Results of the research project “Political Competence of Youth at the Verge of Adulthood (PKM)” publicly presented

The results of the research project “Political Competence of Youth at the Verge of Adulthood (PKM)” were presented to the public on Tuesday, 22 September 2026.

The event was opened by Nikola Baketa, PhD and Jelena Matić Bojić, PhD (Institute for Social Research in Zagreb) who presented key results of the research, which was followed by an expert discussion by prof. Dragan Bagić, PhD (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb), associate professor Krešimir Krolo (Department of Sociology, University of Zadar) and Lucija Dumančić Jovanović, coordinator for the development and implementation of civic literacy development programmes (Gong).

The research was conducted during March and April 2026 on a nationally representative sample of 1,285 final-year pupils of secondary schools across Croatia. The aim of the research was to gain insight into the level and structure of pupils’ political competence – their political knowledge, political engagement, values and attitudes, and the ways of being informed and taught about social and political topics at school.

The findings were gathered in the fourth wave of systematical examination of political competence of final-year secondary school pupils, which has been carried out for the last fifteen years, building on previous research conducted in 2009/2010, 2014/2015 and 2020/2021.

This year’s research was carried out as part of the project “Political Competence of Youth at the Verge of Adulthood (PKM)”, which is led by Nikola Baketa, PhD, and financed by the EC NextGenerationEU fund as part of the programme agreement of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb and the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Youth. The project is carried out in collaboration with the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Zagreb and the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies of the University of Rijeka.

The report is available at the link.