The contemporary society is based on citizen's voluntary participation, the so called 'participatory democracy.' On this kind of society, teenagers are already expressing their political opinion through the internet, by participating in candle demonst...
The contemporary society is based on citizen's voluntary participation, the so called 'participatory democracy.' On this kind of society, teenagers are already expressing their political opinion through the internet, by participating in candle demonstration, by administrating myriads of blog websites, such as ‘Daum,’ and by making a political MSN nickname. Therefore, there is an argument that teenagers should have a role on decision making of social matters.
However, there are a lot of evidences showing an inadequate level of political participation. For example, the voter turnout of age between 20's and 30's is decreasing continually; moreover, researches on political consciousness of university students indicate low level.
During this period of increasing political participation, we need to guide teenagers to develop the maturity of participation. Moreover the level of teenagers' political participatory differs by the method of participation. Therefore, this research conducted survey on three high schools in Seoul to clarify various teenagers' willingness on political participation in relations to the method.
This thesis takes three hypotheses to achieve the goal of research.
[Hypothesis 1] A teenager who experienced political participation will have higher level of willingness on political participation than those with none.
[Hypothesis 2] Willingness of political participation is proportional to past political experiences.
[Hypothesis 3] A method of political participation except for voting will increase teenagers' willingness of political participation than voting itself.
[Hypothesis 4] Teenagers’ willingness of political participation will develop in proportion to the activeness of their current participation.
In order to practically evaluate hypotheses, survey has been conducted to students of three high schools in Seoul. Analyses of the results are as follows:
First, experiences of political participation determined their future willingness to get involved politically. That is, youth who participated in politics shows greater affinity for political participation in the future. Political participation, nevertheless, entails negative effects. Teenagers who experienced voluntary service in government organizations show less willingness, instead.
Second, the more experiences they have in politics, political activities they take into account vary the more. This trend is notable in activities of learning, as well as contacting with the government.
Third, method of political participation shapes the level of their prospective participation in the politics. Learning activity affects on participatory decisions vis-a-vis Apathetic type, Spectator type and Transitional type of political involvement. An election campaign has no effect on the decision. Nevertheless, in case of youth who has voluntarily taken part in election stump has more participation willingness of the Transitional and Gladiatorial type. Government contacting activities influence the Transitional type, but there was no significant relationship between NGO activities and the participation willingness. On the contrary, a signature-collecting campaign of NGO activities shows meaningful relationship with the Apathetic and Gladiatorial type. In case of voting, it has important connection with Spectator type including voting. In addition, there is a tendency for the youth to prefer similar method of political participation in the future.
Fourth, the willingness to participate increases in proportion to how voluntary and proactive their involvement is. In case of the active-characterized politics learning, discussion, writing among learning activities have significant relation with the Gladiatorial type. However, the passive-characterized lecture is unrelated to the Gladiatorial type. About election campaign, youth who has experiences as a candidate shows high willingness on a candidacy for the public office or leading positions in political party.
Based on the results I mentioned above, I strongly recommend some suggestions to expand youth’s political participation. This process will be helpful to set a future direction of politics education in school by providing practical results about the effectiveness of political participatory method. It will be a good foundation for future researches to judge whether the surveyed youth’s willingness for political participation can be converted into action.
※ Keyword: Youth's Political Participation, Participation Methods, Political Participation Intention, politics education