768548

research-article2018
CSE0010.1177/2047173418768548Citizenship, Social and Economics EducationZvulun and Harel

Article

Citizenship, Social and

Elections as an Opportunity Economics Education

2018, Vol. 17(2) 136­–147
© The Author(s) 2018
of learning Civic Education Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions

and Political Participation for

DOI: 10.1177/2047173418768548
https://doi.org/10.1177/2047173418768548
journals.sagepub.com/home/cse

teenagers

Jacky Yaakov Zvulun

Kettering Foundation, USA
Beit Berl College and The Academic Wingate College, Israel

Yigal Harel
Beit Berl College, Israel

Abstract
Developed countries are recently experiencing an unprecedented decrease of political participation
involvement among young people. While there is robust evidence that education increases civic and political
participation in developed democracies, it has been argued that there is no clear correlation between education
and increase of political participation. In this article, we suggest an additional educational instrument in
school that might contribute to the awareness of political participation and increase involvement in politics.
This qualitative study seeks to understand whether teenagers can show more interest in elections with an
additional instrument kit in schools. The research study was conducted toward national elections, and the
theoretical proposal was reinforced by interviews as an exploratory research. In total, 20 teachers from
social science and citizenship studies were interviewed, in two colleges in the center of the country. The
article provides a better understanding that this theoretical proposal booklet can provide robust citizenship
orientation in high school and might contribute to the increase of citizen engagement.

Keywords
political participation, the system of education, citizenship, elections, civic education and civic engagement

Introduction
The sociologist Eisenstadt (1976) defines democracy as a regime that provides the legal practice
opportunity to replace governments through elections. Thus, elections express the essence of
democracy. Democratic elections give expression to democratic values and principles such as
pluralism, tolerance, majority decision, restriction of power, the rule of law, and consensus.

Corresponding author:
Jacky Yaakov Zvulun, Kettering Foundation, 200 Commons Road, Dayton, OH 45459, USA.
Email: jackyzvulun@gmail.com
Zvulun and Harel 137

Arian (1975) describes the elections as the essence of democracy and voting as a political action
which expresses the spirit of democracy and its value. In the twenty-first century, democratic coun-
tries have witnessed a decline in voting numbers both on the national and local levels. Israel is no
different from the rest and few of the reasons are the lack of trust in the political system and in the
electoral system, lack of interest in politics and the weakening of parties.
The Ministry of Education in Israel provides different instruments to youth in high school to
enhance their skills of civic education and political participation. However, one of the big chal-
lenges of political participation phenomena is to increase the involvement of youth in the state. It
can be seen in general that there is reduction of voter turnout from the 1990s and onwards (Blais,
2006; Franklin, 2004; Saunders, 2014). From this perspective, we will analyze the attitudes of
young people toward political participation in elections in particular. Recently, there is low voter
turnout in democratic countries and also in Israel on the national level and on the local level
(Zvulun, 2009). There are few explanations for that: lack of trust in the politicians among the pub-
lic, apathy toward politics, and toward the electoral system, weaknesses of the political partisans
and of the responsibility of the public (Atmor and Hadar, 2006). The main argument in this article
is that practical experience with different instruments in school will provide a better understanding
of political participation among youth which will encourage them to be involved. We have pre-
sented an instrument whose goal to provide this preparation. There are reflections on the use of the
instrument in a pilot that was conducted among young people in high school.
When looking at the term “political participation,” we come up with few definitions that can be
found since the last century until today. Verba and Nie (1972) defined the term political participa-
tion as an action of citizens that have a specific goal to influence senior officials. The classic schol-
ars from the last century concurred that there are few forms of political participation, such as,
elections, party actions, activity in communities and organizations, activity from personal interest,
and political actions with violence or non-violence. Eventually, the term refers to citizens who
aspire to influence elected representatives. According to Huntington and Nelson (1976), McGregor
(1960), and also Milbrath and Goel (1977), political participation is defined as the availability of
suitable opportunities for people to take part in decision-making.
Scholars from the 1990s have introduced slight changes in the definition: Parry et al. (1992)
define participation as citizens’ action intended to influence authorities’ decision-making.
Participation can involve either altering attitudes of decision makers or protesting against a deci-
sion that has already been taken. Birch (1993) extended the definition and identified more sport
activities, games, dialogues, practical democracy that can increase the solidarity in the community.
In fact, political participation is an effective action among citizens who want to take responsibility
in particular when it comes to elections (Aldrich, 1993; Gaventa and Valderrama, 1999; Verba
et al., 1995, Mintrop). The citizens learn how to use democratic tools that enhance understanding
of the meaning of political and social participation and decision-making both on the local and
national levels.
There is research that shows the correlation between education and political participation. In
other words, education impacts political participation in different ways; for example, development
of cognitive skills and knowledge (Mayer, 2011). Therefore, the more education, the higher the
chance that citizens be involved in political participation (Converse, 1972; Delli and Keeter, 1996;
Rosenstone and Hansen, 1993; Verba et al., 1995).
Furthermore, literature argues that education plays a significant role while thinking about how
to implement civic engagement and citizenship, as Mayer (2011) notes, “indeed the breadth of the
consensus has led some researchers to conclude that education’s role as a primary mechanism
behind citizenship is generally uncontested” (p. 633).
138 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 17(2)

Having said that with all the support and even the recent support from different scholars such as
Sondheimer and Green (2010) and Marshall (2015), it can be seen that there are opponents to these
claims. Kam and Palmer (2008) argue that the relationship between education and political partici-
pation is unclear: the visible weaknesses are in the educational effect in the parental and young
adult characteristics. Support for that can be seen also in Mayer’s (2011) work who argues that
education has hardly increased political participation.
So far, it can be seen that there are two meanings for education through political participation
where one can contribute and the second can hardly contribute.
It will be interesting to look at the Israeli educational system as a case where implementing
these ideas as we mentioned above and the civic studies in school contributes to the encouragement
and assessment of political participation in particular during election time at school. We argue for
the first meaning as mentioned above that such an instrument we offer might help young people
understand the political systems and the importance of voting on elections.

Political education in Israel: Lessons from the Israeli curriculum

and programs on civic studies and political participation
Political education, democratic and civic, is transmitted in different ways in the Israeli system. It
comes with different programs and in particular in the field of civic studies. However, it is also
assimilated through social lessons in school and in different projects at school, such as special
programs. In the curriculum of civic studies (Ministry of Education, 2011), there is emphasis on the
democratic rule in particular from the legal point of view. The students learn concepts and ideas
about the democratic regime.
Teachers want less to address, name, and frame how the formal systems work in the political
reality and the way the democratic concepts are being implemented in the daily work in Israel.
There are differences between what has exactly been taught in schools and the real political issues.
In the curriculum programs, there are also emphasizes on the general issues of democracy, such
as majority decisions, restrictions on the regime, and other principles of democracy. For example,
if the subject refers to the rule of law, students will learn on the procedural characteristics and law
enforcement (Ichilov, 1984; Ichilov, 1999).
A recent study on young people’s attitudes toward politics and the question whether citizens
influence decision-making was conducted in the Knesset research department (Heler, 2005).
The research included young people aged between 15 and 18 years. It was found that one-third
of them do not know how they can influence decision-making or believe that there is no way to
influence officials (Heler, 2005). Furthermore, this study has found that, in general, teenagers
believe individuals or groups have no capacity to influence officials. Less than 8% of the par-
ticipants in this study claim that their parents or friends’ parents have the power to change
things. These details raise questions regarding the educational official system in Israel and the
perceptions of political participation of young people.
An extended chapter in the curriculum is dedicated to the authorities and it teaches the rules of
each authority in the regime and the balance between different authorities. The program hardly
touches on psychological and sociological aspects that compose the Israeli political and cultural
society. Subjects such as personal motivations to participate or not, participation and involvement
and political apathy, interests groups are not presented in this program. The understanding of gov-
ernment components and management do not give the young students a whole picture about the
democratic political system, the Israeli society, the polarization, and different slits.
Avnon (2013) compares the theoretical structure of the high school curriculum in the field of
civic studies with the old version. Avnon argues that in the existing program, there are
Zvulun and Harel 139

still amendments to be done because of the big challenge that the Israeli society is facing and the
attitude toward the class teaching in schools. The preparation for the matriculation does not con-
tribute to the dissemination of democratic values in Israel among teenagers. One of the conse-
quences is that students have the difficulty to understand the importance of the value of participation
in a democratic society. Nonetheless, issues that encourage deliberation on democratic practicing
and issues such as discrimination among different ethnic groups, socialization, creating a structure
of political participation are all absent from the program (Avnon, 2013).
In the current program, there is priority to discussion of the democratic principles, and the struc-
ture of the regime, rather than to discussion about disagreements and political behavior. The cur-
riculum gives more explanations from the perspective of the law than the sociological and
behavioral aspects (Avnon, 2013).
Some of the teachers avoid talking about actual issues and find it difficult to deal with teenagers’
opinions which sometimes oppose their own. There is also difficulty with extreme students’ opin-
ions and parents who blame teachers for involvement in politics. As a result, the education system
tends to avoid arriving at practical political conversation issues, on one hand. On the other hand,
they require teaching political subjects such as the religious division and the national one. At the
same time, the teachers are required to be objective and professional. In sensitive political issues,
it is difficult to keep objectivity and therefore, teachers avoid talking about these issues. They do
not want to be understood as holding a personal opinion (Karmnitzer Report Form, CEO, Ministry
of Education, 2011).
In the curriculum for high school, civic studies refer to the state of Israel as a Jewish Democratic
(Eden et al., 2001; Ministry of Education, 2011: Civics Curriculum). In every component in the
civic studies program, the teaching focuses on key ideas which create, as called according to the
authors, “civic language.” Most of the time, the student engages in identifying ideas and the terms
(of democracy) in different incidents and in different texts from reality. Citizenship, if so, is a field
that includes analysis of events by technical orientation which uses plot components (Ichilov,
2002). The matriculation exam indicates orientation toward civic education where students are
required to be precise in how he or she addresses the terms and uses it to explain different issues
and cases.
This article suggests to integrate constructive aspects in the teaching – learning process
(Kirschner et al., 2006). The main focus in the lesson should be the student, and he or she will be
assigned different challenging missions which are based on high order thinking exercises. Instead
of repetition or review of terms and definitions and identification of them, the student will be
required to analyze the political–social reality while giving a critical opinion that he or she consoli-
dates with different opinions. Indeed, the main lesson will be in class but to aim at the goals of civic
education, the student has to be exposed to the civil society and be in touch through the media or
other opinions such as meetings, workshops, and trips. The civics lesson has to deal with assign-
ments that acquaint the student with a variety of social groups and different opinions. The main
goal is to form the citizenship identification that contributes to the state.
The field-teaching goal refers to two elements in the lesson: plot and process. In terms of the plot,
it can be divided into two groups: one emphasizing the affinity to society and state, the importance of
being involved in the community and the obligation to obey the law and the rights. The second empha-
sizes the rule of social pluralism that includes different groups, different perceptions, and the legiti-
macy of expressing and being organized in different organizations achieving the multicultural aspect.
Marushak and Saver (2005) present a unique educational program that has seven concepts of
democracy, starting with liberal democracy and ending with feminist democracy. They show 10
sessions of workshops, experiential and emotional, deliberating on democracy and based more on
the emotional and cognitive sides. This program emphasizes the students’ actions compared with
his passive status in the normal program at school.
140 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 17(2)

How education can contribute to and promote political participation can be seen more broadly in
few other scholars that have written about this topic, for example, Hess (2002), McAvoy and Hess
(2014), Parker (2003), and Gutmann (1999).
Hess (2002) discusses the controversial public issues (CPI) in school and examined them in
junior and high school social studies classes. She argues that school and education enhance the
young students’ knowledge and promote political participation. Teachers teaching their students to
participate more effectively in CPI discussions (Hess, 2002).
Hess and McAvoy (2014), in their recent book, argue that teachers can teach political issues
better if they aim toward creating “political classrooms,” which engage students in deliberations
about questions that ask, “How should we live together?” and “How to be more involved in politi-
cal participation.” Based on the findings from a large, mixed-method study about discussions of
political issues within high school classrooms, their results in the book show in-depth and engaging
cases of teacher practice, paying particular attention to how political polarization and social ine-
quality affect classroom dynamics (Hess and McAvoy, 2014).
Parker (2003) adds that education for good citizenship in a democratic country should be imple-
mented in school but not only in school, outside schools and in the community. Parker examines
approaches to citizenship education in democratic societies. School attendance could be a major
influence on young students.
Parker examines three approaches to citizenship education, each “effective” in its own way. The
first looks beyond schooling altogether. The second and third consider schooling, but in sharply
different ways: The second addresses years of schooling without looking at what goes on inside
schools; the third takes us inside. Pulling these together under one lens should help explain how
students improve the students’ interest on political and social issues in the society (Parker, 2001).
Further support regarding the contribution of school to political participation can be seen in Hahn’s
(1999) research, a comparative study of civic education in six countries; Britain, the United States,
Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia. The book includes political content and opportu-
nities for students to explore and express opinions on public policy issues and to engage in decision-
making. Young people (aged 15–19 years) appear to be more interested in the political arena than in
those contexts in which they do not have such experiences (Hahn, 1999). Support of the contribution
to political participation through schools can be seen in Gutmann’s (1999) work as well.
The Ministry of Education (2011) few years ago provided a unique type of program for stu-
dents. The lesson changed the student into an analyst of the complex social reality and of special
cases of civil problem in the everyday life. It was expected from the student to be able to think
independently and to have capacity of learning and of implementing, comprising, understanding,
estimating, and criticizing text, which describes social reality (the civics curriculum Ministry of
Education, 2011).1
A critical view among the civics studies, Neuberger (2000), claims that schools should do more
actions regarding democracy and education and it is not enough to lead the students committee, to
establish different about political clubs, but it has to be imbued by the democracy subject as a main
component in most of the disciplines that are taught in schools.

A proposal to the curriculum program that enhances young

people to be involved in civil responsibility during election time
This article offers didactic instruments for the implementation of the election subject, which pro-
vides the teacher with different ways of teaching civic studies. The kit involves value clarification
dialogues for the deeper meaning of being involved in civil life, community, public responsibility
of young people to strengthen civil society in order to cope with social apathy. The kit is a booklet
Zvulun and Harel 141

of different activities referring to election time. The activities are aimed at a variety of aspects of
the subject and can be discussed both in home room classes and civic lessons.
The activity booklet that has been proposed invites students to get practice in experiential stud-
ies in elections that are not offered by the usual program of the Ministry of Education. This is the
process of elections, the students’ and the public’s attitudes toward elections, a critical view of
election propaganda, and deep observation of parties and their leadership.
The main advantage of this booklet is the variety of activities, which provides the teacher and
every student a choice of the activity that he likes, in order to prove the importance of the civic
education field. There is a choice of three to five activities the teachers can choose according to the
amount of time they have, to the level of knowledge of the students and to the students’ interests.
Another important principle of this booklet is group work in permanent groups. Through the pro-
cess, students work with the same groups and therefore the teacher has to plan in advance how to
divide the students into groups.
Here are some samples of the activities:

1. Quiz of mastery of the notions connected to the field of elections.

2. Directions to create a wall bulletin in class that will accompany the process of elections
with different sections: Law Section, where students have to present laws and rules con-
cerning the elections in Israel; Party Section on different ideologies and policies; Personal
Section, in which a presentation of information about main representatives of Parties will
be presented; Survey Section, where there are texts from the printed media; Main Terms
Dictionary – definitions of different terms such as ballot box, election threshold, national
electoral system; Announcements from the electoral commission, that will present different
documents such as note to the voter and other sections.
3. Opinion questionnaire ranking the spectrum of apathy–involvement regarding elections in
class. Students have to rank their consensus regarding statements such as “I would like to
establish a party,” “I believe that if I vote in the elections,” “I will be able to gain influence
on the national level,” “I am terrified of the results of the elections which may influence our
society.”
4. Party following the election process. Each one of the steps can be carried out in a different
lesson. It has been recommended to use the computer room that has access to The Internet
or The library. The resources that will be offered to students are Internet, newspaper, and
television. Example of activity – each group will discuss the parameters of the chosen party.
The group will document the process. For first step, the group has to write a rational of the
choice of this particular party and why it is so important to study about it.
5. “My Favorite Prime Minister” – the teacher distributes cards which have character attrib-
utes. Then each student will be asked to write to himself three character attributes that are
the most important in his opinion to the role of Prime Minister.
6. Summary of the activities on the eve of the elections – to the end of this project it is recom-
mended to give the groups tasks refer to the commercial election on TV.

The task for the groups will be comparison between the survey on TV and the survey that the
students have done in the streets. Each group has to give a report about the elections, the survey,
comments on the Parties, and how the analysis has presented the outcomes.2
The theoretical proposal was reinforced by interviews as pilot research. In the interviews, there
were 20 participants who were teachers in two high schools in Israel which were interviewed by
two researchers. There were 15 male teachers and 5 female teachers. Most of the teachers have had
experience with this field of subjects (civic studies) and have taught for 10 years at least. All the
142 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 17(2)

teachers claimed that they studied in educational college in Israel and not in university and their
qualification in the degree was in citizenship studies and social sciences.
All participants have been reminded of the ethics principles which consist of terms of privacy,
the right to leave the study (interview), acceptance of recording, and clarification explanation
about the research goals. The interviewee is asked two questions. First, whether the instrument
has influence on the student’s attitude regarding political participation. The second question is,
“Does this instrument-encourage students to be positive regarding voting in the next elections?
The last survey, which was conducted, by Shamir (2013) from the Israeli National Election
Studies in 2013, showed that the youngest group between 18 and 22 years included the highest
percentage of people (17.7%) who declared that they would not participate in the first elections in
their life.3

A semi-structured interview
Questions were asked during the interview which were leading to the subjects’ “activity action,”
“knowledge and value,” “encouraging to vote on the next elections,” “the value of being part of the
community,” and the last “any negative reaction to this program.” There were open questions
regarding these subjects. We allowed the teachers to answer and cite their students from their own
experience.
All the interviews were conducted in the school area at lunch (break time) or the end of school
hours. Each interview was between half an hour to maximum of 1 hour. The interviews were
recorded with consent of the participants.4
The interviews were conducted face-to-face with each teacher and they were different from
regular interviews. We interviewed the teachers and not the students, how they saw the program
and what they had taken from their students during the pre-election time according to the subjects
above.
We identified substantial themes during the interviews regarding the questions and the subjects
that we directed to the participants. During the analysis of the verbatim, quotes were divided into
statements. These statements helped the researchers to figure out the main ideas and values of this
program and what the most important issues were.

Reflections on activating the program as a pilot

There were significant insights that were raised in the interviews.
The program expresses significant learning principles, the students see high value in this pro-
gram, and it is creating high involvement in favor of these different activities which connected
students to actual processes in society and in the case for discussion courses around them. Teachers
gave the students’ consent for free thoughts about democracy and politics.
From the teachers’ interviews, “following the lessons I have become a fully activated partici-
pant in all family discussions referring the coming elections.” “It was really important to discuss
what was happening towards the elections because we are becoming citizens that have a say and
vote which is our responsibility.” These statements support Hess and McAvoy (2001) who argue
that “Political Classroom” can encourage young people to be more active in their environment.
Furthermore, in the booklet, paragraph 3 shows the apathy–involvement regarding elections in
class which also provide support to these statements.
The level of knowledge and understanding of the election subject, in particular the civil society,
increased the existent process:
Zvulun and Harel 143

in the first lesson we were administered an exam about election knowledge and we hardly knew. After we
had talked about the elections and started to know about the parties and their ideology, our knowledge and
understanding in these subjects increased.

This is the first election that I am going to vote.5 It was always obvious that I vote according to my parents’
political orientation. However, following this program, I know to assess the different parties by myself and
their ideology and it feels that the vote I will cast in the ballot will expresses my real opinion.

According to the booklet, there is a task that groups have to hand in a report about the elections and
other activities that they have done regarding the elections. This shows us that according to the
interview, the mass of knowledge in elections around the activities have part of the differences
between those who do not have the knowledge and those who do. Some evidence shows that edu-
cation increases political engagement and other form of political participation (Putnam et al., 1994;
Sondheimer and Green, 2010).
The program contributes to the political identity of most of the students. From the students’
voices, “In the major part of the lessons we had to understand the different political conceptions
among citizens and this made us think what makes people think different and what about each way
of these concepts regarding Israeli society.” School in Israel is conceived as a place of personal
growth and of the development of the political identity of young people. Schools provide social
opinions and through them the teenagers consolidate their political opinions (Ichilov, 1996).
“I loved these lessons, because in each one of them, I felt that I understood, where I was in terms
of the political sides and to which political party I was attached.” In the booklet, paragraph 4 claims
that resources such as library and Internet will be offered to students in order to understand better
and to gain knowledge that will build their confidence to be involved in discussions in class,
debates in class and outside. This can also be supported by Hahn (1999) who shows in her com-
parative study among six countries that students in school whose teachers provide civic education
contents aged 15–19 years appear to be more interested in the political arena than in those contexts
in which they do not have such experiences.
Following the program, students see the potential in the civil actions and see the expression of
the theoretical term “political participation” in democracy that has been taught in civics lessons.
For instance, “after the lessons in citizenship studies, I understood the utmost importance of politi-
cal and social involvement which starts in the elections.” “I have never understood why people say
that elections are a right and not a duty. Today I cannot even think of the possibility to lose the
chance of going to vote.”
Some of the students stimulate that this program makes them antagonistic toward the political–
social leadership and builds distrust of the official offices. Students expressed frustration from the
lack of influence on politics as a citizen and the way the leadership works. For instance,

what I gathered from these lessons was very sad. It does not matter how far the ideology that is presented
by parties is good and appropriate. After the elections, politicians forget about citizens that have voted for
them and our influence is too low.

Moreover,

I don’t think that I will bother to vote. We have gone through different activities in class that we had to put
ourselves in the line or ranking between apathy and involvement. Today, in the end of this project my
apathy level is really high, more than in the beginning, due to the understanding how manipulation and
games operate in politics and I don’t like it.
144 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 17(2)

The booklet has reference to the attitude of students who develop antagonism to politics and
participation.
There is demand for teamwork outside of classes referring to the elections. For example, “I am
more likely to work with my group. When you work in a group, each one contributes his own
knowledge and we share the ideas together much better.” It is more interesting and enriching when
working outside the class. We had activities like street survey, analyzing election commercials, or
the eve of elections. This is the real life and if the government wants us to be good citizens, we
must read newspapers, visit party branches, ask people what they think. It is more important than
the discussion in class. Through the entire booklet, there are activities in groups, which provide a
robust support to the statements above. For example paragraph five talks about dividing into groups
and each group has activities.

Discussion
This experience shows how important it is to prepare young students toward the elections
and in particular in civic studies lessons which is a social political agent and becomes
stronger for building civic society, pluralistic concepts, and institutionalization of political
participation (Mayer, 2011). Our findings show that an instrument such as a booklet might
contribute to young people increasing their participation and becoming more interested in
politics. The two questions that have been asked in the interview, whether the instrument has
influence on the student’s attitude and, second, whether the instrument encourages students
to be positive regarding voting, show us, according to the answers of the teachers, that the
answer is generally in the affirmative. The semi-structure interviews were leading to the
following topics: activity function, knowledge and value, encouragement to vote in the next
elections, the value of being part of the community, and any negative reaction to this pro-
gram. These subjects were mentioned in the interviews by students after the teacher had
cited them. It can be seen that because of these topics, students were responsive to the pro-
gram and were satisfied by what it offered. There were some students who were not happy
with the program, making them more negative regarding politics and participation. However,
as mentioned, they were only a few. Our booklet provides the teacher with a good basic of
understating of the young students who are less interested in our democracy and education
of the public and as mentioned earlier, civic studies should be more prominent in the topic
of democracy in the curriculum (Noyberger, 2000). It teaches us that the formal program at
school lacks the methods for how to influence students to be more involved in their country
and their democracy.
Evidence of the influencing of youth can be seen with Australian democracy, in which “the
Youth Electoral Study sought to understand the process by which young adults become politi-
cally informed and engaged citizens in Australian democracy as well as to understand youth
behavior and attitudes towards enrolment and voting” (Print, 2007: 341). They found that there
is no single or simple methods to improve this situation of lack of understanding among youth,
but that schools are a very important place to change it and a formal and informal curriculum
can help.
According to Print (2007) different elements in school of the informal curriculum such as voting
in school elections, volunteering, raising funds for charities, and so forth can provide a great oppor-
tunity for improvement and engaging young people with democracy. Furthermore, informal cur-
riculum promotes and develops civic engagement among young people, in activities such as
debating, students’ elections and political clubs (Print et al., 2002).
Zvulun and Harel 145

Conclusion
It is better for young people to become more involved in politics through schools. Schools provide
the opportunities for young students to become familiar with democracy and how to participate in
a democracy (Galston, 2004; Torney-Purta, 2002).
In order to create democratic civic society at its best, it is needed to cultivate political socializa-
tion processes in the education system. The elections are great educational opportunity to make
discourse with value that directs increasing the involvement and public responsibility awareness.
It is out of question that the election subject be decreased because it has a lot of different aspects
such as philosophy, law, psychology, and concepts in political sciences, and also anthropological
and sociological sides, provided that values will give better implementation in the educational
system. If these values come with experiential activities such as those that were offered in this
article plus the evidence from the teachers, we can indicate that different instruments play a sub-
stantial role by encouraging young people to be involved.
Furthermore, teachers also played a significant role in this part of activities. In this study, while
teachers observing their students, and having more experience, we found that this booklet can pro-
vide further research to seek the measuring of increasing political participation. The study shed
more light on the fact that teachers have extra influence while teaching civic education or citizenship
studies. We have learned that the program that we offered did assist the teachers and students to
change their mind in engaging in the Israeli political participation. We cannot give a statement in
this study how much percentage or the quantitative way to show figures but we know that this small
number of participants has shown a positive attitude toward participating in elections in the future.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes
1. A different program was developed by Aerlich et al. during the 1980s and 1990s. The program is
designed as simulation games that looks at the sociological and psychological aspect of the elections.
One example is the game called “Ishim Vedeot,” Persons and Opinions (Arlich, 1988). In this game,
students experiencing in dilemmas of voter decision reaches the decision to vote come from the personal
elected or his opinions? The students are invited to perform few actions of experiencing and it focuses
on the process of elections, organization of elections in particular on the psychological side of voting.
Another kit that has been developed by Arlich (1988) called “Next time I vote” included 10 special inci-
dents. The incidents are focusing on the election subject, in particular the voting, and they emphasizes
from different corners and not just theoretical sides. During that experience, the students learn that voting
happens refereeing to cultural social aspect, and it has values and a challenge to political expression and
independent thinking of citizens.
2. Each group also accompanies a party, so members of the group have to reflect on the conduct of the party
until the elections and in light of this, to consider the approximate mandate numbers that the party won
in the survey. The group has to express their opinions regarding the pre-election process and each group
presents in their results and summary the class. Of course, there will be a discussion of that in the plenary.
3. This research was conducted 1 month before the 2013 national elections in Israel, which represented
1718 participants of eligible voters (the Israel National Elections Studies).
4. Civics teachers supervised the activities with civics teaching students that took part in them. The students
146 Citizenship, Social and Economics Education 17(2)

documented the lessons that included activities on the elections. The program was delivered in four
classes and in each class, students were interviewed by the teachers (five students each class), regarding
the contribution of the program, and the activity plots. In the end of the program, there were feedback
discussions in each class.
5. Voting age in Israel for national election is 18 years.

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