Skoldemokrati : En kvalitativ intervjustudie som undersöker elevrådet och elevkåren som demokratiska forum för gymnasieelever i Stockholm.

The main objective in this study is to examine the pupil’s possibility to affect the upper secondary schools in Stockholm, Sweden. I was once active in the pupil’s council and experienced some hardships, feeling a great dissatisfaction among teachers and principals against pupil’s suggestions and chances to affect their school environment. Thus I wanted to do a contemporary study of where schools in Stockholm stand today within this issue. This study is based on Robert A. Dahl’s theory about democracy, from which I have created my theoretical template, I interpreted Dahl’s theory and formed my own seven institutions from his original theory. With this construction I developed survey questions, which were designed to measure school democracy. I used a qualitative survey method, where I interviewed pupils who are active in the pupil’s council in five different schools today, one of the respondents is a civil servant for the Swedish pupils council centralorganization (Seco). Based on my interviews I have analyzed whether the contemporary upper secondary schools is or is not democratic. My conclusion, I see a wide variety of democratic institutions in Stockholm today, but when comparing the schools today with schools just six years ago, I can trace down huge differences. The pupil’s have learned to organize in a wider manner than six years ago, moreover the main problem doesn’t seem to be a lack of opportunities to influence the school today, the general attitude against the pupil’s council seem to have changed considerably amongst principals and teachers for the better. The main problem for the schools to actually be democratic in a wide manner seems to lie on the pupil’s, if pupil’s showed more interest the schools would be more democratic. Because schools today strive to be as democratic as possible and with organizations like Seco the pupil’s council will be democratic as well, the schools in the Swedish (Stockholm) contemporary society today is according to my study democratic.