This article presents part of a larger study on potential relations between democracy and numeracy and mathematics teaching for adults. This study is motivated by the many challenges to democratic institutions and democratic values at local, national and international levels that I have observed in recent years. In this article. I go back to the…

As the privatisation of the public sector has grown rapidly in Sweden in the last decade, private companies have become an imperative part of education. Private companies sell and deliver consultancy, hardware, software, services, etc. to schools and municipalities. This study examines a growing rate of activities from companies and businesses…

This article nuances an ongoing discussion among researchers about external researchers in emancipatory action research in the educational field. It examines opportunities and challenges for emancipatory action research for participants in top-down and bottom-up initiated action research projects with external researchers. An analysis based on…

Learning democratic participation as future citizens is an important goal for science education for all students. To take part in debates and decision-making involving socioscientific issues, such as sustainability, students need to become aware of different positions and dilemmas regarding such issues. This study seeks to understand how…

This article is the first of four articles exploring democratic schools co-founded by teenage students in Norway and Sweden. Our larger project explores the relationship between democracy in education and educational dialogism. Both democracy in education and educational dialogism are partially rooted in the idea that education should be a…

This paper draws upon learning from three action research projects conducted as part of a Europe-wide project exploring young people's social and political participation. Challenging dominant discourses about what 'counts' as participation and what does not, the paper explores how, through the action research projects, young people engaged in…

School democracy in terms of formal student participation is often expressed through different types of councils. This requires that these forms of political participation function democratically. The article contributes knowledge about the school as a public space and the democratic experiences gained through formal student participation in class…

The education system is still important for establishing and maintaining democracy in society. In relation to this, it is reasonable to suggest that teachers' different interpretations of their mission to teach for democracy will influence their teaching practices. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on student teachers' task perceptions as…

The aim of the article is to explore how pedagogues in Swedish leisure-time centres interpret and make sense of what may be meant by children's participation. We also focus on ambivalences and competing interpretations of participation and how pedagogues argue for or against divergent interpretations. The material consists of 18 digitally recorded…

This article is based on a case study where groups of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian young people played a simulation game that stimulated collective deliberation on social issues. The game has been designed to provoke students to deliberate and to reflect on social problems relating to issues of citizenship and democracy. The analysis of the…

The aim of this paper is to investigate children's views and experiences of democracy and pupil participation in relation to everyday school life, and to let their voices be heard on these issues. The data for this paper was derived from two ethnographic research projects conducted in three elementary schools in Sweden. In the classes investigated…

This article tests whether the form of decision-making used in school environments affects pupils' views on the legitimacy of the decisions made, and of the decision-making procedure. Building on political science theory on democratic decision-making, it compares pupils' reactions towards decisions made by pupil councils, by pupils via referendum,…

This paper seeks to make use of later works of Habermas in the field of education. The theme, developed out of the pragmatic tradition, is that of deliberative communication as a central form of activity in schools. This implies a displacement of traditional teaching and learning as the central form of activity to the creation of meaning through…

A central aspect of education has always been the passing on of norms and values. This task is not fulfilled if pupils only learn the meaning of established norms and values. It is also about making pupils believe in them and to act according to them. Thus, teaching is also a kind of political socialization. The values taught change historically…

The current structure of governance and decision making in Swedish higher education and the effects of recent national reform on perceived and actual autonomy at the central, regional, and local levels are discussed. An initial desire for more decentralized decision making has turned to increasing demand for more guidance by central organizations.…