STUDENT COUNCIL ORGANIZATION ENHANCING DEMOCRACY IN SCHOOLS: A CASE STUDY OF THAILAND BEST PRACTICE SCHOOLS

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study school council organization enhancing democracy inThailandbest practice schools. The informants were purposive selected consisted of social studies teachers, teachersin charge of student affairs and student council members total 32 people from 10 schools. This study was qualitative research.

The research results revealed that: 1) Student council election system: grade 10 or 11 students, who want to run for student council committee,must form teams consisting of 8-15 members, naming for each student team by using symbols, colors, grade levels, and teenage words; 2) Voting and campaign: 1 man 1 vote for each student, school election committee was responsible for election process and election counting which must be completed within a day of the election event. For the election campaign,policies and activities were presented in the form of debate and campaign posters; 3) Models of student councilcomprised 3 models: (3.1) Student council had only one team and was responsible for all school activities except for school sport activities which were managed by sport activities’ committee, (3.2) Student council had two teamswhich are first administrative team and second team is functioned as check and balance working process of the first team, (3.3) Student council was a part of local sub-district administration community focusing on community affairs; and 4) Student council activities shared not only developing democratic behaviors and characteristics in harmonious, respectful and intellectual perspectives but also enhancing democracy as a way of students’ lives.