Resources

For over a decade the Council of Europe has been working on policies in the field of education for democratic citizenship (EDC). One result has been that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe agreed on a recommendation stating that EDC is central to educational politics, and that it is a “factor for innovation in terms of organising and managing overall education systems, as well as curricula and teaching methods” (Recommendation Rec(2002)12). According to this recommendation, European governments acknowledged their responsibility for ensuring the cultural basis of democracy through education. However, politics is not so simple that supranational recommendations are immediately translated into policy in national states. This gap between agreed and realised policies has been termed a “compliance gap”. One of the most logical reasons for noncompliance comes from a lack of awareness or competences. Therefore the Council of Europe concentrated on producing materials that could help raise awareness and develop competences. Key products resulting from this effort have been collected as an “EDC/HRE Pack” since 2005.This collection covers the areas of policy making, democratic governance of educational institutions, teacher training and quality assurance. The “Tool for Quality Assurance of Education for Democratic Citizenship in Schools” (Bîrzea et al., 2005), which is one of these materials, forms the reference document for this study.

This study analyses relevant conditions and possible activities with regard to implementing the tool in 10 national educational systems. As relevant conditions, the study considers the existing attempts to deliver educational quality within countries, together with the teacher training programmes that accompany these attempts. As possible activities, national adaptations of the tool, and various ways of working with different target groups, are also taken into account.

The following sections provide background information concerning the project. This will help the reader understand why the tool needs to be adapted in different circumstances. Section 2 presents points of reference that open theoretical perspectives on the work presented. Section 3 provides a rationale for the selection of participating countries and gives and describes the methodology used when conducting this study. Finally, Section 4 provides an overview of the remaining contents of this book.