What are the key contents related to democratic life in the curricula of civic and citizenship education in Latin American countries? What values and dimensions are most emphasized?
This paper summarizes the results of a comparative analysis of civic/citizenship curricula for primary and secondary education in six countries of the region that participated in the International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS-2009) conducted by International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA).
This document comprises four parts. The first section takes stock of the state of democratic belief in the region, drawing upon the most significant opinion studies of the past decade, so as to offer broader meaning bases for curriculum analysis and, more generally, for educational work in the field of citizenship. The second section describes the organizational (or structural) characteristics of the curricula of the six countries and presents a framework of categories for their comparative analysis. The subsequent section describes and analyses the contents of the six curricula examined and how they deal with the values, institutions and citizenship relations in their civic (political) and civil (coexistence) dimensions. On the basis of the most significant findings, the closing section includes some reflections regarding curriculum development with regard to citizenship.
