Civic education and the acceptance of democratic values: The role of participatory class climate

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relevance of participatory class climate for the acceptance of democratic values among Serbian students who attend the civic education courses and to analyse the moderating role of students’ socio-economic status. The data collected in the CE evaluation study (N = 1073, 42% of boys) were used. Multiple regression analysis has shown that democratic values are more embraced by the students of higher SES and those from the classes with a more prominent participatory climate. The relationship between PCC and the importance of democratic values is moderated by SES: the students with the lowest SES gained most from class participation in terms of accepting democratic values