Maija Hytti, Maarja Hallik, Leif Kalev, Niclas Sandström
Strengthening democratic citizenship requires new kinds of tools for articulating and assessing the competences needed for responsible democratic participation. This article presents the development of the Responsible Democratic Citizenship (RDC) assessment tool, created within the EU Horizon Europe DEMOCRAT project to operationalize four core democratic competences: Solidary Participation, Deliberation, Judgment and Critical Thinking, and Democratic Resilience. Grounded in theories of democratic citizenship and education for democracy, the RDC tool was developed through an iterative, research-based process combining conceptual analysis, expert consultations, and co-design with practitioners. The tool was subsequently implemented and tested across multiple Living Lab pilot initiatives in six EU countries, within school communities, classrooms, and teacher education settings. Empirically, the article draws on a mixed-methods evaluation of 40 pilot interventions involving 144 teachers and 1,889 students, combining ex ante and ex post competence assessments with teachers’ structured documentation, interviews and focus groups, and an external evaluation. We describe the tool’s conceptual structure, development logic, and practical adaptations across contexts, and report initial insights into its usability, contextual fit, and perceived value for supporting democratic learning. The findings indicate that the RDC tool offers a flexible and pedagogically meaningful instrument for diagnosing and fostering democratic competences in formal education contexts. We discuss implications for the future development and broader application of competence-based assessment in citizenship education, with attention to innovative pedagogical approaches, including experiential and embodied, student-centered project learning, that support democratic engagement and the development of RDC competences in complex and contested environments.