Lived Democracy – qualities and challenges.

Project summary

Lived Democracy – qualities and challenges. An open access level 2 book in English, a cooperation with our international partners. Its purpose is to analyse and discuss how lived democracy in school and kindergarten can be understood, based on theoretical, philosophical, methodological and empirical perspectives.

Bernstein (2000) understands lived democracy as the participation in constructing, maintenance and transformation of social and political life. Our starting point is that this relates to participation practices in a classroom community, characterised by agency (Pickering, 1995), opportunities to express claims and arguments, capabilities in developing and expressing arguments, experiences of ethical and socio-political nature (Biesta, 2006) and a consciousness of participation practices. The latter includes the differentiation between individual and collective meanings of a discussion and comprises positions on listening, responsibility and respect (Alrø & Skovsmose, 2002; Johnsen-Høines & Alrø, 2012) and that democratic deliberation starts from within (Goodin, 2003). Experience relates to the students’ connection to the risk issue and includes both knowledge on the issue and value perspectives (Goodin, 2003). Capabilities concern what is expressed and how, and opportunities are influenced by both institutional properties and the classroom community (Werler, 2011). Lived democracy can thus be learning experiences that can be applied in, and is a precondition for, democratic practices in society, as called for by Skovsmose (2011).

In this project, we understand lived democracy as to include participation practices in a classroom community, characterised by agency, opportunities to express arguments, capabilities in developing arguments, personal experience and a consciousness of participation practices. We relate this to democratic Bildung.

The researchers engaged in the book project investigate relationships between education, learning and democracy from different perspectives. They underline the pedagogic importance of how processes and practices of the everyday lives of preschool children and students make them capable to live democracy – even when they are not citizens of voting age. The chapters highlight how democracy is lived and learned in education since it will coin  the life children and youth are going to have as grown-ups.

The researchers involved in the project argue for a shift of perspective from individuals and their knowledge about democracy and citizenship to an understanding where preschool kids and students are seen as embedded in contexts, taking part in deliberative communicative actions.

This conceptualizing turn questions how pupils practice critical political engagement, how they contribute to collective decision making in the public sphere, and how they translate private interests into collective concerns. The proposed book suggests that a focus on lived democracy in education requires an orientation towards a wider set of political capabilities that emphasize processes and practices of the development of participative community. Such a conceptualization adds to civic education focusing on instrumental political knowledge.

The target group of this book is the international research community, including master students.