The effect of primary education teachers on the formation of pupil citizenship

Decreasing levels of civic participation and political engagement are generating an interest in citizenship and citizenship education. New forms of citizenship education which go beyond traditional instruction on political institutions are being sought, such as “democratic citizenship education”, “education of, for and through democracy” and “teaching democracy”. One area which has been little investigated is primary school teachers and citizenship education. This article reports on questionnaire‐based research among Slovak teachers that shows great variety in the focus of citizenship education. Teachers emphasised national pride as well as multicultural, global, regional and human rights aspects and the common good of an entity. The connections between teacher focus on citizenship education, the curricular framework, models of citizenship education and generational differences are all discussed.