Civic Education in Greek Educational System: Empirical Approach in Schools of Central Macedonia of Greece

Year 2018, Volume: 11 , 10 - 19, 01.12.2018

Theodore Chadjıpantelıs Antonis Papaoıkonomou

Abstract

Politicization is the process by which norms, values and
behaviors are learned; Easton and Dennis (1980) refer to "developmental processes by which individuals
are socialized politically" (p.7) while Dawsom and Prewitt (1969)
refer to “the development process with
which the citizen matures politically"(p. 71). Similarly, Rush and
Althoff (1971) consider that political socialization as "the process that results in the acquisition
of all the politically oriented experiences the individual needs. These
experiences are not only political in the narrow sense, but they are relevant
because they shape their political behavior "(p. 3). Scholars,
however, question the way in which young people acquire these values in schools
and elsewhere, as well as whether these values are real values for young people
(Gimpel, Lay, & Schuknecht, 2003). What is generally known is that at some
point in time a person will be integrated into a given political ideology or
value. This view of political socialization overlooks the idiosyncratic
personal development of the new man (Dahlgren, 2009). This paper seeks to
outline the degree of effectiveness of civic education in Greek public schools.
Civic education effectiveness was measured by students' knowledge of eight
variables related to issues of everyday politics. The variables concerned
pupils' views on the political system in Greece, their knowledge of political
system name, their knowledge of the way of election of the president of
democracy, the time of each government election, the right to vote, who is
President of Democracy and who the Minister of Education. Finally, the students
were asked about the political space in which they integrate themselves. In
addition, the effect of factors on the above variables was also examined, such
as urbanity, gender and grade. The results of the survey include the fact that
there is statistically significant difference between genders and the political
space in which they integrate themselves. Also, the political space influences
the performance grade, given the fact that students who belong to anarchist
space have the lowest grade in the previous school year. Our analysis of
political socialization is based on the assumption that next to a rational
choice utilitarian process, which guides us in matters of party preference and
voting behavior, lays a less-than-rational cognitive process of moral decisions,
which is based on definite notions of good and evil. This analysis allowed us
to capture visually these discourses in the form of “semantic maps.”

Keywords

Civic education, Politicization

References

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