A Study of the Possibility of ‘World’ History Education to Cultivate Democratic Citizenship - Focusing on the Concept of ‘Citizen’ -

This paper aims to examine the possibility of world history education that cultivates democratic citizens, a topic recently highlighted in the history education, by analyzing how the concept of ‘citizen’ is being used in the world history course. Unlike the daily usage of the term ‘democratic citizen,’ the development of citizen(ship) as a concept has been fairly complex throughout history. However, world history textbooks present various historical descriptions of the concept of ‘citizens’ without any clear explanation. In addition, similar concepts such as people, commoners, and workers are also used. In terms of ‘citizenship,’ the descriptions in the world history textbooks focus on improving individual political rights such as ‘the right to vote,’ reflecting liberalist perspectives.<br/> Along with the problem of translation, the tradition of emphasizing western civil society within the world history courses can also be cited as the cause of confusion. Moreover, because the concept of citizen is approached as a subject of real politics rather than a historical review even in the discussions of history education, the concepts of ‘Western democracy’ and ‘citizen’ are used uncritically today. To solve these problems, it is necessary to recognize the politics within the discourse of history education for cultivating democratic citizenship, or to move toward a “History of Citizen(ship)” that shows the development of various forms of citizen(ship).