Readiness of Prospective Primary School Teachers to Teach Education for Democratic Citizenship

The aim of this paper is to present the results of the research on readiness of prospective primary school teachers to teach Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC). The paper presents a review of the development of the idea of EDC as well as some key differences in the implementation of EDC. The paper also presents the results of the research carried out on a sample of prospective primary school teachers in their second and final years of study at the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb (N = 137). The results have shown that students estimate that they have a low level of proficiency in the context of implementation of Education for Democratic Citizenship, while they consider that the level of their proficiency in the role of a teacher in planning and implementing EDC is somewhat higher. Although students evaluate their proficiency in the context of citizenship as quite low, they think that it is necessary to introduce it as a school subject. The results also imply the need for systematic education of prospective primary school teachers for EDC.