Spanish teens have lost confidence in their government.
Only 44% of Spanish 13-year-old students trust completely or somewhat in the government of Spain. The figure shows that trust has dropped 18 percentage points compared to 2009, when 62% of secondary school students claimed to have high levels of trust in the executive branch of the Spanish government.
The numbers come from the latest International Study on Civic and Citizenship Education (ICCS 2022) conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The report spans 22 countries, mostly in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. ICCS researches how young people prepare to assume their roles as citizens.
A total of 82,000 secondary students with an average age of 13-and-a-half participated in the survey. Spain was last included in the 2009 study, skipping the 2016 analysis.
The report’s release coincides with social turmoil in Spain over the plans of the newly installed executive to grant a wide amnesty to Catalan separatists for crimes related directly to the 2017 referendum and extending even to charges of money laundering. As shown by widespread protests in recent weeks, Spaniards of many ages are skeptical of their government.
While civic education is generally designed to imbue students with confidence in their national political system, Spanish youngsters seem to have picked up on adult social-political disillusion.
Today’s young teens who experienced part of their childhood amid the COVID pandemic— in a country with some of the toughest restrictions in Europe—were mostly supportive of the measures they lived through.
Asked about their support for national emergency restrictions, as happened with the COVID pandemic, 71% of Spanish students agreed with closing schools, 74% supported imposing travel restrictions, 67% advocated banning larger gatherings of people at sporting and entertainment events; 48% agree with closing stores and businesses, and 49% support prohibiting people from leaving their homes without good cause. In all cases, Spanish elementary school students came in slightly higher in acceptance of these measures than the global averages in the study.
The only restriction Spanish students did not support in the study was forcing people to provide information about their movements in the event of an emergency situation. They gave this measure a 60% disapproval rating, on par with global averages. This may reflect their generational exposure to having been taught caution with their online data, while having to accept severe practical restrictions imposed by government.
The study also indicates that Spanish civic education focuses on environmental issues; in fact, the results reveal that civics students are more informed about recycling than voting.
Only 38% of those surveyed in Spain claim to have learned how to vote in local or national elections, compared to the average of 54% in all countries. A similar percentage of Spanish students also said they have learned how laws are passed and changed, while 41% of Spanish students claim to have learned how the economy works. On these subjects, their international peers averaged around 50%.
Nevertheless, 81% of Spanish students said that they have learned about ecological issues and how to protect the environment, exactly in line with the worldwide average.
