靑少年의 政治社會化에 관한 實證的硏究

Abstract

오늘날 한국사회에서 민주주의에 대한 열망은 매우 지대하다. 민주주의란 모든 민중이 자유롭고 평등한 입장에서 정치에 참여하는 민중의 지배, 통치의 체제를 의미하는 것으로, 민중이 권력을 가지며, 또한 그 권력을 스스로 행사한다는 것을 의미한다. 요컨대 민주주의의 운영자인 시민들의 각성과 민주적 인격의 형성이 그 운영의 길잡이가 됨을 전제로 하고 있는 것이다. 따라서, 민주주의를 이루어 나가고자 할 때, 가장 기본이 되는것은 사회공동체 구성원이 지니는 내적 성격이나 습성, 즉, 시민 개개인의 심리적 조건이라 하겠다. 민주주의의 운영의 주체가 되는 시민 개개인이 민주적인 태도를 견지할 때 각 개인에게 인격의 자유로운 발전을 위한 조건을 보장하고, 그 조건을 발견하기 위해 허용되는 자유로운 토론과 논쟁의 방법을 그 주된 원리로 하는 민주주의가 실천원리로서 그 본질을 다할 수 있게 되는 것이다. 이는 곧 민주정치문화의 형성의 문제이며, 그런 의미에서 이러한 민주적 시민의 태도를 형성하는 기초적 과정으로서 정치사회화는 큰 의미를 지니는 것이다. 따라서 본 연구는 민주적 태도의 형성에 촛점을 맞추어 한국 청소년의 정치사회화 문제를 진단해 보고자 하는데 목적을 두고 있다. 민주주의 개념은 매우 복합적이며, 따라서, 민주적 태도의 개념도 다차원적이다. 본 연구에서는 이를 신뢰성, 타협성, 관용성, 비판의식, 정치적 효능감의 5개 차원으로 정의하고 이를 각각 척도화 하였다. 이러한 민주적 태도와 형성요인간의 관련성을 파악하기 위하여 성별, 학년, 부모의 사회·경제적 지위, 친구와의 대화, 매스미디어와의 접촉도 및 부모·친척과의 정치적 대화등을 독립변수로 설정하고 이에 대한 연구를 서울지역 6개 고등학교 1, 2, 3학년 학생 2,029명을 대상으로 시행하였다. 그 결과 학년과 가정의 권위구조, 사회·경제적 지위는 민주적 태도의 형성과 상관관계를 갖지 않는 것으로 나타났으며, 성별간에는 차이가 나타났다. 남학생들은 여학생보다 더 민주적 태도가 발달되어 있는 것으로 나타났는데 이는 남학생들이 어린시절부터 정치적인 환경에 더 적극적으로 노출되어온 때문으로 볼 수 있다. 다만, 비판의식의 경우는, 여학생이 더 높게 나타나고 있는데, 이는 여학생들이 동년배의 남학생보다 더 예민한 감수성과 관찰력, 비판력을 지니게 되는 10대의 특징(teenage syndrome)의 영향과 여성다운 삶을 강조하는 어린시절부터의 가정교육으로 인한 행동의 제약이 현실에 대한 비판적인 안목을 발달시키는 요인으로 작용했기 때문으로 볼 수 있다. 한편, 친구와 매스미디어의 영향은 매우 커서 친구와의 대화와 매스미디어와의 접촉도가 높게 나타날수록 민주적 태도가 발달됨을 볼 수 있다. 이는 청소년기에는 이전까지의 부모로부터의 습득이 어느정도 완결되고, 대신 친구와의 교제가 강조되며, 스스로 신문, TV등을 통해 정치현실과 접하게 됨으로써 판단력과 비판력을 발달시켜 나가게 되기 때문으로 보인다. 다만, 신뢰성의 경우는 부모·친척과의 대화를 통해 현실 정치의 부정적인 측면과 자주 접하게 됨으로써 누적되어온 정치의식의 불신감을 형성하게 되는 결과를 보이고 있다. 청소년의 민주적 태도는 여러가지 요인이 복합적으로 작용하여 형성된 것으로 볼 수 있겠으며, 본 연구의 결과에 의하면 친구의 영향이 강조되고, 정치적인 환경으로의 직접적인 노출이 적극화 되어짐에 따라 부모·친척들과의 정치적 대화와 매스미디어의 접촉을 통해 정치적 지식을 습득하고 이를 분석, 판단하는 가운데 자신의 태도를 정립해 나간다고 볼 수 있다. 본 연구에서 밝혀진 결과에 근거하여 볼 때, 민주주의의 성공적인 운영을 위해서는 그 기본을 이루는 민주적 태도가 사회에 고루 형성되어 있어야 하며, 청소년 시기에 이와같은 민주적 태도의 발달을 이루기 위해서는 친구들과의 건전한 토론, 논쟁 등이 자유롭게 이루어질 수 있도록 하고, 신문이나 다양한 서적들과 접할 수 있는 기회를 마련해 줌으로써 스스로 다양한 시각을 경험해보고, 현실을 분석·파악할 수 있도록 격려하는 일이 필요하다. 가정에서도, 성별간 평등한 교육을 위해 노력하고 그들이 자신의 의견을 발표하고, 이의 적실한 수렴을 경험할 수 있도록 많은 대화의 기회를 마련하고, 자유로운 가정분위기를 조성하도록 하여야 하겠다. 대학입시 위주의 현실교육제도를 고려해 볼 때 이러한 요건이 사회속에 자리잡는데에 늘 많은 어려움이 따르겠지만, 이러한 요인이 곧 민주주의 운영의 원동력을 이루는 민주시민 육성의 문제와 직결된다는 점을 인식할 때, 그 중요성은 실로 크다 하겠다.;Nowadays, the explosive desires to accomplish successful, prosperous and stable democracy in Korea is increasing. Democracy means a rule of Demos, that is, the people's ruling power. So the democratic society need democratic citizens who have democratic personality. And most fundamentals of formation of democratic personality are the psychological conditions, which means the traits of character and habits of mind that members of a community must possess if they are to make democracy work. The people as the main body of democratic society must have democratic attitude to make democracy work successfully. The formation of democratic personality is a part of democratic political culture and in this respect, political socialization as an essential process to culture democratic attitude among citizens, has an importance to make successful, prosperous and stable democracy. In this respect, political socialization plays an important role as a function of maintenance and successful performance of democratic system. The purpose of this study i s to examine the political socialization among Korean high school students, focusing development of democratic attitude by the survey research. The concept of democracy is very complex, and combined with various historical and philosophical meanings formed by long term democratic experiences. So, the concept of democratic attitude or democratic frame of mind i s multidimensional, too. In this study, democratic attitude is defined as five dimensional meaning, that is, trust, tolerant mind, critical mind, political efficacy and compromising frame of mind. And these five different dimensions were identified by employing oblique rotated factor analysis technique. The sample of this research consists of 2029 high school students in Seoul. With this sample, the kinds of factors that are related to the development of these five dimensions of democratic attitudes were examined. The results of this study are as follows. Among demographic variables, it was found that the grade was not related to the development of democratic attitude. Moreover, it made negative effects on the critical minds. This findings suggests democratic attitude of the sample students has been formulated before they became high school students, and the emphasis on the importance of the university entrance examination made them loose the critical view and develop their passive acceptancy of reality. This study reveals that there is a wide difference in develoment of democratic attitude between sex. Male students tend to have more trust, tolerance, political efficacy and compromising frame of mind than female students. This might be resulted from the different education at home, and from the beginning of their births, males have been exposed to the political environment more than females. This can be explained in two ways. First it was resulted from teenage syndrome, that is teenage females are more susceptible and observative and this works as a good condition to develop a critical view. Second, in Korean society. the role differences between sex is emphasized especially at home. This discrimination and the emphasis on the "woman-like life" has restrained females' activities and it made them critical against existing customs and institutions. In this study, there is no correlation between socio-economic status and development of democratic attitude. This result indicates that democratic attitude has been formulated without relations with socio-economic background of family. Only the critical mind have been influenced by the difference in father's job and position. Students under professional and high-ranked adiministrative working fathers are more critical than those under low-ranked technical and blue color working fathers. It might be caused by the fact that the former have more opportunities to involve in decision making process and the latter have been educated to follow other's decision. So the latter couldn't have experienced democratic decision making process and they've just got accustomed to accept and follow decided opinion. The family structure also didn't affect the formulating democratic attitude. Only the trust in person is developed in permissive family structure. It suggests that permissive family structure students have more chances to participate in democratic decision making process and are likely to have positive orientation to the society. This may contribute to have trust in person. In this study, it was found that conversations with friends were related to the development of democratic attitude among high school students. Except for trust, the conversation with friends had positive relations with democratic attitude. During this period, the previous acquisition of political attitude from parents is almost completed and the importance of friend is increasing. It can be predicted that conversations with friends play an important role to see, analyze and evaluate political system. and contribute to formulate democratic attitude. In case of trust in government, legal system and politicians, friends had a correlation,too.The frequency of political conversation with friends contributed to formulate political distrust in students' frame of mind.These results indicate that by conversations with friends, students exchange their political knowledge got from their parents and this made negative image of politics. It is revealed that except for trust, the contact with mass media have a positive effect on democratic attitude. Especially in case of high school students, mass media is more influential than the family, because it is the period to complete family learnings and to start to see, analyze and evaluate political situations by themselves. So the contact with mass media is a main route to get the knowledge about political situation and its influence is increasing. The frequency of political conversation with parents and relatives tend to increase political distrust, but in case of mass media, students have political distrust when they contact with newspaper both frequently and rarely. The contents of political conversation with family members are tend to criticize dark side of politics as well as political reality. So students who hear about realities of Korean politics frequently are likely to dispose distrust in government, legal system and politicians. And this can be employed to the case of frequent contact with mass media, but in case of rare contact, it might be resulted from that the students who distrust mass media itself have political distrust. In conclusion, democratic attitude of Korean high school student was formulated with various factors, and in this study friends and mass medis play the crucial role to develop democratic frame of mind, and the conversation with parents and relatives contribute to formulate political distrust. Therefore, to culture democratic attitude among high school students widely, we have to try to improve sexually discriminated educational system in family to the equally treated ones, to give them many opportunities to have discussions and debates on political problems, to promote conversations with their parents and relatives and to support educational institutions to make them keep in touch with mass media and various books to get various experiences. These suggestions have difficulties to be realized successfully, because of the existing educational system emphasizing on the university entrance exams, but as it was recognized, the formation of democratic attitudes among high school students plays an important role as a function of maintenance and successful performance of democratic system, so it cannot be neglected.