Att fostra demokratiska medborgare : – En studie av forskning om demokratiundervisning i samhällskunksapsämnet utifrån ett demokratiteoretiskt perspektiv

Civic education is mandatory for all students in the Swedish education system. One of the main purposes of the subject is to educate the students to become part of the democratic sys- tem. Multiple ways of defining democracy increases the complexity in educating democratic citizens since the concept of democracy could have lots of different meanings. It could for example be defined as a governmental system, a way of making decisions or even an ideolo- gy. The study was conducted in order to identify what research in the civic didactic field find problematic in educating democracy, and suggestions how democratic education could be performed. Hence there are several definitions of democracy, three ideal types of democratic approaches were developed and used as a tool in the analysis. The first ideal type is systemat- ic democracy, which represents an approach where democracy already is incorporated in the society. The second ideal type is democratic impact that are both based on the latter ideal type, but also describes the democratic citizens’ as an active member of the society. In the last ideal type, democratic opinion formation, democracy is viewed as context dependent and mainly focuses on the democratic citizens’ ability to be independent. Four major problems were identified with democracy education in the civic didactic field. The main problems are the accelerating changes of the society, lack of democracy commitment in youth, the content of democracy education and ultimately the contradictory between democratic knowledge and democratic commitment. The primarily suggestions of educating democracy are: allowing the students’ to express their opinions; referring the content of the lecture to the students’ experi- ences; problematize the concept of the democratic system