The democratic school in theory and practice : The national curriculum and high school teachers perspective on educating democratic citizens

The aim of this study is to investigate the Swedish curriculum’s and high school teacher’s views on educating democratic citizens. More than any other country Swedish schools puts value in students’ rights to influence their own education and everyday life in school, an aim portrayed in the curriculum and a heavy amount of research on the subject. The question imposed will be analyzed through three central themes surrounding the school as a democratic institution – the school’s two-sided mission as suppliers of knowledge and educating democratic citizens, the possibility of students to exert influence, and class councils as an arena for deliberative democracy. These three themes will further be analyzed through a theoretical framework consisting of Robert A Dahl’s criteria for a democratic process, customized for an educational environment with the help of earlier research, including the writings of educational philosopher John Dewey. The result of the study is that although these three themes show great potential in shaping students into democratic citizens, in theory, the participating teachers speak of a difficulty in transforming these goals in their everyday work following a number of obstructions. A few examples of such is time pressure, focus on grades and lack of knowledge as well as lack of interest in participating among students.