In the face of a perceived decline in political participation amongst young people, the European Union’s current Youth Strategy identifies a need to create space for all young people to develop a political voice. The literature on citizenship education highlights pupil councils in schools as a promising initiative to address this goal. Pupil councils are democratic decision-making forums for students at school. While there has been much research on the outcomes of these councils, there seem to be very few studies examining who has access to them. The aim of this study is to analyse patterns of access to school councils in order to more clearly understand how this form of citizenship education may be perpetuating political inequalities. Using quantitative data from International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)’s International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), a logistic regression analysis and a three-level linear regression analysis are performed to investigate the determinants of access to pupil councils throughout the European Union. The research questions interrogate access at three levels: national, school and individual. Do people in different countries, schools, and with certain socio-demographic characteristics have differential access to participation opportunities on the pupil council? Does this differential access reflect pre-existing patterns in inequitable political participation in wider society? The findings suggest that there are differences in access at all three levels. Most notably, it appears that pupils who have high educational aspirations and are from families with high socio-economic status are associated with much higher levels of participation on councils. It is argued that the patterns apparent in pupil council access both reflect, and perpetuate, political inequalities found in societies across the European Union.

1. SCHOOL COUNCILS: DEMOCRATIC
FORUMS OR EXCLUSIVE CLUBS?
Isabel Kempner
Institute of Education, UCL
IDSP Competition 2020
Berlin, 23rd July 2020

2. DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION
• Youth involvement in politics is considered a priority by the
European Union
• Involvement in politics is uneven (access issues)
• European Youth Goal 9: To promote space and
participation for all
• Student councils address this goal in two distinct ways:
• Pedagogical justification
• Normative justification
The study is exploratory and descriptive, finding factors that determine access to student
councils.

3. RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
• Research question: Do people in different countries,
schools, and with certain socio-demographic
characteristics have differential access to participation
opportunities on the pupil council?
• Developmental perspective of political engagement and
constructivist theories of learning
• Quantitative analysis of secondary data (survey data)

4. DATA
• Survey data from the International Association for the Evaluation
of Educational Achievement (IEA)’s International Civic and
Citizenship Education Study (ICCS)
• Sampling procedure designed to be representative of the
general population
• 38 countries around the world (a subset of 21 EU countries used)
• Questionnaires completed by head teachers, teachers and pupils
at over 5,300 schools
• Responses stored as quantitative data

5. DATA ANALYSIS
• Statistical analyses using SPSS
• Descriptive data at the country level, showing the frequency of
pupil councils and the mean proportion of schools with a
council in five political cultures (including t-tests)
• Logistic regression at the school level, showing the school
characteristics that increase the likelihood of offering a pupil
council
• Three level linear regression model at the individual level,
exploring factors that determine individuals’ access to pupil
councils

6. FINDINGS
• Key findings: Access to pupil councils is determined by socio-
demographic characteristics, school characteristics, and the
national political culture
• Pupils with higher educational aspiration and higher socio-
economic status are associated with higher levels of access
• Pupils attending schools with a high proportion of ethnic
minority students are associated with lower levels of access
• Limitation: Only a small amount of the variance in access can be
explained using these predictors
• Recommendations:
• Uneven access is likely to exacerbate pre-existing political
inequalities
• Schools should work to ensure they are not merely enhancing
the voices of those who already have political skills
Level Variable B SE t
Intercept 1.291** (0.215) 6
1 Gendera
0.062** (0.002) 32.4
1 Expected edu. 0.093** (0.001) 89.4
1 SES 0.109** (0.001) 91.4
2 Private
b
-0.009 (0.046) -0.2
2 School SES -0.160** (0.015) -10.9
3 Eastern 0.170 (0.248) 0.7
3 Liberal 0.047 (0.304) 0.2
3 Mediterranean 0.609 (0.263) 2.3
3 Conservative -0.037 (0.265) -0.1
1 Ethnicity
c
-0.013** (0.003) -4.7
2 School ethnicity -0.347** (0.030) -11.6
Model4
0.040; -0.095; 0.532R2
: L1; L2; L3
*=p<0.05; **=p<0.005;
a
reference=boy;
b
reference=public;
c
reference=ethnic
majority

7. REFERENCES
Bock, D. (1989). Multilevel Analysis of Educational Data. San Diego: Academic Press.
European Union. (2018). Official Journal of the European Union, C 456. Retrieved from
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:C:2018:456:FULL&from=EN.
[Accessed 15 May 2020].
Hoskins, B., and Janmaat, J. G. (2019). Education, Democracy and Inequality: Political
engagement and citizenship education in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kahne, J., and Middaugh, E. (2008b). High quality civic education: what is it and who gets it?.
Social Education, 72(1), 34-39.
Whitty, G., and Wisby, E. (2007). Whose voice? An exploration of the current policy interest in
pupil involvement in school decision-making. International Studies in Sociology of Education,
17(3), 303-319.

8. WHY FUND THIS PROJECT?
• Unequal political engagement is a threat to democracy and marginalises certain groups
• Schools have a key role to play in addressing political inequalities and addressing European
Youth Goal 9
• There seem to be very few empirical studies about access to political learning opportunities in
schools
• Uneven access to opportunities at school is likely to widen the political engagement gap both
now and in the future
• Empirical study of access patterns is necessary to highlight where current inequalities lie
• Knowledge and awareness of current inequalities can help schools plan and implement
improvements in how they organise their civic learning opportunities