Conference Agenda

International large-scale assessments (ILSAs) such as TIMSS, ICCS, PIRLS, ICILS, PISA, and TALIS provide critical insights into educational outcomes and inequalities across diverse national contexts. They are widely used to monitor trends, enable international comparisons, and inform educational policy and practice (Johansson, 2016). At the same time, ILSAs function as laboratories for methodological innovation, supporting research that links individual outcomes to institutional and systemic conditions (Strietholt & Scherer, 2018). This symposium brings together recent research drawing on multiple ILSAs and is organized into five interrelated thematic sessions addressing digital transformation, civic education, educational inequality, student engagement and well-being, and methodological challenges in international assessment research.

The first thematic area focuses on digital competencies and emerging technologies in education. Drawing on ICILS, TALIS, and TIMSS, papers examine cross-national variation in technology and AI integration, the role of teacher characteristics and professional learning, and how digital provision and pedagogical use relate to achievement and inequality, including disparities linked to socioeconomic background and early tracking.

The second thematic area addresses civic attitudes, values, and engagement among young people. Using ICCS data, contributions explore students’ intentions to participate politically, their attitudes toward minorities, immigrants, and gender equality, and how school experiences relate to tolerant dispositions and engagement with social and environmental issues.

The third thematic area examines structural inequalities and contextual effects in education systems. Papers investigate how school composition, segregation, and socioeconomic context shape achievement and well-being across countries, including intersectional patterns by gender, immigrant background, and socioeconomic status. The session also addresses systemic resource inequalities through evidence on mathematics and science teacher shortages and their unequal distribution across schools.

The fourth thematic area focuses on students’ attitudes, motivation, and psychosocial factors. Contributions examine long-term gender gaps in reading behavior and achievement, the relationship between teacher gender and student outcomes, and trends in test-taking motivation relevant for interpreting achievement changes.

The fifth thematic area is explicitly methodological, with papers analyzing item-level features of achievement scales, participation and sampling standards, and the measurement of socioeconomic status, highlighting how technical choices shape conclusions about trends and inequality.

Overall, the symposium fosters dialogue among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners and advances rigorous, policy-relevant use of ILSAs to support more equitable and effective education systems.

Tolerance is important for inclusive, diverse, and democratic societies. Yet recent global developments—ranging from rising nationalist movements to debates over immigration and multiculturalism—suggest a shift away from tolerance in societies around the world. Against this backdrop, schools remain crucial spaces where youth can encounter diversity and develop attitudes that shape future democratic participation. This paper builds on earlier analysis of data from the 2009 and 2016 cycles of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), which showed increases in students’ endorsement of equal rights for all ethnic groups, in all countries participating in both cycles (Beyer & Brese, 2024). The release of the 2022 ICCS data allows an analysis of whether these trends have continued, stalled, or even reversed in today’s more polarized political climate. This paper also extends the scope of tolerance to attitudes towards immigrants and gender equality. Within the global context of rising anti-immigrant discourse and challenges to diversity and multicultural policies, this paper tries to shed light on the potential of education systems in shaping tolerant attitudes. This paper addresses four research questions: 1. How have tolerant attitudes of secondary school students developed between 2009, 2016, and 2022? 2. How are classroom composition and specific civic activities performed within the school related to tolerant attitudes? Do certain activities matter more than others? 3. Are there differences in tolerant attitudes for different aspects of diversity (ethnicity, gender, migration experience)? 4. Can we discern differences in environment, context or policy from education systems with contrasting trajectories? For eleven countries—Bulgaria, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden—participating in all cycles of ICCS (2009, 2016, 2022) we will use linear regression modeling to predict students’ endorsement of equal rights for all ethnic groups, and attitudes towards gender equality and immigrants. As indicators of opportunities to experience diversity, we include classroom composition and a set of civic activities in school. Regarding the broader policy context, we will look into several country-level indicators (e.g., multicultural integration policies and political discourse) assembled from secondary sources. Preliminary findings show stalling and even declining levels of tolerance. Not all activities appear equally influential. Participation in environmental initiatives is consistently associated with higher tolerance across contexts. In contrast, activities such as volunteering or student government show wide cross-national variation—effective in some settings but not others—implying that how these activities are framed and implemented matters.

Allport, G. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Oxford: Addison-Wesley. Berry, J. W. (1997). Immigration, Acculturation, and Adaptation. Applied Psychology, 5-34. Brese, F. & Beyer, C. (2024). Secondary school students’ attitudes of tolerance towards minorities. Large-scale Assessment in Education 12, 28. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-024-00217-8 Falavarjani, M. F., Yeh, C. J., & Brouwers, S. A. (2019). Exploring the Effects of Acculturative Stress and Social Support on the Acculturation-Depression Relationship in Two Countries of Similar Social Status. Journal of International Migration and Integration / Revue de l integration et de la migration internationale 21(3), 3. Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2011). When Groups Meet: The Dynamics of Intergroup Contact. Psychology Press. Stark, T. (2011). Integration in Schools. A Process Perspective on Students’ Interethnic Attitudes and Interpersonal Relationships. Doctor of Philosophy.

Educational policies across the globe have become increasingly focused on learning about environmental protection and climate change, and many education systems have sought ways to engage young people in sustainable practices that address climate concerns (Wals & Benavot, 2017). According to surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center (2021) young people are more inclined to endorse protection of the environment than older people. These attitudes stem from a combination of demographic, attitudinal, and social factors, as well as broader community influences (Kessler, 2021; Smith & Kingston, 2021; Xie, et al., 2019). Schools are expected to play a key role in educating students about sustainability and environmental responsibility. The learning domains Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Global Citizenship Education (GCED)—central to the United Nation's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—emphasise that students need the knowledge, skills, and mindset to address environmental issues (United Nations, 2015; UNESCO, 2017). This proposition is supported by findings from TIMSS 2023 (Bookbinder et al., 2025). Using ICCS 2022 data from 18 European countries, this paper explores students' awareness of environmental threats, their attitudes toward environmental issues and European cooperation to protect the environment, as well as their expected participation in environment protection activities and sustainable behaviour. This paper explores how students' backgrounds, school experiences, and other related beliefs are associated with their attitudes to, and engagement with, sustainability efforts and environmental protection. The analyses use correlational analysis as well as multivariate regression models to identify predictors of students’ perceptions and engagement in environment protection activities. Predictors include Individual background variables such as students’ socioeconomic background, and parental interest in political and social issues. Further, it will include school context variables reflecting student reports on having learnt how to protect the environment and environment-friendly practices implemented at their school. Preliminary findings suggest that young people tend to express relatively high levels of awareness about environmental threats, positive attitudes toward environmental protection and European cooperation on this topic, and that most lower secondary students expect to become engaged in environmental protection activities and frequently engage in sustainable behaviour. Multivariate analyses highlight the key role of civic knowledge as a predictor of positive attitudes toward environmental engagement and awareness of environmental threats, while female students also tended to show more concern and more willingness to engage with environment-related activities.

Bookbinder, A., et al. (2025). Environmental Awareness in TIMSS 2023: Patterns in Achievement, Attitudes, Behaviors, and Contexts. Boston College. Kessler, E. (2021), Climate change concern among youth: Examining the role of civics and institutional trust across 22 countries, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 29. Pew Research Center. (2021, May 26). Gen Z, Millennials stand out for climate change activism, social media engagement with issue. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/ Schulz, W., et al. (2023). Education for citizenship in times of global challenge: IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2022 International Report. Springer. Smith, M. A., & Kingston, S. (2021). Demographic, attitudinal, and social factors that predict pro-environmental behavior. Sustainability and Climate Change, 14(1), 47–54. UNESCO. (2017). Education for sustainable development goals: Learning objectives. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000247444 United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. United Nations General Assembly. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld Wals, A. & Benavot, A. (2017), Can we meet the sustainability challenges? The role of education and lifelong learning, European Journal for Education, 52, 404– 413. Xie, B., et al. (2019). Predicting climate change risk perception and willingness to act. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 65, 101331

Declining electoral participation among young people poses a growing threat to the legitimacy and sustainability of representative democracy. Despite widespread concern, timely and comparative indicators of youth political disengagement remain limited—particularly those capturing early predispositions toward voting. This study addresses this gap by exploring whether intentions to vote, expressed by eighth-grade students across countries, can serve as reliable early-warning indicators of future electoral behavior, and by identifying the individual-level factors that best explain these intentions. Using data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS), we first align students’ self-reported voting intentions in ICCS 2009 and 2016 with official age-specific turnout rates from each cohort’s first national election. The findings reveal a statistically significant, moderately strong association between early intentions and actual voting behavior: countries with higher proportions of students reporting that they are likely to vote tend to experience higher turnout rates when those cohorts reach voting age. In the second part of the analysis, we use pooled microdata from three ICCS cycles (2009, 2016, 2022; N ≈ 316,000 students) and estimate fixed-effects models to identify consistent predictors of students’ voting intentions while accounting for time-invariant country-level characteristics. Results show that students’ political interest is the most powerful and consistent predictor. Other significant contributors include civic knowledge, political self-efficacy, trust in political institutions, and parental political interest. Importantly, once these psychological and cognitive factors are taken into account, background characteristics such as gender or socioeconomic status lose statistical significance. These results underscore the predictive value of adolescent voting intentions and suggest that such intentions can serve as a practical tool for early diagnosis of potential turnout issues in future electorates. Moreover, the findings highlight key malleable factors—particularly political interest, knowledge, and efficacy—that can be targeted through civic education policy and practice. By focusing on these levers, education systems and policymakers may be able to foster greater democratic engagement and counteract the trend of political disengagement among youth across countries.

Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Kerr, D., & Losito, B. (2010). ICCS 2009 International Report: Civic knowledge, attitudes and engagement among lower secondary school students in thirty-eight countries. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). https://www.iea.nl/publications/studyreports/ international-reports-iea-studies/iccs-2009-international-report Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Losito, B., Agrusti, G., & Friedman, T. (2018). Becoming citizens in a changing world: IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2016 International Report. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73963-2 Schulz, W., Ainley, J., Fraillon, J., Losito, B., Agrusti, G., Damiani, V., & Friedman, T. (2023). Education for citizenship in times of global challenge: IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2022 International Report. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-65603-3

There is a literature concerning the extent to which religiosity is associated with civic attitudes and engagement among adults (Ben-Nun Bloom, Arikan & Vishkin, 2021; Pew, 2019). Even after controlling for many other variables, religious tradition and attendance of religious services tend to be related to civic participation (Ainley & Schulz, 2024; Storm, 2015; Wallman Lundasen, 2021). These associations also appear among secondary school students (Pancer, 2015). One interpretation is that religious participation encourages adherents to consider features of society (a world view) that they see as desirable and to promote those features through political engagement (Pancer, 2015: Pavolini, Béland & Jawad, 2017). Other research suggests associations between religious participation and civic disposition may depend on contextual factors such as the secularity of political systems(Zuckerman & Shook, 2017). This paper addresses the following research questions: 1. To what extent has religious attachment among lower secondary students changed across the three ICCS surveys in 2009, 2016 and 2022? 2. To what extent is religious background associated with measures of civic attitudes toward important topics in society (such as gender equality and satisfaction with the political system)? 3. To what extent is religious background associated with measures of expected civic engagement participation in the future? Using data from European countries participating the first three ICCS cycles we compare how young people’s religious attachment (affiliation with a religion, attendance of religious services, beliefs about the desirability of religious influence in society) developed over time between 2009 and 2022. Using all three indicators of religious attachment, we then explore their associations with selected civic attitudes (attitudes toward gender equality, satisfaction with the political system, and beliefs about threats to democracy) as well as indicators of expected future engagement (at school, in legal and illegal activities, and electoral and active political participation) For the analysis of associations we use correlations (across and within countries) as well as linear regression to control for social and personal background, school-related factors, and related attitudes (such as citizenship self-efficacy). Preliminary analyses showed decreases in religious attachment since 2009. Beliefs about religious influence showed negative associations with gender equality and perceptions of threats to democracy, and positive relationships with satisfaction with the political system and active political engagement.

Ainley, J., & Schulz, W. (2024). The influence of religious attachment on intended political engagement among lower-secondary students. Large-scale Assessments in Education, 12, 22. Aksoy, O., & Wiertz, D. (2024). The impact of religious involvement on trust, volunteering, and perceived cooperativeness: Evidence from two British panels. European Sociological Review, 40, 143–159. Ben-Nun Bloom, P., Arikan, G., & Vishkin, A. (2021). Religion and democratic commitment: A unifying motivational framework. Advances in Political Psychology, 42(Suppl. 1), 75–108. Pancer, S. M. (2015). The psychology of citizenship and civic engagement. Oxford University Press. Pavolini, E., Béland, D., & Jawad, R. (2017). Mapping the relationship between religion and social policy. Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy, 33(3), 240–260. Pew Research Center, (2019). Religion’s relationship to happiness, civic engagement and health around the world, www.pewresearch.org Storm, I. (2015). Religion, inclusive individualism, and volunteering in Europe. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 30(2), 213–229. Wallman Lundasen, S. (2021). Religious participation and civic engagement in a secular context: Evidence from Sweden on the correlates of attending religious services. Voluntas Research Papers Zuckerman, P., & Shook, J. R. (Eds.). (2017). The Oxford handbook of secularism. Oxford University Press.