평화통일의 헌법적 이념 구현을 위한 민주시민교육 법제화 과제 - 헌법재판소 결정례 분석을 중심으로 -

Article 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea stipulates national unification not as a discretionary policy goal, but as a constitutional mandate that the State must pursue. Nevertheless, recent public opinion surveys show a growing tendency toward negative or indifferent attitudes toward unification, particularly among younger generations who increasingly “deny the necessity of unification” itself. This trend raises concerns not only about the feasibility of unification policy but also about the erosion of the constitutional foundation of national integration presupposed by Article 4. Despite this constitutional imperative, the current legal framework—including the Unification Education Support Act, the Framework Act on Education, the national curriculum, and local education autonomy regulations—treats unification education merely as a supplementary or selective educational program or a ministerial policy project, failing to fulfill its function of forming constitutional citizenship for all citizens. This study reconceptualizes peace-oriented unification civic education as a constitutional duty of the State—a positive educational obligation—derived from Articles 4, 31, 10, and 1 of the Constitution, and proposes its legal institutionalization as an independent legislative task. First, the study examines the historical and normative structure of the constitutional clause on peaceful unification and interprets it, through Constitutional Court decisions, not as a programmatic declaration but as an enforceable normative rule binding state policy and civic education. Furthermore, by integrating the right to education (Article 31), human dignity (Article 10), and popular sovereignty (Article 1), the study establishes the constitutional status and legitimacy of peace- unification civic education. The article critically reviews the constitutional limitations of the current legal system—namely, the abstract nature of the Framework Act on Education, the administrative-coordination structure of the Unification Education Support Act, normative gaps in the national curriculum, and the absence of national minimum standards under a decentralized education-autonomy system. Based on this analysis, it proposes a transition from conditional and declaratory unification education to regular, binding, and systematic civic education as the core direction of legal reform. In doing so, the study presents a legislative design for a proposed Peaceful Unification Civic Education Act, encompassing national curriculum integration, assessment linkage, teacher training, and lifelong civic education for adults and public officials. This research thus positions the institutionalization of peace- unification civic education not as an administrative improvement but as a constitutional mechanism for realizing the self-executing force of Article 4.