Teaching Civics and empowering active citizens in upper secondary school during the local elections in Estonia

Civic education plays an important role in preparing young people for democratic participation, particularly in Estonia where 16-year-olds are eligible to vote in local government elections. The article at hand examines how upper secondary school Civics teachers perceive their role in fostering active citizenship during election periods and how they approach election-related topics. The study also considers the perspectives of key stakeholders involved in Civic education (students, teachers association). The central research question of the article is how teachers perceive their own role and the role of Civic education in upper secondary education during local government elections. The study applies a qualitative research design combining stakeholder analysis with semi-structured interviews. Six upper secondary Civics teachers in Tallinn were interviewed alongside representatives of the Estonian History and Civics Teachers Association, the Estonian National Youth Council, and the Estonian Students’ Union. The interview data was analysed thematically through the perspectives of street-level bureaucracy and civic education as a public good. The findings show that teachers consider elections an important topic in Civic education and deliberately include election-related discussions in their teaching practices. They emphasise political neutrality while supporting students in understanding political parties, election programmes, and democratic processes. Teachers report considerable professional autonomy in selecting teaching content and adapting materials to current societal developments, as rapidly changing topics often make textbooks outdated. At the same time, they highlight limited curriculum time and the growing scope of topics expected from Civics as the main challenges. Stakeholder interviews reinforce these findings and further highlight the importance of complementing formal Civic education with non-formal learning opportunities. The study concludes that Estonian Civics teachers play an important role in preparing young people for democratic participation, but the expectations placed on Civics courses increasingly exceeds the time and resources currently available within the curriculum.