Introduction or preface

- The purpose of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is to investigate the ways in which young people are prepared to undertake their roles as citizens. The article describes how the learning context for civic education is explored in the ICCS survey. It outlines the conceptual framework, the design of the study and the assessment instruments for students, teachers and school principals as well as a national context survey collecting data on the national contexts for civic and citizenship education.Keywords Citizenship Education, comparative research, survey design.