• “ICCS” is an abbreviation for the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study.
• The ICCS studies the way school systems, schools and teachers in 38 different countries prepare pupils for their future lives as citizens in a globalised world.
• The ICCS is based on responses from more than 140,000 14-year-old school pupils (8th grade) in more than 5,300 schools.
• The ICCS has collected information from about 62,000 teachers and 5,000 headteachers.

Test results

• Denmark and Finland had better test results than all the other countries.
• Danish boys had a higher test average than boys from all the other countries. Danish girls had the second-highest test average compared with girls from all the other countries. Only Finnish girls scored slightly higher. Denmark had one of the smallest differences between the test results of boys and girls.

Perceptions of democracy

• Pupils in all the countries strongly support democratic values and principles such as the freedom of speech, free elections and the freedom to demonstrate.
• The Scandinavian pupils are among the most favourably inclined towards equality between men and women. However, with regard to the rights of ethnic groups Denmark and Finland are below average.
• Danish and Swedish pupils are among the pupils who are least inclined to attach importance to the significance of religion in society.
• In Scandinavia the pupils have widespread trust in their own country and its political system. But Denmark and Sweden are below average in terms of national values and symbols.
• The highest degree of pupil participation in social and political activities is to be found in a range of non-European countries. The Scandinavian countries, and Denmark in particular, are among the countries where pupils least expect to take part in activities inside and outside school. However, Danish pupils are among those who are most willing to vote in national elections when they become adults.

Pupils and classrooms

• Danish pupils and teachers describe a school environment characterised by good relations between teachers and pupils and by an open culture of debate in the classroom. There is a big difference between Denmark and Finland in this respect. Finnish teachers and pupils have a less positive perception of their social environment.
• Among other things, Denmark and the Scandinavian countries are characterised by the fact that teachers and headteachers attach a great deal of importance to critical thinking as the purpose of the teaching.
• Danish and Finnish pupils feel that they have less actual influence than Norwegian and Swedish pupils.