Strengthening Democratic Participation through Citizenship Education in VET and Adult Learning

CIVIC-LIFE responds to growing democratic disengagement across Europe, evidenced by declining voter turnout, rising political apathy, particularly among younger and socially marginalised populations and increasing distrust in democratic institutions. CIVIC-LIFE posits that citizenship education, when meaningfully integrated into vocational education and training (VET) and adult learning systems, can serve as a powerful lever for re-engaging citizens with democratic life.

The project aims to bring together a multidisciplinary consortium of universities, research centres, civil society organisations, and VET providers from across Europe. Through a rigorous longitudinal, mixed-methods research design, CIVIC-LIFE will investigate the conditions under which citizenship education effectively enhances civic knowledge, democratic attitudes, and active participation. Central to the project's approach is an intersectional barriers framework that accounts for how factors such as socioeconomic status, migration background, gender, disability, and geographic remoteness interact to shape access to and outcomes of civic learning.

CIVIC-LIFE will co-design, pilot, and evaluate innovative pedagogical tools and curricula tailored to diverse adult learning contexts, with a strong emphasis on inclusivity and learner empowerment. The project's expected outcomes include evidence-based policy recommendations for integrating citizenship education across lifelong learning pathways, open-access educational resources, a validated assessment framework for measuring civic competence development, and a transferable model for embedding democratic participation in non-formal and formal education settings.