This investigation was intended to analyses the conjoined effects of personal and school based variables towards civic attitudes in a sample of Mexican middle school students (n=4,111). The data gathered, as a result of the application of an adaptation of the Civic Education Study of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), was analyzed by multilevel modeling, controlling the effect of socioeconomic level and type of school. The results show that the type of middle school, and the socioeconomic level explain only a marginal proportion of the disparities associated with civic attitudes, where the greater percentage of disparities can be explained by variables of a personal nature.

Civic education, multilevel modeling, socioeconomic level, basic education.