Study title

The study on young people's civic competencies, participation and attitudes was conducted in Finnish schools in 2009 as part of a larger ICCS 2009 study. It investigated the civic skills and knowledge of young people, as well as their disposition to active citizenship. The study had three parts: one for students, teachers and schools each. This dataset contains the responses to the questionnaires for schools, which were sent to the head teachers of lower secondary schools and included questions about school environment, local community, teaching of civics, and school resources. The FSD participated in the funding of the study. First, the head teachers were asked how much decision-making power the school had in different issues relating to the school and how many teachers participated in school decision-making and development. One set of questions charted the 8th graders' possibilities to participate in different forms of civic engagement organised by the school and their participation in choosing a class representative and voting in the school board elections. Parent participation in school-related issues was investigated as well as the influence of different people in school decision-making (e.g. school board members, school staff other than teachers). The respondents were asked how well student opinions were taken into account in deciding about things such as study material, timetables and school rules, and how many of the students behaved well and abided by the school rules. The extent to which the respondents agreed with several statements describing the prevailing situation in the school was studied (e.g. "teachers are proud of the school", "students feel part of the school community"). Questions in the next section pertained to the local community. These explored whether there were different facilities (library, theatre, park etc.) in the school vicinity, whether different issues, such as immigration, unemployment and substance abuse caused social tensions...