정치참여에 대한 두 가지 관점 고찰 = A Study on the Two Views of Political Participation

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Political participation in this study is defined as electing public servants and political candidates and a participation in the decision-making processes of public policies and/or executions in various fields including civic arena and at work. Democracy can be classified as participatory democracy and elite democracy depending on the view about political participation. These two views are widely different on the `nature of democracy and political participation,` `the political rationality of human beings and political participation,` and the `effects of political participation. `The main difference, however, can be summarized as the possibility of change of citizens through political participation, or the civic educational effects of political participation. The diverse views on the civic educational effect of political participation can be classified into positive and negative ones. The positive views include participatory democracy, experience-based education, and constructivism education. The negative views include the elite democracy and subject based education, and they claim that political participation does not enhance civil life. This view, however, seems a little too extreme based on our long observations of the effects of experience-based education and constructivism education. It seems certain that political participation changes human lives, although we recognize that there is a difference the speed with which people change. This study regards the participatory democratic view of political participation and the positive view on the civic educational effect of political participation as appropriate. People in the civic education and social studies will obtain theoretical explanation of necessity for political participation from this study. They will also recognize the value of participatory learning through this study.