Abstract
There is wide agreement that children and adolescents will develop a better understanding of democracy and be better motivated to participate democratically in society if they make democratic experiences at school. One argument is that school democracy is a model of what democracy is all about in any context. This makes it a very important question what notions of democracy schools teach and legitimize in the democratic experiences they offer for their students. Democracy is a contested concept, and schools will not be neutral. This question will be addressed by means of a review of available research, mainly from the Scandinavian countries. In the paper, democracy is understood as a characteristic of organizational structures and procedures. Hence, available research will be examined looking for analyses of how the participation of young people is organized. The paper will outline different understandings of democracy and will examine various research contributions in that framework of democratic theory. The paper concludes critically, arguing that schools seem to demonstrate and legitimate versions of democracy as constrained and controlled by others.
Kjetil Børhaug
University of Bergen, Norway
Kjetil.Borhaug@aorg.uib.no
+4792093414
