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Political knowledge and participation of the youth in Slovakia

Political knowledge and participation of the youth in Slovakia. Ladislav Macháček Faculty of Social Sciences at U CM in Trnava, Slovakia. Civic knowledge and citizen.

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Political knowledge and participation of the youth in Slovakia

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  1. Political knowledge and participation of the youth in Slovakia Ladislav Macháček Faculty of Social Sciences at UCM in Trnava, Slovakia

  2. Civic knowledge and citizen • One of the first comprehensive textbooks of civic education for secondary school students after the “velvet” revolution in Czechoslovakia (1989) prepared in Slovakia states that protection and development of democracy can be successfully managed by young generation, which will acquire necessary civic knowledge and its members will act in public as ethically advanced citizens.

  3. Historical context –new democracy • In this historical context, we are raising a question if new generations of young citizens bring civic knowledge about operation of the democratic political system to the political life and thus if they represent the hope for respect and application of principles of democratic governance.

  4. LOW level of political culture • because that civil society did not have sufficient experience and knowledge of a more efficient application of the right to vote (e.g. priority vote), freedom of citizens to assemble and associate or express their opinions by means of a petition in the period between elections. Partocracywith internal mechanism of nominations of voting ballots in the system of a single constituency with their corrupt link to the business sector has become a threat to operation of the parliamentary democracy.

  5. European Youth policy – EC and CE • This may surprise many but a comprehensive modernisation process does not only rest in information technologies and globalisation of the capital but also incorporates processes of civil modernisation. P. Lauritzen warned to the fact that it is the youth policy that plays an important function of modernisation of the functioning of national states in Member States of the Council of Europe.

  6. EDC – new concept of european youth movements • Education for democratic citizenship is a set of practices and principles aimed at making young people and adults better equipped to participate actively in democratic life by assuming and exercising their rights and responsibilities in society. • All-European Study on Education for Democratic Citizenship Policies. Council of Europe 2005.

  7. civil literacy/competency structure • 1.Civic knowledge, e.g. how parliamentary democracy and civil society work. • 2. Civil and political opinions and attitudes, e.g. expressing interest in social and political affairs of one’s country • 3. Intellectual abilities tounderstand one’s way inpolitics; e.g. express and defend one’s own political opinions • 4. Civil participating behaviour, e.g. co-decide, by taking part in elections, about handing over of the power to individual political parties and their candidates.

  8. Many research projects EC • Based on an initiative of the European Commission, the idea of analysing efficiency of the education for citizenship in national states also occurred in projects of sociological surveys of the youth, which focused on the relation • of the European identity and citizenship (EYI 2002) • and political and civic engagement of the youth(EUYOUTHPART 2004).

  9. Respondents in the EYI (2002) survey stated what they learnt at school

  10. Looking back, already the EUYOUPART (2004) project • made it possible to uncover that there is a relatively strong relation between civic knowledge and political attitudes. • Based on relevant empirical findings we could confirm the empirical hypothesis that a higher level of civic knowledge of working of the political system in the parliamentary democracy is combined with a higher level of refusing authoritarian steps in the governance.

  11. Political knowledge of young people in Slovakia (2004)

  12. ICCS 2009 • In this analysis, knowledge is understood as a sum of cognitive processes pupils apply in answering individual questions related to citizenship, which are the key result of the civic education at school. According to authors of the ICCS project, civic knowledge plays significant importance from the viewpoint of efficient civic engagement. • We can summarize this finding as a relatively simple survey empirical hypothesis:the higher level of civic knowledge also guarantees higher level of engagement of young people at various forms of civil and political life at school and in society.

  13. Memory Youth Political Legacy And Civic Engagement. • the present generation of young people in Europe has little or no experience with extreme and populist politics, • they can be especially receptive to radical political agendas. • www.fp7-myplace.eu/

  14. My Place – political knowledge youth in two regions SK and HU

  15. KNOWLEDGE – THREE LEVEL

  16. “high knowledge” AND certain civil opinions and attitudes • Identify themselves and their friends as people interested in politics. • Differentiate from others by collecting information about politics on the internet or in newspapers. Media such as radio and television do not have such differentiating position. • Are, more than other respondents, interested in various issues of national politics in the country where they live.

  17. Based on empirical findings of the My/Place survey we verified the hypothesis • that a low level of political knowledge is strongly connected to the highest support to authoritarianprocedures in governance. • The young people in Trnava with the lowest level of political knowledge (is the smallest out of all 15.3%), it showed the strongest support to “a strong personality of a leader” (22.3%). • That is in line with knowledge of mobilization of a part of the youth in the city of Trnava for radical action groupings of sport fan clubs.

  18. Urban – TRNAVA SK

  19. The urban-rural division line • Based on the findings, citizens living in rural areas are more conservative, more nationalistic, more religious in Slovakia is important. • Verification of the hypothesis that citizens in rural areas are much more inclined to authoritarianism than people living in towns rather means that a significant group of young rural citizens (RS)even those with high level of knowledge of politics, do not either support or resits the orientation • and they do not find it either good or bad.

  20. RURAL –RIMSOBOTA SK

  21. European youth policy and youthwork • we found out that formal as well as informal civic education of pupils at school and outside it has its significance • We confirmed that there is a pedagogical optimism among teachers and people working with the youth in this country as civic and political education is, indirectly, expressed in a higher level of preparedness for civic and political engagement of the youth and even takes part in deepening its democratic political value orientation.

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