Civic Socialization of the Youth in the Post-Comunist Societies

• Author: Elena Nedelcu
• Pages: 532-537

Elena Nedelcu. Associate Professor, Ph.D., Social and Administrative Sciences Faculty, “Nicolae Titulescu” University (e-mail: doina.nedelcu@yahoo.com).

Page 532

Introduction Models of political culture-comparative analysis

Nowadays, civic culture and participatory political culture play a major role both in the life of the national societies as well as in the European and international societies. We notice that “democracy is consolidated in the societies which develop their own social-inclusive capacities. The degree of social inclusion does not depend only on the existence of democratic institutions but also on the predominance of a participatory political culture, and that is a civic culture. The aspiration and the integrative tendency of civic culture manifest not only at national level, but also at international level. Today, the increase in number and diversity of the actors on the scene of the world demands with more acuity the development of a political culture capable to give meaning and to support the process of conciliation, harmonization and international community solidarity.”²

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To what extent can we talk today about such a political culture? Did most young Europeans get hold of their role as subjects of the political life? Beyond all these common, repetitive, ubiquitous aspects, the present European political culture has a heterogeneous structure. Among the numerous variables which are at the basis of its differentiation are: age, education, residence, nation, etc.

This paper focuses on the analysis of the political-civic culture models representative for the young Europeans and on the factors that contribute to their formation and development. Is there a participatory political culture deficit among young people? If yes, could the intensification of the civic socialisation be an answer to this problem? From the sociological studies which brought forth the common characteristics and the significant differences of the young Europeans (belonging to different nations) political culture, I will mainly consider the following: The IEA Study (1999), Euyopart (2005), Eurobarometer 2007 - 2008.

The 1999 Civic Education Study, the first IEA study in this subject area since 1971, was ambitious both in concept and in scope. About 90,000 fourteen-year-old students from twenty-eight countries as well as approximately 10,000 teachers and thousands of school principals took part in the study³.

Three domains were identified as important topics in civic education across democracies: Democracy, Institutions, and Citizenship; National Identity and International Relations; and Social Cohesion and Diversity. Test and survey items were then written to assess students' knowledge and skills as well as attitudes in these three domains.

Romania took part in all the stages of the IEA Civic Education Study. The study was conducted on 150 school children from 150 schools, including 2993 8^th grade school children, aged 14. At this educational level, civic education is taught as a compulsory discipline, one hour per week.

When it comes to civic knowledge, the results of the research show that, with 42% correct answers, Romania is situated under the international average (with 52% correct answers). The Romanian school children results regarding the amount of knowledge they have about democratic education were as follows:

- identifying a non-democratic government: 42% correct answers versus 53% the international average result;

- the importance of many organisations for democracy: 48% vs. 69%;

- the existence of a multi-partite system: 67% vs. 75%;

- the importance of having more than one newspaper in a country: 39% vs. 57%; In all the 28 democratic countries that took part in the IEA study, people aged 14 are only on the average interested in politics. In Romania, 45% of the schoolchildren have declared that they have a genuine interest in politics (versus 39%, the international average). Although the experience in this area is relatively new, Romanian schoolchildren are interested in civic involvement in classrooms, schools and youth organisations. The research showed the importance of classroom climate in shaping and developing the civic competencies of the schoolchildren. Students were asked how frequently (never, rarely, sometimes, or often) they were encouraged to make up their own minds about issues, how often they felt free to disagree with their teachers about political and social issues during class, and the extent to which teachers respected student opinions and encouraged them to discuss their opinions during class. Students were also asked how oftenPage 534 teachers presented several sides of an issue and whether the students felt free to express opinions even when the issues were...