In high school classrooms, it is needed to systematically educate students on political participation, who will constitute the democratic citizenry in the future, so that they can participate actively in political life. For the students to cultivate their capability for political participation, they need to learn the knowledge of various ways of political participation and attitude for them. In this regard, ''Law and Politics'', the textbook of high school, as an elective subject for enrichment, should be equipped with most advanced contents of political realm in middle and high school education in accordance with the spiral curricula.
Nevertheless, the current edition of the high school textbook based on the revised curricula of 2009 seems to fail in showing systematically contents of unconventional political participation which include very active political involvement grounded on participatory democracy, quantitatively as well as qualitatively, while it describes conventional political participation briefly focusing on the institutional things.
Founded on these critical views, this thesis compares the contents about conventional and unconventional political participation of the current 2009 year revision edition of ''Law and Politics'' with the contents of the politics textbooks of the 7th high school curricula including the ones published by Daehangyogwaseo, Beopmunsa, Jihaksa and Cheonjaegyoyook. It also analyses each type of political participations found in the textbooks and indicates what is to be taught for deepening of understanding about each of them.
The autonomy ability of democratic citizen is needed to be improved through active political participation. The consolidation of democracy could be accomplished by citizen''s active participation. Especially, the students who will play the leading part in future democracy are needed to be introduced to not only conventional but also unconventional political participation. It is because they will come to know the value of political participation and actively take part in political activities only if they recognize there are ways to get effectively involved in the decision making process.
The comparison between the current 2009 year revision edition of ''Law and Politics'' and the politics textbooks of the 7th high school curricula could be summarized as follows:
First, the current 2009 year revision edition of ''Law and Politics'' failed to describe the categories of political participation systematically as the politics textbooks of the 7th high school curricula did. This failure should be overcome. A variety of types of political participation should be included systematically in the textbook for the students. The textbooks which fail to introduce political participation categorically could lead to confusion of students while they''re learning. Therefore, categorical descriptions of types of political participation are required in the textbooks, leading to the systematic understanding of them.
Secondly, teachers are requested to supplement and reinforce the part of unconventional political participation in the textbooks when guiding students'' study. Especially, there is no reference to ''boycott'' and ''civil disobedience'' found in the textbooks. It doesn''t fit the current era of participatory democracy, in which people take part in politics through various ways unconventional as well as conventional.
Unconventional political participation should not be regarded as an anti-democratic action, but as an effort for citizens to put pressure for more democratic political system. It is an action of giving pressure on political elites for opening of political process and for changing the direction of policies toward people''s preferences by mobilizing public opinion. Furthermore, it is an action of calling on politicians to have responsibility, responsiveness and morality.
Thirdly, the current high school edition of ''Law and Politics'' should be split to the textbook of ''Politics'' and the textbook of ''Law and Society'' as before. There had been two separate textbooks of high school, ''Politics'' and ''Law and Society'' under the 7th educational curricula. Both of the textbooks were united into one high school textbook, ''Law and Politics'', under the current 2009 year revision educational curricula. However, there is no improvement found in the part of political participation.
The current high school textbook, ''Law and Politics'' provides only lip service for the necessity and importance of active political participation, while dealing with political participation in terms of conventional, institutional, passive and conservative meanings. Therefore, compared with the high school textbook of the 7th educational curricula, ''Politics'', the current high school textbook, ''Law and Politics'', was analysed to have no differentiation in the contents of conventional political participation and to have retrogressed or at most remained the same in regard to the contents of unconventional political participation.
This thesis suggests that systematic study guide with deepened contents of political participation would be helpful for the students to prepare for practicing active political participation in the era of participatory democracy.