benefit here for teachers is that it can be
easier to discuss values of a hypothetical case study first instead of directly discussing students’
their own values.

3. Make assessments interwoven with the assessment of other subjects such as

language subjects

A teacher found assessing an interdisciplinary project easier due to the focus on, for example the
language aspect but also their ability to articulate their opinions, their ability to listen actively and
pick up on others’ arguments.

4. Involve parents

Similar to students, parents are most used to students coming home with summative grades and
report cards. Teachers mention if they want to successfully shift to more formative feedback, they
31
want to involve parents in this process, for example by discussing students’ strengths and
weaknesses more in-depth during parent-teacher meetings and show them e.g. rubric systems
so parents also have the assessment literacy to interpret these.

5. Assess frequently and over a longer period of time

“Democratic citizenship competences grow a lot throughout the school year; we must take into
account students’ evolution and make the evolution visible rather than one of several static
moments of assessment.” – Teacher

“We are working on evaluating more frequent and shorter in our school. The advantage is that you
can better assess your students and differentiate better.” - Teacher

It’s important to have several moments of (formative) assessment regarding citizenship

competences. Students might have a bad day and be unwilling to participate in a discussion, or
they have changed their viewpoint considerably over the course of a few weeks. Creating different
assessment moments enables to make growth visible.

6. Use a variety of assessment tools instruments, such as rubrics which allow an

overview of the students’ progress and levels of achievement.

In the assessment toolbox on the ALiCE website, there are multiple

examples but combining different assessments methods for example
rubrics, a portfolio, vignettes or video game assessment. All forms of
evaluation have advantages and disadvantages. In that respect, it is
desirable to combine evaluation forms for citizenship. For example,
using vignettes there is less socially desirable since you assess someone
else based on a casestudy (Auspurg, Hinz, & Liebig, 2009). Through a
portfolio, learners reflect on their personal citizenship experience. On
the other hand, this does not mean that summative assessments are to be excluded, they can still
be useful to map certain (knowledge) aspects of citizenship.

7. Let multiple people assess students

By involving different actors in the assessment of citizenship, different aspects can be noticed.
Collaborate with your colleagues and exchange ideas on what students' progress on citizenship
competences in different subjects. For example, collaborate on making assessments such as
rubrics together or look at projects of students together.

8. Be clear on your (assessment) role as a teacher

Be clear towards your students whether you will assess formatively or summatively, as they
require different strategies and entail different expectations.

Teachers can also reflect on which type of beliefs (Costello, 1987) are being discussed in the
classroom. The first category has rather fixed answers and will not provoke as much discussion.
32
The second category are beliefs that are equally valid and can be argued for in similar ways. The
third category entails beliefs that are accepted within the school but can be challenged by
students. Reflecting, discussing and formatively assessing these categories of beliefs differ.
Substantially, teachers tend to be more comfortable with the second type of beliefs being
explored in the classroom and less comfortable with the third category. Nonetheless, it is
important teachers also think about how they address these viewpoints in the classroom.

In conclusion, while assessing citizenship education can be challenging due to differences in

values, it is far from impossible. Despite teachers' understandable hesitancy to spend time on
activities that do not directly count towards final assessments, they still acknowledge the value
of assignments that foster transformative learning experiences. This approach emphasizes that
what is being assessed must be clear to the students, ensuring that students not only acquire
knowledge but also develop critical thinking and practical skills.

Teachers struggle with the fact that several citizenship competencies can’t be approached binary.
We don’t want to label passed or failed citizens. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t assess
those competencies. Formative assessment can give an image of the growth (positively or
negatively) of a student and formulate new learning objectives in their learning trajectory.

“In the end of a discussion I provide students with feedback, sometimes one on one on what was
easy and what was hard and in what they are able to grow. That is of course formative and always
oral. Actually, I could maybe shape this better so teachers and students might also use this in
other subjects. I think teachers have few tools to see if their students are actually capable of
achieving these citizenship competences. It’s so abstract so it becomes hard to say ‘yes, this is
now a checked off competence.” – Teacher

Moreover, formative assessment makes it possible to assess values and attitudes where teachers
are reluctant to judge, mark or grade these values. Formative assessment offers a platform to
listen to and get a view on how students give meaning to their values and act upon them.

Professionalization
In general, teachers need resources and examples of good practice in assessing citizenship
education. During the training, teachers were very interested in seeing such different examples to
enrich their own classroom practice. At the beginning of the ALiCE-project, formative assessment
was relatively new to a lot of teachers in some partner countries as well as underrated and/or
underestimated in countries who were already familiar with this educational practice. During the
first international training session in Kromericz, Czech Republic, teachers were professionalized
in what different elements of citizenship education entail and how to implement a (formative)
feedbackcycle in their classroom. Experiences in assessment were exchanged in order to learn
from each other collaboratively, sharing needs, insights and strategies.

After the first training, for some teachers the topic was quite innovative:

“I am still processing the fact that it Is possible to assess citizenship competencies.” - Teacher

The training also showed some aspects in which the teachers felt unsure about, describing the
need to further professionalize on topics such as values in the following trainings:

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“How to evaluate very explicit values that do not align with the democratic values or human rights
(e.g. A student states that women aren’t equal to men).” - Teacher

After the first international training session focused on the basics of

formative assessment, each teacher (further) implemented formative
practices in their citizenship education or other teaching subject. These
examples were gathered in the database ‘examples on formative
assessment’ of the ALiCE-learning platform. After the first international
training, most partners organized national meetings with the teachers to
further support the application of assessment practices in the classroom.

Example in the ALiCE training of teachers discussing the following case

together: how would you formatively assess this example?

Norwegian teachers presented a case that students had to create a meeting place and had to take
into account: sustainability, how the space will be experienced, inclusivity of the space and its
social characteristics and artistic features. They had to develop an idea and document the
process.

“We looked at the example of Architecture - to create a meeting place in the school yard. We
combined would assess this through the method of the Mantle of the Expert: at the end of the
project the student has to do a public presentation to different people who are using the meeting
place. They don't know the people - it's a set up like in real life. We will focus mostly on
communicative skills and attitudes such as responsibility. Regarding values, the project can go
into the fact that, if there is a construction or when you build something they have to talk to the
neighbors of different persons who are using the place. Exploring and listening to what they need
and let students publicly present the outcome will further the discussion about the values
underneath.

The assessment could be a combination of formative assessment by teacher, self-assessment,

peer assessment and formative assessment by a group unknown people such as the users of the
meeting place. Self-assessment is crucial for evaluating values and attitudes because an
assessment of a value by a teacher is always an interpretation.”

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After the first training, teachers aimed to implement or improve elements of formative
assessment in their classrooms. For a few teachers, this was related to increasing and solidifying
the feedup phase. They wanted to coach students better into the road from where they are at a
certain point and where they wanted to get.

For other teachers, it was important to get a better helicopter view on who works on citizenship
education in their school and how they assess. Possibly they wanted to develop an educational
trajectory throughout the whole curriculum in which each year students deepen their
competences, and it build on each other.

During the second training session in Palermo, Sicily, we’ve organized plenary sessions deepening
formative assessment practices and outlining the relation to qualitative summative assessment.
Through workshops, methods (peer and self-assessment, project work, rubrics, ...) on formative
assessment were tested and explored by teachers. Furthermore, we’ve organized workshops that
could support assessment practices and policies in schools, like a whole school approach or
blended learning. Examples of formative assessment of teachers were shared and discussed.
Allowing teachers to research their own practices across borders and inspire each other on the
topic. SWOT discussions were held in order to create durable teacher training.

“It was very useful to discuss with other teachers, both from my own and other countries. It was
great to have some time to develop my own project and discuss it with others.” - Teacher

Nonetheless, like all training courses there were limitations and due to a lack of time teachers
also felt we could have explored the role of students’ families better in formative assessment.

“If we had more time we would like to explore the peer-to-peer assessment through a preparatory
self-analysis and, above all, the role of the student’ families into the process of growth and
maturation of the student itself.” – Teacher

Different subjects and perspectives

In citizenship education, different subjects show varying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats in using formative assessment. When subject teachers incorporate citizenship
education in their lessons, they can emphasize or focus on distinct aspects, depending on the
subject. For example, arts & culture teachers can use the visible output and creative expression
while citizenship teachers have a profound knowledge about the matter, language teacher can
easily make a link to international contexts, math and science teachers can show that using
examples that are embedded in society is highly relevant for math and science and history
teachers can connect past events with current issues and encouraging multiperspectivity.

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1. Arts and culture
Strenghts arts & culture Weaknesses

Creates visibility of citizenship education Lack of time as arts doesn’t entail many
in schools teaching hours
Broad school: bridge to community and Not obligatory for all students
cultural organizations Perception of a ‘waste of time’, soft skills,
Seeing art in the community is a way to ‘after school activity’
know local, regional and national Time spent on theoretical parts of art,
culture encourage to create is important
Make art themselves
Expressing is an international language
(e.g. share work on Instagram).
You see the products or art they make;
you give feedback very directly and
formatively in the class and after as
well.
Focus of assessment is on reflections on
art and craftmanship.
Never assess students’ taste itself
Is the assessment summative? Use a
clear criteria list for multiple
assignments and give a grade a few
times and discuss this with your
students in individual conversations
Opportunities Threats

Further opportunities to work with other Separate theory and practice

subject teachers and incorporate art School management can cancel or
on societal topics in other subjects diminish the classes when it is
Represent and reflect on values in arts, deemed unimportant
creating opportunities for introverted Bigger classes
students or students with a different Lack of resources, however teachers
maternal language need to be able to recycle a lot
Teacher supporting social media
platforms where international art
students in secondary schools can
engage with each other’s art

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2. Citizenship education

Strengths Weaknesses

Awareness of students that they are A lack of integration with other

members of society/community subjects
Whole school projects on democratic Be aware of teacher biases: there
competences allow to work on a ought to be an awareness of the
positive school climate. teacher related to describing a
This subject can strengthen the desirable behaviour. As a teacher
connection between teacher and it’s seductive to fill in criteria for a
students certain attitude or behaviour.
Students assess themselves and each However, is this sometimes a
other, during the projects such as bias?
their collaborations skills. You have to go against the grain with a
formative focus when the
dominant way of assessing has a
focus on marks, for students as
well as parents focus on marks. It
can be hard to convince
environment and students of its
‘added value’.

Opportunities Threats
Citizenship as a subject can help How can teachers deal best with clashing
students to develop their many layers conceptions in diverse classrooms
of identity There can be a lack of alignment between
The subject can be aligned with other teacher and parents A lack of
subjects like language, maths, confidence in teachers can be a
science, … considerable threat to address
Formative assessment can help teachers certain issues. Low language skills of
to become better teachers in the parents complicate the
exploring the distance they have to communication and thus the relation
respect between themselves as a between parent-teacher.
teacher and the students. Lack of interest in citizenship education
Invite people (eg students university) to of colleagues. However, colleagues
assist in projects and make children can be convinced of the benefits
meet new ideas. sometimes by having increased
collaboration skills in other subjects

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 3. Languages

Strengths Weaknesses
Students seem more motivated when In some countries it is a challenge that it
learning languages is combined with is too content focused. It is difficult to
citizenship education go beyond the language goals
Need to specify what we are assessing themselves
when assessing languages, structure, In foreign languages it is a challenge to
arguments, critical thinking, choice of not be too superficial, as they do not
words, intercultural competence always have the language to go
deeper. Topics need to be more
specific.

Opportunities Threats
In some countries the system works
Work on languages and citizenship against formative assessment.
through co-teaching where there is
enough attention to both aspects

4. Math and science

Strengths Weaknesses

• Give examples in Math and science Teachers too focused on math and science
classes about societal topics and content
increase the authenticity of these Necessity of more time and knowledge about
subjects how to assess and citizenship
• Change the common practice of educations’ opportunities for math and
focusing just on numbers/grades in science
mathematics and showing formative Lack for a common time for teachers in order
assessment also matters in this to work citizenship education
subject A lot of projects are done on citizenship
education, but they are not assessed due
to the lack of knowledge on how to do
that.
Opportunities Threats
Many teachers don’t want to change
Roleplaying as an opportunity for peer practices, and they are too focused on
assessment; maintaining their usual content
To share rubrics with other colleagues; School cultures not aligned with citizenship
Necessity of using formative assessment on education that can be integrated in
each activity in order for students and different subjects
parents to value the activity; The use of rubrics must be something to do in
To involve parents/families in formative a continuous way and not only in
assessment of portfolios or other restricted moments;
activities

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Time and place for each teacher to share how
they are working citizenship
competences in their subjects;
Let students be involved in the development
of the criteria;
Students using colors to assess students;

5. History

Strengths Weaknesses

You can decide as a teacher how you address The difficulty is in the algorithm. If they know
citizenship education and put your which word they have to use in an essay
personality in it. Rubrics are not supposed to be another form
Connect the past to current events of summative assessment but with levels
Focus on multiperspectivity in history classes instead of numbers. There must be an
and a critical use of sources generally added conversation / discussion with the
enhances critical thinking students.
You can integrate more content than just
history in your subject e.g. sustainable
buildings, etc.
Working with rubrics for history is quite a
common practice

Opportunities Threats

You can keep on using the same rubrics for Country programs can decide if history or
your students when they are 12 years old other subjects are mandatory and decide
to 18 years old to visualize their growth the goals. e.g. more goals to reach in the
It can be used as a form of dialogue when same hours.
discussing pupils during deliberation. It is very teacher based – if a teacher leaves,
Even with a few hours of history you can experience leaves and motivation to
decide what is important to teach. They incorporate citizenship education in
go deeper into certain themes or content. history classes might diminish.

39
6. Lessons learned
6.1. For teachers on assessment

• Teachers should create and stimulate cooperation in their school where the sharing of
knowledge and good practices stands central. Here they could use the support of policy
makers on scheduling time for dialogue and discussion. Also, cooperation with external
experts can be fruitful. Furthermore, this cooperation can lead to partnerships national
and international striving for qualitative education.

• It is a more sustainable approach to make a translation of citizenship competences to the

context of their own educational organization. By applying competences on relevant
topics or subjects in the life world of the students, teachers can make more meaningful
and lasting learning experiences. An overview of such practices is given on the learning
platform of ALiCE.

• Self-reflection is an important activity for teachers. When teachers get a view on where
they are standing regarding citizenship education and/or formative assessment. The self-
assessment tool of the ALiCE-learning platform can be used to get insight into your own
assessment practices.

• As a consequence of this self-reflection, teachers can enhance several phases in the

feedback cycle. Using formative methods to activate learners and encourage their active
participation in their learning process by doing self-assessment or peer assessment.
Striving for more learning profit and proficiency by setting out clear learning objectives
(feedup) and organizing learning (feedforward). Here good guidance questions are
important. What do I need to learn? How do I get there? Where am I standing? The
application of these methods is presented in the examples on formative assessment in
the learning platform of ALiCE.

• Aligning policies and learning objectives with classroom practices is a difficult task for
teachers. This can lead to frustration in the field and miscommunication. Working
together with policy makers, teacher training can therefore be of added value.

40
• Teachers often experience resource constraints. It can also be very time consuming to
develop your own meaningful learning materials. This leads to the importance of
sufficient training and support. The platform offers some suggestions of activities and
examples on formative assessment to inspire teachers. Sometimes, teachers also need
frameworks to enable them to make a good judgement on the quality of materials.

• In school, teachers often experience a resistance to change. This affects the shift from
traditional assessment practices to formative approaches. Often this is also related to
societal expectations and culture where for example the expectation for numeric grades
could hinder more formative and descriptive approaches. Giving teachers room to
experiment and finetune their assessment practices is of vital essence.

• Building on the previous remark, it is of value when teachers outline formative and
summative approaches. When does a formative process end and when is the student
graded or marked. This offers also clarity and structure to the student’s learning process.

• It can be of help to incorporate emerging trends, innovations and technologies, like AI to

support teaching and assessment practices. By implementing the right technology
teachers can lessen their workload. However, it still is important to implement these
innovations critically, the 4E model that was presented during the second training session
of the ALiCE-project can be of help here. There is also a presentation of this model in the
ideas and perspectives section of the ALICE platform.

• Teachers can find support in co-teaching. By working together several challenges

regarding assessment can be tackled. By involving multiple actors in the classroom
(pupils (self/peer), several experts, ...) several views are included in the assessment
process. This potentially can lead to a more thorough and accurate assessment.
Furthermore, co-teaching can lead to a division of the workload where each teacher can
support and assess a set of learning objectives/outcomes. We would like to refer to the
example of the Netherlands we already described where two teachers clustered courses
and learning objectives.

• It is also important that teachers have a thorough view on horizontal and vertical
learning objectives. Which citizenship competences are addressed by which subject
teacher and how does this horizontal learning line relates to the vertical learning line over
the whole trajectory of secondary education. We are aware that this overview is often
quite a challenge because a lot of actors need to work together. So, teachers need time to
discuss and address these challenges. This connects to the advice we have formulated
regarding educational policy makers.

• The use of an external jury with expertise can support assessment practices and deliver
more exhaustive feedback.

• Use of paired comparison assessment method: multiple people assessing and giving an
order. For such assessments there are good and reviewed tools available. An example of
such a tool is comproved.
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 • Dialogue as an integral part of work in progress can support assessment and citizenship
education practices. Policy makers can support this by scheduling time slots, platform
and opportunities for these dialogue sessions.

• The use of a portfolio and other learning tools can support growth and formative
assessment. Although these methods and tools are often time consuming, they give an
image of the whole learning trajectory of students. The content or format of such a
portfolio can differ collect notes, reflections, evidence (e.g. photos, drawings, audio or
video recordings, self-evaluations...) throughout the school year. It is important to align
this content with the learning objectives, (summative) assessment and learning activities.

“After a presentation let students give 3 comments: 1) praise something 2) ask a question 3)
make a suggestion” – Teacher

• Metacognitive skills such as reflection and self-evaluation are taken into account. By
attributing more responsiblilities to students through peer and self-assessment, these
skills become increasingly important. Consequently, schools need to think on how to
address those skills.

• Assessment should be adapted to the characteristics of the learner (Van Petegem &
Vanhoof, 2002b).
o There ought to be a space for exploring emotionally difficult issues in a "no penalty
zone".

o Teachers generally learn that a high-quality assessment must meet a number of

criteria:

1. Efficiency criteria validity: does the instrument measure what it is intended to

measure?
2. Reliability: does the instrument also give the same results under the same
conditions?
3. Efficiency: is the time and cost investment acceptable?
4. Objectivity: are the results free of influence of who assesses?
5. Transparency: do the students know and understand the criteria on which they
are assessed?
6. Standardization: can you, as an assessor, justify your judgement?

Regarding the evaluation of citizenship competences, the extensive list of

quality requirements can be overwhelming and even paralyzing. The inclusion
of attitudinal goals in the attainment targets adds another layer of complexity
to assessing citizenship. Furthermore, citizenship is closely tied to values,
raising the question of how one can determine if their values are the "right"
ones. It's important to recognize that no evaluation tool is perfect, but that
doesn't mean we should discard the criteria altogether. The evaluation context
may emphasize certain criteria over others—for instance, validity and

42
 reliability are particularly crucial in summative assessments, while
transparency and standardization become more prominent in formative
evaluations.

• Assessing attitudes and values: which frameworks do you refer to? For example, human
rights declarations, school policy, national laws, …

• Assess a student in different contexts, making sure it is a ‘broad assessment’ including

internships, workplace learning, field trips, group assignments and projects.

• Differentiate in your assessment. For example, not all students will need your coaching
when they are looking for a community service-learning project and others might need
your support as a teacher. If we shift criteria-based assessment - meaning we make a
judgment about how a student's performance(s) compares to some standard or criterion
– to learner-centered assessment - meaning that we take the learner themselves as the
reference point – could increase students’ motivation and learning.

• Student involvement supports formative assessment practices.

1. Involve students in your design

At a minimum, this means that the goals or competencies students are to achieve
are transparent. That means that learners contain what is expected of them. A step
further is that they are also able to name it in their own words. But can it be
something more? We can also let students think for themselves about quality
criteria for their learning process or learning performance. Specifically, we then
invite students to answer these kinds of questions together: when is my paper a
good paper? When is my presentation a good presentation? When is my integrated
test a good test? Of course, criteria are chosen in consultation with the teacher. It
is important to ask focused and sincere questions in that process. Whoever
involves students also has the task of dealing with surprising, thoughtless or
deviant answers in a correct, honest and constructive way.

2. Involve students in the assessment

Peer assessment is done more often than letting students co-design the
assessment.

The results of attitude formation are mainly derived from observing the behavior of
the learner and analyzing their tasks, notebooks, etc. (Perloff, 2010). It is a first step
in measuring attitudes (Vergauwen & Deserrano, 2005). Behavior, as previously
mentioned, is a predictor of attitudes since it is influenced by an attitude (Perloff,
2010). The problem with these observations and analysis lies in the question of
which behavior refers to which attitude (De Block & Heene, 1997).

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 • Attitude assessment
o There are a lot of different expressions of attitudes. One student might show an
entirely different way that he or she is critical. Thus, when assessing attitudes, it is
important to lay out a whole range of possible expressions and be open to being
surprised by your students (Veugelers & Vedder, 2003).
o Attitudes fluctuate, many moments have to be dedicated to being able to show a
certain attitude and reflect on it.
o Talking to your students about the assessment from their perspective can
eradicate misunderstandings (Vergauwen & Deserrano, 2005).
o For attitudes, it is important students compare themselves to previous attitudes
and not so much to other students’ attitudes.
o There is a difference between holistic and analytical assessments. A holistic
assessment means that teachers give a rather general assessment about a
students’ process or result. An analytical assessment is divided into different
levels or aspects.
o Assessing in authentic contexts:

“In the beginning of the school year teachers give different civic workshops to classes and each
time the class teacher joins to support the teacher giving the workshop and observe. The idea is
that the class teacher gets the very best connection with those children and that teacher can
formatively assess students as well as possible in the following class council that only has the
goal to portray the profiles of students in each class. Observing during those civic workshops
already can already paint a pretty good picture of the students, which is then discussed with the
other teachers.” - Teacher

• With citizenship competences, the eventual learning goals teachers will achieve with
their students are sometimes not fixed or fully predictable beforehand.

• Reflection needs to be gradually built, for example it can be deepened when students get
older.

• ‘Transmission’ feedback: do this and ‘accept all changes’ to improve your assignment.

• Feedback that enlarges students’ independence and they find their own ways to improve
the assignment. Give enough classical feedback so students have to listen actively and
think critically to select what is relevant to improve their own assignments

• Think about different ways of providing feedback than written remarks or compliments.
A different way to approach feedback is providing audio feedback or a videocast. This
could also be peer feedback.

“We have a class and subject that language and citizenship education. The students read books,
and we ask them to make an oral review on what the impressions of the book were. This way we
have an audiocast in a kind of online audio library. The students are often very curious and
interested in listening to other students’ reviews, which increases their motivation to read. Even
one student who left a very bad review about a particular book made other students interested
and curious to read the book as well.” - Teacher

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6.2. For teachers on biases when assessing

Teachers need to be self-aware about how they assess their students. You
can do this through doing a SAT (self-assessment test) to improve your
assessment practice and get adjusted examples and feedback. In
addition to awareness on assessment itself, we also want to highlight the
role of biases in the assessment process. Everybody has implicit biases,
thus teachers need to be aware they might have them and influence
assessment, even though it can be unconscious.

Here we list some of the biases that are frequent while assessing students.

1. Group attribution error

Attributing characteristics, behaviors, or traits to a group of individuals collectively. Teachers
might overlook individual differences and attribute the poor performance to the entire group. For
example, boys might be assessed worse for their language skills than girls based on gendered
assumption teachers implicitly make about the students.

2. Reactive evaluation
Devaluing an offer, proposal, or idea solely due to its association with an outgroup or a disliked
individual. A teacher might immediately assess a student more negatively because the student is
not very liked by the teacher. This creates an unfair and subjective assessment.

3. Curse of Knowledge
The difficulty of empathizing with someone less informed to effectively communicate information
or instructions. When providing instructions, teachers often don’t realize students are not fully up
to date on certain topics. Taking one’s own knowledge as the foundation can create students to
disengage from learning. Making sure checking frequently through formative assessment and
feedback whether students understand the topic will diminish the risk of students not following
the lesson.

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 4. Negativity bias
Paying more attention to, remembering, and being influenced by negative information rather than
positive information. When assessing, negative elements weigh out more positive ones. Keep in
mind that positive feedback is of great importance for their learning, and we are generally biased
to emphasize what is not good or is overly critical.

5. Pygmalion Effect (self-fulfilling prophecy)

High/low expectations leading to enhanced/poorer performance or behavior. Teachers who think
certain students are more intelligent or hard-working implicitly favor these students over students
they perceive as less intelligent or hard-working. Famous studies by Rosenthal have shown that
even if teachers are told a random group of students are intelligent and hard-working and another
group is not, there was a self-fulfilling effect that had nothing to do with the capacities of the
students: teachers rewarded and perceived students more positivity in the first group, thus
encouraging their confidence and diminishing the confidence of students in the other group.

Make sure you take this into account when giving students praise or dismissive feedback. Always
reflect on your role as a teacher and the power dynamic you have in student performance in itself
can be positively or negatively affected by your feedback and interaction with them.

6. Halo effect
The Halo Effect occurs when your overall impression of someone is influenced by either one part
of their character or your first opinion of them. For example, a student that does well in science
must be good in math as well. When assessing students, it is important to be aware of this
common bias and the probability that this student is not necessarily good at maths or might
dislike it strongly.

7. Horn effect
On the other way around, the horn effect causes people to judge others negatively based on one
aspect of a first impression. For example, a first impression of a student who was rather passive
in the classroom will be present in the teachers’ perception during the second class as well. When
assessing, make sure you think about whether your feedback merely involves the actual behavior
you see at the time or is influenced by earlier negative perceptions.

8. Sequence effect
Students who follow after a very poor performance get a more positive grade. And those who
follow after a very strong student, you give a lower grade than if you assessed that student
independently. Especially on oral exams or presentations, such stark contrasts between students
risk inadvertently making your assessment more mild or stricter. Consider well if the order in
which you see student presentations, tasks or exams influences your feedback.

9. Confirmation Bias
This refers to the bias that people pay more attention to evidence, and perhaps even seek out
evidence, that supports ideas they’ve previously agreed with. Not being open to new information
that might contract your previous assumptions conflates new ideas and can negatively impact
assessment. In addition, it is only important to be aware that students have this bias – like all the
above biases – thus making sure that you find ways in the teaching method to provide time and
different arguments to bring in new perspectives.

10. Status- quo bias

46
This means preferring to maintain the current situation, even when objectively better alternatives
are available. For example, you have a fixed set of correct answers for a task students have made.
If a student provides a creative answer that you hadn’t thought about, this bias will make you
inclined to write it off as wrong. Make sure you are open to creative answers and let yourself be
surprised by your students.

General tips and tricks

- Assess blindly. Have your students write their names on the back of the sheet or ask them to fill
in only their class numbers on the front.

- Establish clear evaluation criteria. For questions with unambiguous solutions, work out a model
answer but maintain some flexibility and stay open so that students can surprise you

- Collaborate with colleagues to improve the same assignment and compare your grades. Are the
differences too big? Then look together where the difference comes from. The insights you gather
through that collaboration will help you look critically at your own work. And that is the strongest
step toward objective evaluations.

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6.3. Lessons learned for policy makers

"Within the spearhead of active citizenship, much attention is paid to evaluating transversal
competences. Intensive work has been done on formative assessment by creating a learning
community 'broad education' and the Erasmus+ project ALiCE. This provides inspiration for
schools to start working with formative assessment. Active citizenship is a process of lifelong
learning and growth. These competences are therefore particularly suitable for formative
assessment. This thoroughly developed formative assessment flows into a summative final
judgment that is still focused on growth opportunities.." - Policy on assessment in the City
Education of Antwerp.

“Our educational system is more conservative and gives way to summative assessment. This
stands in the way of tracking the individual progress of each student.”- Teacher

• Policy makers should provide a framework and support for teachers to work on formative
assessment of citizenship education.

• Teachers have to be professionalized in the difference between summative and formative

assessment, both within the teacher education and in-service professionalization. In some
countries, teachers were unaware of these differences and were not encouraged to
3experiment with formative assessment. Despite the pressure of international testing, with
tests such as PISA and TIMS, teachers should get enough space to focus on students’ learning
process and growth without being constantly worried about raising their test scores.

• As teachers experience a lack of time to foster student citizenship competence, curricula

should provide time for teachers for citizenship education. Policy makers have the
responsibility of raising awareness on citizenship education through a plan of action,
including campaigns and other activities.

48
• Make it obliged to work on citizenship competencies ‘not just ‘nice to have’. Start early on,
make it cross disciplinary and create room for professionalization and the incentive, provide
exchange between schools and pedagogical support.

• Participation in international studies, such as the International Civic and Citizenship

education Study (ICCS), should be encouraged.

• Create a space where there is input of formal, non-formal and informal education. The
ALiCE project, with partners in both informal and formal education show that citizenship in
schools can be strengthened if schools have time to invest in collaborations in the
neighborhood or city and make students do community service learning or volunteer work.

• Citizenship education is not only an answer to provide space for democratic dialogue, not
only avoiding further polarization – or investing in it at times of extremes. It has to be a
continual practice that requires schools to keep on investing in its learning goals in order to
foster democratic spaces and make students feel what that can be like. - Consequently,
citizenship education also focuses on good and qualitative conditions and prevention,
creating safe and brave spaces for growth as citizens as a society.

• Make room to discuss difficult questions and professionalize teachers in this matter. For
example, talking about controversial issues.

• Forming critical citizens should already start in primary education to be impactful for pupils.
If a solid foundation for citizenship education is laid at an early stage, motivation for societal
topics is sparked. Younger pupils show more positive attitudes towards citizenship education
than older peers (Eurydice, 2005).

• Compared to subjects such as math and language, citizenship education is often deemed
less essential to students' education in the eyes of students, parents, some teachers and the
public opinion. In order to prepare students for the current and future roles of citizens and
their participation in society, we must invest in qualitative citizenship education. Furthermore,
applying critical thinking, an aspect of citizenship competences, boosts performances in
language and mathematics (Galle, 2020).

• Regarding teachers, educational policy needs to step away from an individual

accountability model where teachers are deemed responsible for achieving good grades of
their students, only looking at the summative model. In this, we track what students actually
learn something meaningful rather than teaching to the test is put into practice and afterwards
students don’t remember the knowledge or have the intended competences.

• In addition, open the room for teachers' leadership and decision-making. Make sure
teachers can have a say in the school choices considering citizenship education and its
curricula, weigh on the school culture and experiment and take decisions on (formative)
assessment. Empower citizens by empowering teachers.

49
 Although teacher autonomy regarding assessment should be taken into account, having a
shared school vision on assessment should be strongly encouraged. Example of exercise:

In the city education of Antwerp we have a learning community on citizenship education.

The past years we worked together on creating and reformulating rubrics regarding
citizenship education. Competences were translated into a rubric on learner level. Below
we give an example of such a rubric based on the learning objective in the curriculum of
the Flemish community:

BV2_07.02: Students reflect on the relational, layered, and dynamic nature of identity.

a. I learn to think about how identity is relational, layered, and dynamic.

b. I find it difficult to understand how identity is relational, layered, and dynamic.
c. I begin to understand that identity is more than just who I am, but my understanding of
the relational, layered, and dynamic aspects of it is still limited.
d. I can effectively think about how identity is relational, layered, and dynamic, and I
understand the complexity of this concept.
e. I am very skilled in reflecting on the relational, layered, and dynamic nature of identity,
and I can provide deep insights into the different factors that influence it.

Our analysis on educational policies and reflection upon these are

clustered in the webpage ‘For policy makers’ on the ALiCE learning platform.
It was inspiring to connect policy makers with teachers during the project,
creating a mutual understanding and enhancing citizenship education
together.

50
6.4. Lessons learned for educational support and trainers

• Differentiate between didactical methods for the professionalization

1. It’s important to have a balance between theoretical insights, workshops with

exchange opportunities, practical examples, reflection and more informal networking
opportunities.

2. The first training centered providing enough inspiration for teachers about citizenship
education and formative assessment. The second training centered on more in-depth
workshops to further explore some challenges of assessing citizenship competences.

• Differentiate the groups: make the most out of the (inter)national context

1. Teachers should be incentivized to get to know teachers from other contexts. By

explicitly organizing cross-country groups and making them exchange in subject
groups, they gained new perspectives on their own practices.
2. It’s important to there is a balance between theoretical insights from different
countries and enough exchange opportunities for teachers.
3. To make the training trajectory stronger, within country professionalization and
exchange should be provided and guided.
As these teachers all work in the same local context, collaborating is often easier and
inspiration from each other’s lessons is more immediately applicable. In addition,
teacher state the professionalization gains strength and impact if other school actors
such as a few teachers or the school leadership are involved closely in the
professionalization. Only when having such a whole school approach to the
assessment of citizenship education, can the ideas of the professionalization be
spread.

• Create a way for teachers to be inspired by a platform and continue their interactions
and exchange
1. Make sure there is an easily accessible platform to find hands-on examples
2. Use video training and a MOOC to extend your public and inspire others to formatively
assess citizenship competences
3. If possible, provide a platform in the native languages.
51
 During the AliCE project we’ve enlisted some interesting resources
regarding citizenship education and formative assessment for teachers but
also for policy makers. These resources (literature, podcasts, ...) can be
accessed in the reading list within the reading corner of the ALiCE website.

7. Discussion
Without good assessments, teachers lack the data necessary to further optimize their citizenship
education lessons and make informed decisions. Assessing citizenship learning is crucial, as
future policy plans suggest that evaluating pupils' learning in citizenship education will become
increasingly prevalent (Kerr, Keating, & Ireland, 2009). While the learning goals in citizenship
education are not always fixed or fully predictable, this flexibility can create opportunities for
deeper learning, sometimes even more effectively than when clear, strict learning goals are set.

Within the ALiCE project diverse formative assessment practices of citizenship education were
highlighted across Europe. For three years, teachers from eight European countries (Portugal,
Bulgaria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia and Norway) reflected and
exchanged ideas together during a professionalization trajectory.

The reason they initiated this is due to the need teachers feel certain challenges such as the lack
of clear assessment frameworks, time constraints, and a particular difficulty in assessing
competences like values and attitudes. Generally, the most frequent underlying need seemed to
be that teachers are often more comfortable with summative assessments and grading, as
schools provide such clear frameworks and instructions for this and assessing has been done and
emphasized in a summative manner for many decades. Teachers are seeking more for good
practices and examples for formative assessments provide a better understanding of students'
growth in citizenship competencies.

Exploring the range of different types of formative assessment (e.g. portfolio, rubrics, oral tests,
observation, assessment by a jury) enables various teachers to utilize them in their practice.
Providing a variety of these types of assessments and having frequent moments of feedup,
feedforward and feedback enhances the learning process of citizenship education. Despite the
challenge that teachers struggle with the formative assessment of non-quantifiable competences
such as values and attitudes, they want to strengthen value education through providing feedback
and designing an engaging setting for students.

We need formative assessment in citizenship education, as we must avoid that our classrooms
are transformed into a space where only numbers count. Having a blind faith in the value of
assigned grades leaves minimizes learning opportunities. Grades seem objective. However,
grades are measured, and many choices are involved to obtain a certain grade. These choices are
rather hidden and not discussed. Besides these choices, a summative approach is based on a
fixed moment, it is a snapshot in the larger learning trajectory of a student. The complex realities

52
of students, especially on citizenship competences, cannot be reduced to grades but the core
lies in the discussion about students’ competences and their growth trajectory.

Hence, not all aspects of our humanity such as creativity, social competences can all be
measured with classical measurement or assessment instruments, let alone quantified and put
into a score. A possible way to approach the formative assessment of citizenship education could
for example be a stronger focus on a strengths-based approach rather than a diagnostic approach
to screen students’ deficits (Chatterjee & Duraiappah, 2020). This can enable all students to grow
in their competences. Nonetheless, summative tests can be a useful and important tool but
cannot be the overall or only goal to compare schools and education systems. Summative and
formative assessment strategies can be combined and support each other.

Teachers were professionalized in international and national training. The first international
training was the kick-off in which teachers are acquainted with each other and the subject matter.
Subsequently, the following national meetings were different in each country, for example an
exchange or school visit was organized to increase teachers’ peer learning. It was crucial for the
teachers to have enough time to test (elements of) formative assessment in their classrooms and
then see each other again one year later. Then, the second international training was a reflection
on tools and assessment practices they tried in their classrooms and provided time to dig deeper
into some challenges that were highlighted during the first meeting: (1) a whole school approach
to citizenship education and (2) its assessment and the formative assessment of values and
attitudes. The training provided networking opportunities as a key element of professionalization.
This resonates with ALiCE's goal of creating an informal teacher network across Europe.

The ALiCE project has some limitations, in which we hope to provide lessons learned for future
projects. First, in order to have an international network that is sustainable, teachers have to be
on a platform that is community-based and in which they can easily contact each other and learn
together. Between the two international meetings, we could have had more support to reach out
to each other and collaborate internationally. Second, a common challenge of the teachers was
that they were professionalized in the topic but the assessment framework in their schools
remained unchanged. Thus, offering tools how teachers can implement tools not only in their own
lessons but communicate the training information to other colleagues and school leaders can
further support the integration of formative assessment of citizenship education in each school.
Including school leaders in this process could address these challenges faced by teachers.

According to Biesta and Lawy (2006), there are certain considerations when teaching citizenship
education. Firstly, we must take into account students community context in citizenship
education and not isolate it as it is a mere individual capacity or capability. Formative assessment
can support this by differentiating between students. In addition, bridges can be built with parents
and organizations in the neighborhood to collaborate on the goal of educating and emancipating
youngsters. These community members can also provide valuable formative feedback to
students. Hence, going beyond the classroom and school can aid active citizenship (Ilcan &
Basok, 2004).

Second, there is no guarantee that students will match certain learning goals at the end of
citizenship courses, especially considering attitudes and values (Biesta & Lawy, 2006). It is
important that teachers accept that change in values does not happen rapidly and that the
dialogue about e.g. democratic values can already install the idea of different perspectives,
without necessarily changing one’s mind (Knowles & Castro, 2019). Thus, having a fixed result and
53
pathway to get there in citizenship education is unrealistic. Experimenting and reflecting with
other colleagues, however, is the main way in which teachers will strengthen students’ citizenship
competences.

In the future, we hope to continue to professionalize teachers on the formative assessment of

citizenship practices and learn from each other. As many teachers find assessing a challenge,
future projects will continue to collect best practices, encourage collaboration and peer learning
among educators across borders.

All images in the E-Book are generated by Microsoft Copilot (2023) and photos from the ALiCE
training sessions.

54
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