The Effectiveness of Negotiation Games in Citizenship Education: An Examination of Diplomatic Negotiation Game INDEPENDENCE DAY in a Japanese High School

摘要

The aim of Citizenship education is cultivating citizens of future democratic society, as well as international society, based on the knowledge and understanding of social phenomena. It is important for citizenship education to make students become aware that society is filled with possibilities for the future. Furthermore, students have to face society through communication in citizenship education. This is a crucial factor which cultivates citizens of future society to arouse motivation in the students to change the future by their own communication. In this study, we insist that gaming/simulation to make students negotiate is effective in citizenship education. From the above, we developed INDEPENDENCE DAY as a negotiation game usable in citizenship education, and proved the effectiveness of the game through an experiment. INDEPENDENCE DAY is a negotiation game for students to virtually experience diplomatic negotiation between Japan and the United States after World War II. The results of the experiment indicated following three points: (1) students actively dealt with communication filled with uncertainty, (2) students gained awareness of various possibilities in their future society, (3) this game aroused students' motivation to actively participate in the society.