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…

This study analyses how "active democratic participation" is conceptualised by sixteen teacher educators from eight institutions of higher education across four Nordic countries and how these conceptualisations are translated into their own teaching. Teacher educators' strong adherence to a liberal discourse on democratic education may…

In this paper, we draw on policy sociology and democratic theory to illustrate how evidence-based practice not only limits teachers' capacities to exercise professional discretion and authority, but also jeopardises the democratic project of schooling more broadly. Using theoretical concepts from Foucault's discipline with Connolly's…

This paper, based on the Praxis Lecture I delivered at the National Association of Kinesiology in Higher Education Conference in January 2024, articulates how my experiences at a Danish gymnastic folkehøjskole (folk high school) and højskole pedagogy inform my teaching and service. After defining højskole pedagogy, I discuss how I incorporate its…

Following ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, councils involving young people have become widespread, both in developed and developing countries. However, these councils are said to reflect the hierarchical nature of parliamentary and representative democracy, leading to tokenistic…

Education of democratic citizens is a fundamental aspect of Danish primary and secondary schooling. However, policymakers push school principals' agency towards professional leadership by encouraging specific methods for assessing student learning outcomes. Enactment of a learning management system (LMS) supports the transition towards…

This chapter traces the influence of the EU Youth Guarantee (YG) in Denmark and discusses how Danish education and labour market policy relates to the Youth Guarantee principles. The political context is that Denmark is a parliamentary democracy and a welfare state of the social-democratic type. The Youth Guarantee has had limited direct…

Citizenship education played a crucial role in the 19th century transition from royal sovereignty to democracy in the Nordic region, with folk high schools (FHS) playing an important role. While established to empower the people ("folk") for active participation in society, the contemporary folk high schools have reoriented from their…

This article explores how the translation of a pedagogical approach from a Danish University to a Ugandan university was negotiated by participants during a capacity building project. More specifically, it offers an empirical study of the planning process of transforming a traditional curriculum to a Problem Based Learning (PBL) curriculum and…

In this article, I will explore and discuss the Danish school systems as contexts for democracy and togetherness. The article assumes that democracy presupposes togetherness, but also that togetherness is an ambiguous concept that favours certain forms of social cohesion and excludes others. I suggest that the Danish school, with its strong…

Looking back at the history of society, culture and institutions in Denmark can produce snapshots of the foundation of education and educational leadership. In some respects, the history of culture, society and education goes back at least 200 years. Educational theories, institutional structures and leadership practices can be framed as a quest…

Entrepreneurship Education often emphasizes the practical applications of competencies. This article aims to collect findings on entrepreneurship education linked to democratic formation in primary education as experienced by teacher students. Based on a model from the Danish Foundation for Entrepreneurship and theories on democratic formation and…

In this article we argue for the need to rethink the crisis of democracy both within and beyond education (Toft and Rüsselbaek Hansen, 2017). This crisis can be explained variously, depending on how it is understood and on what basis. From our point of view, and with inspiration from thinkers as Nietzsche, Arendt, Agamben and Rancière, we argue…

This paper reviews two main historical approaches to creativity: the Romanticist approach, based on the culture of the irrational, and the Enlightenment approach, based on the culture of the objective. It defends a paradigm of creativity as a sum of rich semiotic systems that form the basis of distributed knowledge and learning, reviews historical…

Purpose: This article investigates the role of private supplementary tutoring in Denmark in light of the country's pedagogical traditions in schools and leisure spheres. Design/Approach/Methods: Although tutoring activities are increasing, the phenomenon is not as prevalent in Denmark as in many other countries. In this article, we look into the…