Democracy education development in the USA and Lithuania; comparative analysis

People nowadays are often forced to accept the challenges of the modern society. That is the reason why a great attention has been paid to civic education in many countries of the world including Lithuania. As education system is considered to be one of the key instruments constructing civic society, schools nowadays aim to develop students’ responsibility, social activity and independence; form their value system, emphasize the importance of democratic relationships between teachers and students. The problem of democratic citizenship education is relevant in Lithuanian school and society for understanding democracy itself, determining practical activity of young people. Since 1988 democratic citizenship has been declared to be one of the most important aims of the reformed Lithuanian school. at the beginning of the reform civic education integration program into curriculum was created, however it was agreed that the aspects of democracy education have to embrace the whole school life. Having spent long years in Soviet occupation and having long experience of Soviet education Lithuanian school has inevitably faced certain difficulties creating its own democracy-based education. USA, the country in possession of long civic education experience has been chosen as a model country. During 15 years of independence in cooperation with American civic education experts Lithuanian teachers have made visible changes in Lithuanian education system. This work aims to analyze and compare the models of American and Lithuanian democracy education and to estimate Lithuanian and American experience developing democracy education methods and relations in education institutions and provide recommendations of further, more efficient democracy education development in Lithuanian schools. Methods used: scientific resources and analysis of documents, systematic analysis of research data, content analysis, interviews. Conclusions made in this work show that both in Lithuania and the USA democracy education is an integral part of all subjects and is especially emphasized during the adolescence period when separate courses of citizenship are taught. Both countries aim to develop a critical, competent and active citizen of democratic society. The main dispositions and values acquired by a student should be patriotism, tolerance, rule of law, skills of participation, ability to do group work. In order to make democratic education more efficient active teaching methods, especially projects should be widely used. It is important to expand not only pupils’ knowledge, however the cognitive material has to be taken from nearest surroundings; so the pupil could be the most important and active participant of cognitive process.Švietimo akademijaVytauto Didžiojo universiteta