Support for democracy hard to teach

A new study suggests it may be difficult to teach teen-agers in post-communist societies to develop strong support for democratic and free market principles.

Researchers at Ohio State found that 14- and 15-year-old Polish students who took a new type of civics education class were less likely to take extreme positions against democracy and the free market than were other youth.

But, unexpectedly, the study found that students taking the new class also were less likely than were others to show a strong commitment to democratic or market values.

Researchers Goldie Shabad and Kazimierz Slomczynski.

"In essence, this class had the unintended effect of making students more skeptical and ambivalent about democratic and market values in their extreme form," said Kazimierz Slomczynski, co-author of the study and professor of sociology.

Slomczynski conducted the study with Goldie Shabad, an associate professor of political science. Their results were published in a recent issue of the journal Political Psychology.

Slomczynski said Polish educators designed the new civics program -- called Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) -- with the aid of American educators. The program includes frequent student participation in democratic games and market simulations. Students in the EDC classes participated in role-playing and simulation games during which they were given political problems to solve.

Shabad said students were introduced to democratic principles that may seem to conflict, such as majority rule vs. respect for minority opinions.

"The natural conflicts found in a democracy may have caused students to be skeptical and ambivalent about the new system," Shabad said.

The researchers surveyed 208 students who took the EDC class and compared them to 172 students who took a traditional, standard civics class.

The surveys found that students taking the traditional classes were more likely to take extreme positions either positive or negative toward democracy and a free market system.

For example, 31 percent of the students in the traditional class agreed that some groups of people should be stripped of their voting rights. In contrast, fewer of the students who took the EDC class -- 24 percent -- agreed with this extreme anti-democratic principle.

In general, fewer than 20 percent of students expressed a pro-democracy stance on most items. "Certainly, this does not indicate widespread support among students for a liberal democracy," Shabad said. But anti-democratic responses were infrequent as well, usually ranging from 10 to 25 percent.

Similar results were found in the questions involving support for a free market economy -- students who took the traditional class were more likely to show extreme positive or negative views of the market.

...in brief

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