IEA’s International Civic and Citizenship Education Study and the Teaching of Civic Education in Italy

In this chapter, the results of Italy in the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Studies (ICCS) are briefly presented, highlighting the marginal role that civic education plays in educational policies and school practices in the Italian educational context. In Italy, although there is no specific teaching related to civic and citizenship education, the ICCS results have consistently been above the international average. Different hypotheses are proposed to explain these positive student outcomes. Two Italian experts in this field were interviewed; they agreed on the gap between the results of international surveys and their interpretations. They are of the opinion that some changes in educational policies in Italy would be valuable. INVALSI, the Italian institution responsible for the organization of ICCS, made a great effort to disseminate the results of the international surveys. Studies based on secondary analyses conducted on ICCS 2009 and 2016 are also described.