What is civic awareness and civic quality?

As an important manifestation of social consciousness, civic consciousness not only directly reflects the degree of spiritual civilization of a country, but also plays an important role in promoting economic construction, democracy and legal system construction. In the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Hu Jintao clearly pointed out that the political system reform should "strengthen civic awareness education and establish socialist democratic politics with freedom, equality, fairness and justice". How to enhance the civic awareness of China citizens, especially the majority of young people, has always been a major topic of concern in the social science field and even the whole society. This paper intends to make a superficial analysis of the shaping of middle school students' civic awareness in order to attract more attention.

First, the connotation of civic awareness

Cihai defines the concept of citizen as follows: "A citizen usually refers to a person who has the nationality of a country and enjoys rights and obligations according to the constitution and laws of that country." Therefore, citizen refers to a person's legal role and is an independent subject who participates in or supervises the operation of state power in civil society. Citizens should have inherent and inalienable human rights, civil rights and independent personality consciousness, and enjoy the basic rights as human beings, including freedom, equality, property, security, pursuit of happiness and resistance to oppression.

The so-called civic consciousness refers to the political subject or political role consciousness of citizens in democratic countries, not the slave or subject consciousness of submitters or bystanders. Modern citizen consciousness has complex contents, which can be summarized as: democratic consciousness, rights and obligations consciousness, legal consciousness, public morality consciousness and so on.

Second, middle school students need to shape the reasons for civic awareness

1, judging from the history of the development of western society and the evolution of traditional society in China, civic awareness is inevitable and important.

First of all, from the history of western social development. Ancient Greek culture is regarded as one of the sources of western culture, and it is civilized by democratic politics in the world. In Greece, legally speaking, all citizens are the masters of the city-state. The political power of the city-state is also controlled by the citizens collectively, serving the public purpose. Citizens regard the public affairs of the polis as their own business, and participating in public life is the most important and essential part of citizens' life. Citizens actively and extensively participate in politics, make laws for themselves and abide by them, elect and control state officials, perform military service for the country and enjoy the privilege of occupying city-state land. Therefore, civic awareness has become the basic feature of their political thoughts. The emergence of this kind of civic consciousness undoubtedly contributed to the formation of the democratic spirit of the city-state at that time, accelerated the Greek state to bid farewell to the original * * * similar mode of rule by man, and then laid the cornerstone for the formation of modern western democratic thought.

In modern times, in many movements such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, western countries advocated individual freedom and liberation and equality among people in various forms, emphasized citizens' rights and obligations to the country and society, and opposed and abolished feudal hierarchy and privilege concepts. These undoubtedly laid the foundation for the formation and development of civic awareness in modern western society.

Secondly, look at the evolution of traditional society in China from a historical perspective. In the traditional society of China, we are in a slave society, a feudal society or a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. For the needs of class rule, rulers often emphasize that people should be "subjects", "subjects" and "obedient people" without "citizens". The ruler implements the policy of "the people can make it, but they don't know it", and the people abide by the obedience rule of "see no evil, don't listen if you are indecent, don't speak if you are indecent, and don't move if you are indecent". Therefore, traditional China lacks democratic conditions related to citizens.

History is inherited. In modern times, after the bourgeois revolution and socialist revolution, China people's democratic rights have greatly increased, but the deep-rooted autocratic thought has not been completely swept away, and despotism still lingers.

This lack of civic awareness has undoubtedly affected the development and progress of China. A sentence by Mr. Li in the article "Constitutional Amendment and Civic Education": "The biggest gap between China and advanced countries is the great difference and the lack of civic awareness." If China wants to catch up with advanced countries and realize modernization, the most important thing is to cultivate people's civic awareness, so that China people who have lived in China for thousands of years can become citizens with modern consciousness and consciousness. "

2. The cultivation of civic awareness is the inherent need of modern market economy.

Adam Smith once pointed out: "Self-love, self-discipline, work habits, honesty, fairness, justice, courage, humility, public spirit and public morality are all necessary before people go to the market." This fully shows that the market economy is also a moral economy. Civil society should be supported by highly developed material civilization, but industrial society also calls for the emergence of civil society. Because only civil society can build better relations of production, social relations and superstructure, and can promote the more scientific, coordinated and comprehensive development and progress of industrial society.

The current reality in our country is that, on the one hand, as Deng Xiaoping said, "Old China left us many traditions of feudal autocracy and few traditions of democracy and legal system. After liberation, we have not consciously and systematically established various systems to protect people's democratic rights ... "On the other hand, since the reform and opening up, the socialist market economic system has been continuously established. During this transitional period, people's thoughts began to become complicated. For example, in the fierce competition, people blindly emphasize personal ability and ignore social morality, individualism rises, and people's social morality and sense of responsibility decline. At the same time, due to the weak legal awareness in China, legal responsibilities and obligations are less emphasized. In short, the negative impact of the market economy has also aggravated the lack of civic awareness to a certain extent.

In this case, the cultivation of civic awareness is the inherent need to establish a modern market economy.

3. Cultivating civic awareness is the inherent need of democracy and the rule of law.

"The rule of law is better than the rule of man", and democracy is better than autocracy, which has become a conclusion. China's modernization needs democracy and the rule of law in particular. The realization system of democracy and the rule of law is very important, but so is the "software" system of democracy and the rule of law.

If a country wants to achieve democratization and rule of law, it must be respected, recognized and accepted by the public. Without the public's respect, recognition and acceptance, that is, without the public's belief in democracy and the rule of law, democracy and law will lose their stability, and the law will lose its authority, just like "castles in the air", then democracy and the rule of law will be regarded as autocracy and rule by man. As Aristotle said, "the effectiveness of law depends entirely on the obedience of the people."

Therefore, it can be said that strengthening civic awareness education, clarifying citizens' legal and political status, and cultivating citizens' awareness of rights and obligations are the inherent needs of democracy and the rule of law.

4. Cultivating civic awareness is an inevitable need for the healthy growth of teenagers. Teenagers are the future of the country, and their thoughts and actions predict the fate of the country. Medical research shows that teenagers are in the period of growth and development, with immature physiology and psychology, weak self-restraint ability, unstable mood, strong curiosity, like imitation, and are easily stimulated and influenced by external environment, including positive and negative influences. Zhu, a famous educator, believes that youth education should "cultivate the foundation" and "consolidate the foundation", so that "less becomes nature and habit becomes nature".

Today's society is a society with diversified information sources, and the influence of all kinds of information on children is very complicated. If not handled properly, it may affect the child's life. One of the important indicators to test whether youth education can "cultivate honesty" is whether children's civic awareness is cultivated.

Therefore, strengthening civic awareness education is an inevitable need for the healthy growth of teenagers.

4. The current situation of civic awareness education in middle schools makes it more urgent to strengthen civic awareness education in middle schools.

Our country has always attached great importance to ideological and political education, which can even be said to be a major specialty and feature of our education. Although as early as 1995, the outline of moral education in middle schools stipulated that "the basic task of moral education in middle schools is to train all students to be law-abiding citizens who love the socialist motherland and have social morality and civilized behavior habits", so far, the status quo of civic education in schools in China is still in a backward state. The education method is backward, the plan is unclear, the goal is unclear, and there is a lack of systematic knowledge.

This is related to the long-term influence of "exam-oriented education" on education. More importantly, China is a country deeply influenced by feudal tradition, and democracy, legal system and individual rights of citizens are relatively indifferent, thus making civic education a slogan and a mere formality.

Therefore, the current situation of civic awareness education in middle schools makes it more urgent to strengthen civic awareness education in middle schools.

Third, how to strengthen civic awareness education in middle schools.

1, strengthen students' autonomy and civic awareness. The essence of democratic politics is that citizens participate in decision-making equally and universally. Democratic theory holds that as a whole, the wisdom and ability of social members may exceed that of a few people. Middle school students can deepen their understanding of the law of democratic operation and cultivate their democratic literacy by participating in class cadre elections and class management activities. At the same time, it is also beneficial to cultivate students' correct awareness of rights and obligations to let students actively participate in the relevant management of the class and exercise their rights as managers, rather than absolutely obeying all the systems formulated by the school and the class.

2. Civic awareness education for middle school students should be combined with social practice. "I think it's an armchair strategist. I don't know if it should be done." Practical activities such as youth volunteer activities, social surveys and fund-raising for the love of special groups are very effective means to carry out civic awareness education. These activities are close to real life and avoid empty and boring preaching. The ethical principles and values contained in it are an important way to strengthen students' self-care, self-reliance and behavior training, improve students' civic awareness and practical life ability, and help middle school students internalize civic awareness into their own unconscious actions.

3. Make full use of "hidden courses" to strengthen the construction of campus culture. The term "hidden curriculum" was first put forward by American scholar Jackson in his book "Educational Life 1968". He believes that students' progress in the formal classroom can not fully explain the results of school education. In addition, students have gained psychological development such as attitude, motivation and values from the education of school life. Such as flag-raising ceremony, festival celebration, practical activities, campus culture, etc.

In the past, we always focused on explicit methods. This method is beneficial to students' active and systematic theoretical education, and easy to monitor and evaluate the learning process, but it is easy to produce rebellious psychology, or the effectiveness of education is not ideal. Especially with the development of the times and the change of conditions, it is obviously difficult to complete the task of moral education simply by explicit education.

Campus culture has both explicit binding force and implicit attraction to the cultivation of middle school students' civic awareness. Therefore, we should strive to strengthen the construction of campus culture. Beautiful things and beautiful situations can make people pleasing to the eye, physically and mentally happy, and consciously restrain their immoral behavior. Beautifying the campus environment, carrying out colorful cultural and artistic activities, and strengthening the guidance of public opinion by using campus media such as radio stations, school newspapers, campus networks, publicity windows, student publications, academic lectures and humanities lectures are all important ways to strengthen the construction of school spirit, which can play a good role in "sneaking into the night with the wind and moistening things silently".

4. Civic awareness education for middle school students should be combined with classroom teaching. Classroom teaching can be divided into two aspects. On the one hand, we should carry out systematic civic knowledge education in middle schools and establish and improve the civic knowledge system. For example, a special chapter can be set up in the political section to explain; On the other hand, civic awareness education should permeate all humanities disciplines. At present, the new curriculum reform of history is in full swing, which should be said to highlight the civic awareness in all aspects in the teaching materials. For example, in the political history, the origin of democracy and legal system is discussed through the political system of ancient Greece and Rome, and the development of democracy and legal system is expounded through the establishment and development of modern western capitalist political system, the political construction of modern China and the reunification of the motherland. Making full use of these contents for effective classroom teaching will undoubtedly help to strengthen the civic awareness education of middle school students.

Finally, quoting a passage from ingels's Towards Modernization, he wrote: "Many developing countries committed to modernization have gradually realized that only when a country's people are modern, its citizens will transform their psychology and behavior into modern citizens' personality, and the staff of its modern political, economic and cultural management institutions will gain some modernity that is compatible with the development of modernization. In this way, we look forward to it!