英国中小学公民教育中的政治教育——治疗政治冷漠的良方?

Political Education for Primary and Middle School Students in the UK:A Remedy for Political Apathy?

21 世纪以来，针对公民政治冷漠的现象，政治教育成为英国公民教育改革的重要举措。本文介绍当前英国推行政治教育的社会背景，并以英国议会教育服务机构开发的青少年政治教育材料《你获得了权力》为例，分析当下英国政治教育的特点。本文发现，总体上英国政治教育强调：掌握政治知识、技巧，培养积极参与政治的态度。但是，对这一套材料的分析，也反映出英国政治教育的问题，即较少鼓励学生参与社会、政治实践，以及培养批判性思维。这令人怀疑仅仅局限于政治通识的教育，是否是解决政治冷漠难题的良方。

＂Since the beginning of this century， political education became the focus of British citizenship education with the expectation that it would be a cure to political apathy. This article first briefly introduces the background of UK's innovation in political education. Then it presents two major findings regarding UK's political educationbased on an empirical analysis of a series of political education resources created by the UK's Parliament Education Service. This paper finds that political education for 7~18 year olds in the UK focuses on cultivating political knowledge， skill and active attitude toward politics， but pays less attention to encouraging students' critical thinking， active participation in all aspects of political and social life. This article concludes that stress on political literacy alone may be unable to solve the difficulties cased by political apathy.＂