ABSTRACT
Acknowledging the vital nature of civic participation in democratic societies, the authors explore adult civic literacy policy and curricula in four countries—Germany, Estonia, the United States, and Australia—which have reported high levels of civic literacy and engagement. A multi-case analysis method was used to examine how the countries’ respective policies and curricula support critical democratic adult education to answer the question: How are these countries promoting civic literacy within their respective adult populations and developing learners into global citizens? The multi-case analysis revealed a large degree of continuity across these countries in terms of their national civic education policies and curricula that mainly focus on citizenship requirements, and very little on civic learning for adults. Implications for civic education policy and curriculum are provided along with recommendations for advancing critical civic literacy for adult learners.
