Developmental model of democratic values and attitudes toward social actions

Abstract

This article presents the Cyprus results, and proposes a model of home environment and school climate on the social participation of ninth graders based on the IEA 1999 CIVIC education study data. This study examined ninth graders’ participation in social actions by means of a questionnaire; the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling methodology (LISREL). The objective was to design a model, using two exogenous constructs—the home environment and school climate, and four endogenous constructs—political interest of the student, political environment of the student, democratic values and social participation of student in social actions. The study demonstrated that political interest and school climate influence political interest and political environment and these endogenous factors influence democratic values of the students. Finally democratic values influence social participation of students in social actions.