This study aims to identify the characteristics and difficulties of the process of structuring civil education into educational programs in the paradigm of participatory democracy. Participatory democracy is a political project which aims to overcome ...
This study aims to identify the characteristics and difficulties of the process of structuring civil education into educational programs in the paradigm of participatory democracy. Participatory democracy is a political project which aims to overcome the limit of liberal democracy, which confines democracy to political institutions. Participatory democracy refers to a democracy which is constantly reconstructed through citizen participation in the life-world. Civil education based on liberal democracy has been defined as education that fosters individual citizens' consciousness, ability, and virtue. This definition implies the limitation of the enlightenment error and the inability to embody the evolution and dynamics of democracy. On the other hand, civil education in the paradigm of participatory democracy is defined as a field in which citizen participation is promoted, insomuch as it actually occurs. Such definition is accordingly oriented towards democratic change. This study captures civil education in participatory democracy as ‘civil participation education', separated from civil education in liberal democracy.
Recently, studies on the conceptual connection between civil education and citizen participation have been conducted. Yet, research is still insufficient on the experience of civil participation education as practical activity. First of all, it is difficult to find research that discuss how the purpose, subjects, contents and methods of civil participation education can be realized. Based on the awareness of the this problem, the purpose of this study is to identify the characteristics and difficulties in the process of structuring the philosophy of civil participation education into educational programs through the cases of civil participation education program.
This study investigated the development process of an education program called <Citizen School>, which is a collaborative case study between A District Office and B University in Seoul. Research questions are as follows. First, how is the principle of civil participation education structured in the planning process of civil participation education program? Second, what are the traits of the process in which the specific educational activities of the civil participation education program are designed? Third, what are the difficulties in developing a civil participation education program?
The <Citizen School> program was developed from a request from A District Office to B University for an education program that aims for 'Local Democracy'. At the planning stage, philosophical foundations of civil participation education and operation principles of the <Citizen school> program were established. First, developers identified the limits of existing civil education as follows: an individual as a learning unit, unilateral lecture types and a fixed 'citizen image' as an educational goal. In order to overcome these limits, they established the principle of differentiated civil participation education. The concept of citizen is reconstructed centering on subjectivity, group and participation, and furthermore, the principle of civil participation education is elaborated by reestablishing the relation between learning and democracy.
Whereas differences between various viewpoints of the developers appeared in the process of establishing a specific purpose of the <Citizen School> program, the purpose of the <Citizen School> was agreed upon as 'regional change through experience of local community participation of learners' by focusing on the context of the 'local democracy' that conditions the program. For this purpose, the <Citizen School> program was composed of ‘spaces of experience' as follows. First, a democratic rule system was set up to oversee the whole program and to watch out for actions or languages that might undermine democratic values. Second, based on the model of critical civil education, a learning path that emphasizes integration, cyclability, and relationship learning was established. Third, the learners’ participation was set as the central axis of the education program, making the role of the educator to be defined as 'process specialist'.
After the lecturers were introduced based on the role of the process specialist, concrete educational activities of <citizen school> were designed. There are three characteristics in the process. First, the lecturers interpreted the meaning of 'participation' in a multi-layered way and embodied the goal of one’s own by transforming the purpose of the program. Second, educational activities are structured as a space to lead learners' participation. Before the beginning of the education activities, the lecturers regarded mutual trust among the participants as preconditions of the educational activities, and arranged devices form relationships between educators and learners. Lecturers emphasized physical space, emotional comfort, and respect for diversity, and focused on creating an atmosphere where participation can be facilitated. Third, the experience of citizen participation is structured into educational activities. Most educational activities are made up of decision-making processes so that democratic experience can be achieved within the educational program. In an even more active way, educational activities that deviate from the classroom and require direct confrontation with the neighbors of the community were also designed to break the boundaries between daily-world and educational programs.
The process of designing civil participation education programs was constantly dynamic rather than being accomplished by linear steps. In the course of the dynamics, the following difficulties appeared. First, the dilemma of learner composition emerged. In <Citizen School>, ‘learners' participation' was set as the central axis of the program. Thus, the composition of learners became more important issue than other programs. However, due to realistic conditions, heterogeneous learner composition was inevitable and the direction of the education program was shaken in reflecting the various needs and characteristics of the learners into the program plan. The second difficulty was the tension between 'citizen participation' and 'education program'. Citizen participation refers to community participation in the living world, but an educational program has a fundamental limitation in that it is a planned curriculum based on constrained space-time and a virtual space that provides structured experience. Lastly, There were different expectations among developers, local governments and instructors about the outcome of the civil participation education program. This is due to the fact that it is difficult to identify changes in individual and local level through the civil participation education program within a short period of time.
This study sought to capture the unique characteristics and difficulties of developing a civil participation education program by closely describing the process of structuring the <Citizen School> program. The <Citizen School> program, which was developed through long-term planning process, was an experimental case, which was a process of reorganizing the principle of civil education. However, in the process, difficulties arose that could not be solved by the internal logic of the education program itself. Therefore, this study sought to find the possibility of overcoming these difficulties by proposing a 'social platform' which can help construct long-term principles of civil education and connect those principles to individual programs.
Although it is indeed difficult to confirm the development of the <Citizen School> program as a civil participation education program in general, it is for sure that the boundary between the civil education in liberal democracy and the civil participation education program is clearly defined through the program. Therefore, this study will provide theoretical foundations for the development of civil participation education programs in the field of practice in the future, and it will serve as a cornerstone to present the direction of the civil education discourse ahead.