This phenomenological research examines democracy education and the conditions contributing to young students' democratic agency. The dataset includes interview and observation data from a school and educational decision-makers. The findings from the iterative analysis highlight the contradictions between democracy education as an ideal and…

The paper discusses the Finnish core curriculum (curriculum framework) for basic education, with focus on how lower secondary education in general, and history teaching specifically, is meant to develop the student's democratic citizenship. Developing the student's democratic citizenship is not an explicit aim of history teaching in the current…

Teacher education (TE) in Finland is based on strong university autonomy, including the right to decide the curriculum content and the teaching methods. Democracy and its values are generally seen as central principles for TE, and the normative basis for education promoting democratic culture is strong. However, in practice, education for…

Democracy is increasingly being challenged, by disengagement and by anti-pluralist movements (Levitsky and Ziblatt in How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future, Viking, New York, 2018; Wikforss in "Därför demokrati. Om kunskapen och folkstyret" [Because of this, democracy. On knowledge and people's rule] Fri Tanke, 2021;…

Purpose: The new Finnish National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (2018) strongly highlights pedagogical knowledge and practice, demanding teachers to develop their pedagogical thinking, evaluation, judgment, and operating culture. Since ethics is viewed as vital characteristics of the teaching profession, our objective is…

Historically, education for active citizenship has not been a high priority in Finnish schools. In this discursive study of Finnish social studies textbooks for grades 4-6, we investigate how students are encouraged to practice active citizenship, where the focus of active citizenship lies, and how active citizenship is limited in antidemocratic…

This open access book presents an in-depth analysis of data from ICCS. An international group of scholars critically address the state of civic and citizenship education in the four Nordic countries that participated in the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) in 2009 and 2016. The findings are of particular relevance to…

This book critiques dominant discourses and debates pertaining to values education, cultural identity and teaching democracy, set against the backdrop of growing social stratification and unequal access to quality education. It addresses discourses concerning globalisation, ideologies and the state, as well as approaches to values education and…

The Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for children to be treated as human beings with a distinct set of rights, instead of as passive objects of care. They can and should be agents in their own lives. Child-initiated pedagogy recognizes this by respecting children's individual and collective views, interests, and motivations.…

In this paper, the authors discuss the influence of democracy and law on music education in Sweden and Finland, and the potential for music education as training in democracy. The latter consideration can be instructive regardless of the nation, or its laws and paradigms of music education. The theoretical background is based on Jurgen Habermas'…

The winning of an artist representing the lowest level of Finnish musical taste during the 2006 Eurovision song contest marks not only the rebellious attitude towards the over-sanitized contest, but it was the result of a new practice--voting by text message. Recently, music-biased schools that were once selective of the music they teach are now…

Discusses the concept of democracy as a social contract between equal individuals. Argues that women's individuality is relative rather than absolute despite the formal equality of Western societies. Questions the neutral definition of pupils when students are socially, politically, or economically unequal. Explores child-centered education and…

Western preschools and schools find it important to nurture democracy. However, in order to succeed in nurturing democracy, democratic ideas must be implemented in all situations. Education alone, therefore, is not enough. All children must experience real influence over their situations, and experience the opportunity for self-determination in…

This book, which focuses on how personality, societal values and politics have influenced the mission of adult education, contains 34 papers originally presented at a 2000 conference on the history of adult education. Following a Foreword (Poggeler) and Preface (Nemeth) the papers are: "The Globalization of Adult Education and the One World…