Citizenship education in initial vocational education and training: enabling and hindering factors

Context

Citizenship education in IVET matters for democratic resilience, social inclusion and economic performance. Across Europe, VET prepares almost half of learners at upper secondary level, including many young people who may have had fewer civic learning opportunities at home or earlier in schooling. 
As democratic backsliding, disinformation, declining institutional trust and inequalities in participation grow, IVET is expected to prepare learners not only for work but also for life in democratic societies. 
This literature review examines how citizenship education is integrated into school- and company-based IVET, which conditions enable or hinder it, and how IVET supports democratic knowledge, political and civic self-efficacy, civic engagement, critical thinking, media literacy, EU history and European common values. 

Facts and findings

• The literature review analyses more than 120 publications from the past decade; the evidence base is uneven across countries and remains limited for workplaces, employers and in-company trainers.
• IVET learners tend to receive less comprehensive citizenship education than peers in general education, with fewer opportunities for democratic citizenship education, which is also often less complex.
• IVET learners often report lower political knowledge, political and civic self-efficacy and participation in democratic processes, but many value inclusiveness, solidarity, social responsibility and practical engagement.
• The identified enablers and barriers operate across policy frameworks, learning culture, teaching practice, curriculum and assessment, extra-curricular activities and teacher and trainer preparation.

Key messages

• IVET has a democratic, social and economic role: citizenship competence strengthens participation, social cohesion, institutional trust, employability and job readiness.
• VET learners should not be treated as civically disengaged; citizenship education should build on their lived experiences, vocational identities and practical orientations.
• Company-based learning can turn citizenship education into lived practice but this potential requires stronger links between schools, companies and in-company trainers.
• Policy ambition is not enough when frameworks, curriculum design, assessment, teacher preparation and trainer preparation remain weak or inconsistent.

Policy pointers

The proposed markers of citizenship education in IVET can help identify the policy, institutional and workplace conditions that support implementation.

Given the uneven and still limited empirical evidence, especially on workplace-based learning and company-based training, the markers should be treated as provisional. Further research would be needed to assess their relevance across different IVET systems, their ability to capture differences between school-based and workplace-based learning, and their usefulness for monitoring or comparison without oversimplifying the diversity of IVET provision.