Cross-National Equivalence of Students’ Perceptions of Good Citizenship in ICCS

The study reported in this article assesses whether two concepts measured in the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2009, namely (1) student’s perceptions of the importance of conventional citizenship and (2) student’s perceptions of the importance of socialmovement-related citizenship, are comparable across all countries participating in the study. In particular by means of confirmatory multi-group factor analysis we tested for invariance of measurements across countries which can ensure that meaningful comparisons can be conducted. The results show a complex picture indicating that the concepts are not necessarily comparable across all countries involved in ICCS and their use for secondary data analysis can be more or less feasible across all countries depending on the research questions and the methodology applied. Scientific and practical implications are discussed.