The current state of civic literacy of schoolchildren: research materials of Moscow education

Andrei Sorokin, Anastasiia Polovnikova, Victor Kirillov, Galina Kalabukhova, Natalia Maslova

Today, it is decisive to determine educational trends for the long-term development of both states and societies. The 21st century proposed fundamentally new approaches to setting educational goals and achieving educational results. An important step towards addressing this issue was the introduction of the “21st Century Skills” concept. One of its elements is “Cultural and civic literacy”. Thus, the international community has made an effort to conduct research in the field of citizenship education. The study aims at forming a comprehensive understanding of the content and assessing the formation of civic literacy by various subjects (in this case, participants in the educational process in the city of Moscow). The selection of research methods and the development of research tools are based on the conceptual provisions in the field of functional literacy. The research novelty is associated with the adoption of innovative international methods by Moscow educational organizations. The study results can be presented in the form of three blocks: a block that determines the level of knowledge and understanding of civic literacy; a block that describes the preconditions and current formation of civic literacy in Moscow educational institutions; a block that represents the self-assessment of civic literacy among participants in the educational process. The study results prove that the respondents demonstrate a fairly high level of proficiency in basic civic terms in the field of knowledge and understanding. This fact correlates with their level of self-esteem. According to the respondents, the necessary conditions for mastering civic literacy are systematic citizenship education at school, the formation of legal culture in families, and the availability of the Internet.