국민법의식조사 ‘법 관련 교육’ 대안 문항 연구: 설문 조사 결과에 대한 실증 분석을 중심으로

Legal literacy is often treated as knowledge possession. In this study, we instead treat it as a practical competency: the capacity to enter legal processes, make sense of them, and question them when necessary. If that is the target, then the National Legal Consciousness Survey—widely used to assess orientations toward the rule of law—cannot remain anchored in a narrow understanding of “law-related education.” Current survey items still presuppose a largely receptive, content-delivery model. To examine what gets missed under that framing, we drew on alternative item sets proposed in earlier scholarship and fielded a two-year online survey of 1,000 adults. Item structure and group-level perceptions were examined through exploratory factor analysis, paired-samples t-tests, and one-way ANOVA. Three patterns stand out. Respondents did not classify law-related education by its pedagogical orientation (receptive vs. formative); instead, they differentiated it by institutional timing and location—during schooling versus in adulthood. Across both school-based and community-based experiences, formative approaches were widely viewed as lacking, even as they were seen as necessary. Legislative participation education—conceptualized here as a formative paradigm—was also regarded as important across gender and age groups. Demand for this form of education was stronger among those with higher educational attainment and among those who rated themselves as more knowledgeable about legislative processes. Overall, the results point to a public expectation that legal education should move beyond transmission and toward developing capabilities for meaningful participation in legal and legislative systems.