The pupil as a democratic citizen A qualitative study of democracy- and citizenship-understanding amongst high school students

The research questions for this thesis seeks to understand more about high school pupils understanding of democracy and citizenship and to see if this understanding changes after the pupils participates at an educational roleplay arranged by the Rafto foundation. The relevance of the research questions is linked to the new curricula in Norwegian schools, called Fagfornyelsen 2020. Fagfornyelsen has an ambitious view on democracy education and several democratic ideals can be read in the governmental document. For this thesis the democratic ideals at hand are the liberal, the republican and the deliberative democracy. Different ideals of democracy lead to different approaches on democracy education. The main schools of thought which are included in this paper is the need for an education which teaches pupils about the structural democratic mechanisms on one hand, and the idea of deliberation skills and democracy as a way of life on the other hand. Pupils from three high schools’ classes, who are the main source of data in this paper, have answered a survey about their thoughts on democracy and citizenship before and after their visit at Rafto Foundation. I have also carried out a participant observation during the roleplay at Rafto. The main findings in this thesis shows that the pupils understanding of democracy is traditional and leans towards a liberal understanding of the phenomena. Their way of describing democracy has a normative approach and a lack of critical objections. The pupils also view the Norwegian democracy as an ideal way of democratic ruling. After their visit at Rafto these tendencies are reinforced. Practically the lack of critical objections. The education given at Rafto therefore has that effect that it legitimizes the Norwegian democracy. A following side effect is that the legitimizing of the Norwegians democracy increases a mentality about “us” vs “them”, where the pupils, as citizens of Norway view themselves as lucky comparted to others. These results are not Rafto foundation intention with their education.MasteroppgaveSAMPOL350MASV-SAP