University
of Kirikkale, Turkey
Abstract:
People living in
the same country have various rights such as voting/being voted and leading a social
life in peace. Nevertheless, there are some duties and responsibilities of the
citizens to fulfil. Accordingly, school councils introduce some practices at
schools. The purpose of such practices at schools is to promote democracy
awareness and to make a representative realization of the duties and
responsibilities in the students’ mind.
The concept of
distance seems to have become a concept of the past due to the developing and
changing technology. The students can go to other countries and have education
there via student exchange programs and they can reach every kind of
information through internet easily. The world is going forward to
globalization day by day. And for sure the citizenship concept is also changing
in the global world. A new concept “Global citizenship” is getting into the
literature.
The features of
a global citizen can be described as follows:
1-
Being aware of the world and regarding their role as
the citizenship of world.
2-
Having respect toward different values
3-
Being a volunteer for a more equal and stronger
peace in the world.
4-
Having responsibility for the effectiveness of the
others.
The significance
of the school councils appears in this point. The purpose of the school
councils can be described as; spreading the citizenship awareness of his / her
country as well as getting prepared for the globalizing world. The schools,
which play a leading role for adapting the students to the changing world, have
a responsibility to constitute a European identity in the globalizing world.
And their responsibilities will easily be fulfilled with the help of school
councils.
Key words: Students’
Councils, Citizenship Awareness