Innovative Experience with Education for Democracy: Spanish Cases

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the reflection about innovative practice in Education for Democracy (EfD). The focus is on the experiences of Spanish interventions in primary and secondary school within the European project DEMOCRAT. The objective of DEMOCRAT is to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of democracy. To this end, a competence framework for Responsible Democratic Citizenship (RDC) has been developed. This framework was the basis for elaborating an outline of an EfD curriculum and rebust Competences Assessment tools. The curriculum has been developed to promote a holistic approach, which is instrumental in ensuring the development of democratic competences in diverse educational contexts. The curriculum is supported by robust evaluation tools that focus on the development of RDC competencies and the overall impact on democratic education. These encompass formative and summative assessment, competence assessment, and evaluation of the scalability and sustainability of interventions from local pilot projects. To test the Competence Framework, the Curriculum Outline and the Competence Assessment Tool, local pilot projects have been initiated in the six countries (Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Spain). In Spain, the Local Pilot Project encompasses nine interventions in primary and secondary schools during the 2024-2025 academic year. The results of the innovative approaches of EfD in the Spanish Local Pilot Projects will be presented as follows: Two primary schools are developing strategic interventions to address challenges related to migration. Two secondary schools are working on historical memory in cooperation with local institutions. One primary school and two secondary schools will focus on democratic processes within the school to promote greater participation. Two other secondary schools will work on democratic processes in society. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the reflection on the practical experiences of Spanish interventions as a contribution to the further development of the RDC Competence Framework, the European Curriculum Outline and the Competence Assessment Tool as part of the social process to innovate education for democracy as a core element to defend the European Model of sustainable democracy.