학교민주시민교육의 기본원칙 중 정치적 중립성 보장을 위한 개선과제

Abstract

School democratic civic education is a prerequisite and a key task for strengthening the democratic capacity of the constitutional community. In order to ensure the political neutrality of school democratic civic education, procedures and systems are needed to support it, along with the consciousness and efforts of the educational parties. The meaning of the principle of political neutrality is to exclude partisanship from school democratic civic education, and to prevent education from degenerating into tools or means. Furthermore, it should not be operated as a ban on education from dealing with political content. The 13 municipal and provincial education offices’ ordinances on school democratic civic education all stipulate matters related to political neutrality. The specifics include the principle of reproducing contentiousness, the principle of prohibiting private interests or asserting specific political opinions, the principle of prohibition of brainwashing, and the principle of ensuring free discussion and participation. This political neutrality regarding democratic civic education in schools should first be guaranteed as a prior condition for educational activities. This starts with excluding partisan education when selecting educational content and selecting teaching materials. And political neutrality should be observed in the process of school democratic civic education, where the role of teachers is particularly important. Measures banning all political activities of teachers in setting up their roles and responsibilities to ensure political neutrality in educational methods need to be reconsidered. It is also important to respect teachers’ independence and expertise and to practice other educational parties’ willingness not to infringe on political neutrality. Meanwhile, the political neutrality of school democratic civic education should also function as a basic principle in terms of educational outcomes. This means not only one-off disciplinary action or punishment if political neutrality is violated, but also ensuring procedures and systems to restore normal educational conditions according to the nature and purpose of school democratic civic education. The process will require the participation of not only the educational parties but also members of various civil societies. Through this, we can distinguish various types of political neutrality infringement that may occur in the course of school democratic civic education from a long-term perspective, and come up with appropriate alternatives. In addition, it is important to activate social discussions to clarify the evaluation criteria and contents of the political neutrality of school democratic civic education that can be socially accepted.