Examining of the Effects of Some Variables on Political Participation Level of Prospective Teachers in the Context of Democratic Citizenship Education

Abstract

Summary The contemporary ideal of citizenship gives importance to the political participation. Political participation requires the knowledge of democracy and the ability to transform this knowledge to the action. It is meaningless to talk about the right of participation without a minimum level of education. Participation can preface only after a certain conscious bridge is crossed. Thus, for educating the participant individuals for democracy, it is an important issue to investigate the arrangements should be done in educational area. As a politic behaviour style, political participation is affected by many factors. The factors which were widely accepted in the related literature are age, sex, level of education, ethnicity, social status, place lived on (village or city) and level of being in an organization (Alkan, 1998; Almond ve Verba 1965; Baykal, 1970; Kahraman, 2002; Kalaycıoğlu, 1983; Lipset, 1986; Ozankaya, 1966; Tekinöz, 1998; Turan, 1976; Varol, 2000; Yücekök, 1970; Zengin, 2003). Purpose According to Planogan (2003) political participation is a developmental process. Therefore, it is more appropriate to investigate the level of political participation of the teachers in the development process. We wonder what is political participation level of the prospective teachers who will educate the active citizens who have the qualities desired by the society? Which factors make differences for the levels of political participation of the prospective teachers? In this study, the main purpose is to investigate the effects of socio-economic and personal factors on the levels of political participation of prospective teachers' in the context of democratic citizenship education. For this general purpose, the following questions were formulated as research questions. 1. What are political participation levels of the prospective teachers? 2. What are the opinions of prospective teachers about factors affecting their political participation levels? 3. What are the effects of departments that prospective teachers study on the levels of political participation? 4. What are the effects of personal and socio-economic factors on the levels of political participation? Method Participants The participants of the study consisted of a total number of 370 senior students who attend to Cukurova University Faculty of Education in 2004 – 2005 educational year. 102 of the students were from the Department of Classroom Teaching, 56 of them were from the Department of English Language Teaching, 53 of them were from the Department of Psychologic Consultation and Guidance, 65 of them were from the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies, 49 of them were from the department of Preschool Teaching and 54 of them were from the Department of Social Studies. The sample consisted of 215 female and 155 male students and the mean age of the students was 22,9. Data Collection Instrument and Process To determine the factors that affect the political participation “Factors Affects the Political Participation Questionnaire” which was developed by the researchers and “University Students' Political Participation Questionnaire” which was developed by Cuhadar (2006) were used. “Factors Affects the Political Participation Questionnaire” consists of 30 questions about features of prospective teachers which are related to independent variables of the study. University Students' Politic Participation Questionnaire which was used to determine the level of political participation consists of 16 Likert type items which answered in five scales from always to never. Mean, standard deviation and frequency distributions of the data were analysed and in comparison of the groups t-test, one way analysis of variance, Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were performed. Findings and Discussion Results demonstrated that political participation level of the prospective teachers were pretty poor. The mean which calculated from the answers given to all types of participation questions is 1,81 on 1 to 5 scale. Most frequently participated political activities by the prospective teachers are voting (3.83) and watching the news about current political event from the media (3.73). If these two type of participation are separated, it is clear that the means of other types of participation will decrease. Results also show that prospective teachers are rarely or never participate to untraditional, modern type of political participation activities such as “participating to current political surveys on a web site” (1.79) and “writing a critic or appreciation letter to government authorities about a pleased or unpleased application” (1.32). Both in Turkey and abroad, studies which were done on this topic show that political participation level is low among the young (Borre, 2000; Brown, 2003; Dixon, 1996; Dudley and Gitelson, 2003; Erdoğan, 2003; Flanagan, 2003; McAllister and White 1994; Soule, 2001; Torney – Purta and Amadeo, 2003; Wilkins, 1999). Studies also show that one of the most important predictors of political participation is political knowledge, consequently the education (Dixon, 1996; Glanville, 1999; Purta and Amadeo, 2003; Wilkins, 1999). An important source of this problem is may be that there are few theoretical and practical courses about democratic citizenship education both on secondary and higher education. And may be that these few courses are not taught effectively too. Curriculum at the universities only consists of compressed courses about special subject fields and they are deprived of interdisciplinary lessons which can lead students to form a general citizenship and philosophy of life. A university student takes courses only on his/her special field. Topics which are general but necessary such as process of democratic system, participation, universal and local problems and their solutions, unfortunately can not take place in the curriculum of departments. The other result of the study is about opinions of prospective teachers about factors affect their political participation levels. Prosepective teachers indicated that, the most important factors which affect their participation are “the opinion of that participating is a way of express the sensitivity of social events” (X=2.86) and “the desire of affecting the decisions which took about himself/herself (X=2.65). The least affective factor is “to be popular among friends” (X=1.45). These results show that, university youth actually have a potential of political participation but there are lack of environment and knowledge adequacies. On the other hand family pressure and university discipline regulations were not found very effective on the political participation. In the study, political participation levels of prospective teachers are compared in terms of personal and socio-economic features and significant differences were found. Significant differences were found between political participation level of prospective teachers in favour of whose parents interested in politics; in favour of male; in favour of who were never devoted to religion; who were defined himself with ethnic origin terms such as Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic; who were always participate to political argumentation with friends; who were being a candidate for students council; who were a member of a political party and who thought to be a member of a labour union in the future. In this study the effects of socio-economic and personal factors on the political participation level of prospective teachers were investigated in the context of democratic citizenship education and parallel findings to literature were reached. It is clear that, it is not true to generalize these results to all universities in Turkey. But it is important to do research on large samples and to try to determinate the most important factors which affect political participation of Turkish youth. In this way, by making these factors more functional and thus forming a youth whose members are really effective participant can be achieved. Besides that, precautions inclined towards education of active democratic citizenship also make valuable contributions. It is also suggested that, curriculum which applied at the universities must be riched with courses and activities which are aimed to teach the dimension of the knowledge of the democracy effectively. On the other hand, it is required to take some precautions about hidden curriculum of the university to make it a life area in which the basic democratic knowledge and values gained from explicit curriculum are kept alive. Because of ways of democratic participation can't be learnt without application, universities must be laboratories in which democratic political participation skills learned both theoretically and practically.

Keywords

• political participation , democratic citizenship education , prospective teacher

Öğretmen Adaylarının Siyasal Katılımcılık Düzeylerine Çeşitli Etmenlerin Etkisinin Demokratik Vatandaşlık Eğitimi Bağlamında İncelenmesi

Öz

Tarama modelinde betimsel bir çalışma olan bu araştırmada, öğretmen adaylarının, siyasal katılımcılık düzeylerine, sosyo-ekonomik ve kişisel özelliklerin etkisinin demokratik vatandaşlık eğitimi çerçevesinde incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Araştırmanın örneklemini Çukurova Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesindeki dördüncü sınıflardan yansız olarak seçilen 370 öğretmen adayı oluşturmuştur. Verilerin toplanmasında, “Katılımcılığı Etkileyen Etmenler Anketi” ve “Üniversite Öğrencileri Siyasal Katılımcılık Anketi” kullanılmıştır. Analizler sonucunda ulaşılan bulgulara göre; siyasal katılımcılık düzeyleri oldukça düşük olan öğretmen adaylarının en sık katıldıkları siyasal etkinlik oy kullanmadır. Öğretmen adayları, siyasal katılımcılığı en yüksek oranda “toplumsal olaylara duyarlılığın bir ifadesi” olarak görmektedir. Siyasal katılımcılık düzeyi ailesi siyasete ilgili olanlar; erkekler; dine hiç bağlı olmayanlar; kendini etnik kökeniyle tanımlayanlar; arkadaşlarıyla güncel siyaseti her zaman tartışanlar; öğrenci konseyi seçimlerinde aday olanlar; bir partiye üye olanlar ve gelecekte bir sendikaya üye olmayı düşünenler lehine anlamlı farklılıklar göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• siyasal katılımcılık , demokratik vatandaşlık eğitimi , öğretmen adayı

Kaynakça

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