Citizenship education in established democracies is challenged by declining youth participation in democracy. Youth disenchantment and disengagement in democracy is primarily evident in formal political behaviour, especially through voting, declining membership of political parties, assisting at elections, contacting politicians, and the like. If citizenship education is to play a major role in addressing these concerns it will need to review the impact it is making on young people in schools. This paper reviews a major national project on youth participation in democracy in Australia set in the context of a national citizenship education programme. The Youth Electoral Study found that citizenship education in Australian schools has at best been marginally successful and substantially more is required to raise levels of democratic engagement. The paper explores many opportunities available to education systems and schools to address these issues through reconceptualising aspects of the formal and the informal curriculum.

G ifted and talented (GAT) students in a new regional selective GAT program were compared with GAT students in mixed ability and streamed classes. Outcomes were academic and non-academic self-concepts, motivation orientations, and achievement tests administered at the start and end of the school year. Selective GAT students' gains were not significantly better than comparison GAT student's gains on any outcome. Selective GAT students' scores were significantly more negative for all facets of academic self-concepts, for all but one of the facets of non-academic self-concept, and for four of six motivational orientations, but did not differ from the comparison GAT students on achievement test scores. Comparisons of students in mixed ability and streamed settings were nonsignificant for 16 of 18 outcomes. The results did not support the intended outcomes of the selective GAT program in relation to academic self-concept and motivational orientations but were consistent with previous self-concept theory and research.A major concern facing gifted and talented (GAT) researchers, policy makers, and practitioners is how best to educate GAT students. Debate has focused on whether full-time special programs best meet the needs of GAT students, with educators supporting contradictory positions largely based on philosophical reasons rather than well-established research findings. Some advocate that special GAT programs best meet the needs of these students and therefore foster their full potential through an enriched intellectual environment and curriculum. Others argue that individualised instruction within regular classrooms best meets the needs of GAT students (e.g. Treffinger, 1982).In recent years, Australia has experienced a substantial growth in the numbers of both GAT primary classes and secondary selective schools. This growth reflects strong parental interest in, and political support for, special educational settings for academically able students. Despite this recent support, reference to

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Building active and informed citizens is a major part of civics and citizenship education in order to enhance and sustain democracies. Civic learning and civic action opportunities within school contexts are commonly claimed to promote an active and informed citizenry. In the present research, we examine the meaning of formal civics education and the role of students' participation in a range of curricular and extracurricular activities. Multilevel analyses yield quite stable results across two cohorts of Australian secondary students and reveal that schools account for a surprisingly small share in students' willingness to participate in future civic and political action. Among the influences at the student level, formal civics learning, participation in student governance activities and in the community are the most significant predictors of intended future participation, but some effects vary conditional on whether more conventional or issue-related civic participation is the focus of active citizenship. Implications of these findings for democratic policy and practice are discussed.

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