Abstract:
Purpose : The purpose of this study was to survey the political awareness of Mathayom Suksa III Students in Private Islam Schools by studying and comparing their general political knowledge and perception, of their political attitude. Procedure : The sample concisted of one hundred and ninetyfive Mathayom Suksa III Students randomly selected from eight Private Islam Schools in Pattani, Yala and Narativat. They were asked to complete the general political knowledge and perception test, political attitude scale test and a questionair concerning students opinions on civic affairs instruction which were designed by the researcher The reliability of the general political knowledge and perception test and political attitude scale test were .59 and .77 respectively. The collected data was then analyzed by means of z-test and correlation. The majority of the students have moderate general political knowledge and perception. Female students have better general political knowledge than male students significantly at the .01 level. The general political knowledge and perception of the students from average and low income family were not significantly different at the .05 level. There were also no statistically significant differences on the general political knowledge and perception of students from the high and low democratic child rearing practices at the .05 level. The majority of the students have neutral political attitude. Male and female students political attitude were not different at the .05 level of significance. Although there were statistically significant differences on political attitude of students from average and low income family at the .0ๆ level, there were no differences on political attitude of the students from high -and low democratic child rearing practices at the .05 level of significance. The results of the analysis also show that the correlation of general political knowledge and perception and political attitude was - 0.02 which shows no significance.