The proposed essay is based on the results of a research in the field of pedagogy and civic education conducted by the Yuri Levada Analytical Centre since the early 1990s. The research on the topic ‘Civic Education in Secondary Schools’ was conducted in the spring months of 2014. Its programme included visits to schools and pedagogical universities in the cities of Yaroslavl, Volgograd and Novosibirsk. The attitudes and opinions of high school students from ordinary and ‘good’ schools, their parents and humanities teachers, students of pedagogical universities, as well as the opinions and positions of educational leaders in these cities were elicited using the methods of group discussions and individual interviews. The study recorded the current state of affairs in this area and allowed to establish some regularities in the functioning of the civic education system.