Framework

DEMOCRACY-AS-BECOMING

We view democracy not as a ‘finished product’ but as a holistic process of becoming. Four principles express our understanding of democracy-as-becoming. Below you can find these principles and some examples of what they can mean in practice in educational settings and the development of learning opportunities.


POWER SHARING
Inclusive participation, mutual respect, having a say, and exercising autonomy

• Providing activities where responsibility is distributed among the learners (including educators).
• Creating situations for taking initiative and leading or co-leading processes related to study and social life.
• Creating a culture in which all (learners and educators) feel valued, value each other and recognise their contribution to the process of co-learning and co-working.
• Creating a culture in which everyone has a voice and gives voice to others in the educational context to enable socially-just processes and outcomes in decision-making.
• Balancing autonomy with group settings, where physical, emotional and cognitive autonomy for independent learning and problem-solving are alternated with collaborative and creative projects or activities with others.

TRANSFORMING DIALOGUE
Open exchange of views to enhance mutual understanding and seek out the greater good

• Creating a culture which encourages openness to rethinking one’s own beliefs, feelings and embodied experiences.
• Creating a culture of open and free communication in which topical issues and points of view can be shared without fear of judgment.
• Creating a culture which encourages listening to diverse points of view, discussing them and trying to achieve mutual understanding and respect.
• Creating a culture which encourages being ready to receive the message and be open to the points of view of others.


HOLISTIC LEARNING

Growth in a broad range of capabilities, including aesthetic and embodied awareness and critical thinking

• Engaging learners in experiential learning practices where they learn by doing, creating and problem-solving, and developing critical thinking through engaging learners in hands-on experiences and reflection to enable them to connect knowledge acquired to real-world situations.
• Activating not only learners’ cognitive capabilities but also their emotional, aesthetic, spiritual and embodied capabilities for more effective and comprehensive learning and to help learners develop better engagement with peers, greater confidence and a stronger sense of responsibility of their actions.
• Using different types of content and arts-based and embodied learning methods, such as collage-creation, drama, photography, drawing, etc.

RELATIONAL WELL-BEING

Feelings of belonging and connectedness to others, nature and that which feeds the human spirit, in a community that also values thinking for oneself

• Establishing educational settings that enhance feelings of belonging and mutual acceptance.
• Organising events which empower connectedness to local communities, nature and the world.
• Carrying out projects with the active engagement of learners and others as appropriate to the context (such as administrators, educational leaders, community, family and policy actors) to promote a sense of community and well-being.
• Providing space and activities where learners are welcome to think independently for themselves to make their own judgments even if they differ from others’.

DEMOCRATIC VALUES TO BE NURTURED

EQUALITY

Situational sensitivity which aims at furthering equal opportunities for learning, mutual respect, participation and the lessening of unjustified socio-economic inequalities and their negative effects

• Promoting a respectful and just learning environment where all students have a fair opportunity to fully participate in the learning process. Addressing inequalities may involve adapting activities and environments to better accommodate the needs of diverse participants. Participants should be encouraged to communicate their needs. Providing all learners with opportunities to play multiple roles in the learning process so that they get the experience of “feeling in the shoes” of both leaders and followers, teachers and students, actors and spectators, politicians and voters, employers and employees etc.
• Practising education by lowering hierarchies and with mutual respect.
• Creating opportunities to reflect on hierachies of power and authority and think which ones should be challenged.
• Creating opportunities to reflect on inequalities and discuss how they can be counteracted; searching for possibilities for learners to support and empower each other.

RESPONSIVENESS

A respectful, caring process of becoming together, where safe-as-possible learning spaces are co-created

• Creating a culture that helps to cultivate love for the world and the people in it, faith in humankind and hope.
• Co-creating safe spaces to learn together, thus uniting efforts for creating safe teaching and learning spaces where learners and educators co-think, co-work and co-become by caring for each other.
• Creating opportunities to deepen situational sensitivity and responsiveness to diversity of local cultures, place, participants, policy, power and empowerment.
• Designing collaborative learning processes and settings that are based on participation and inclusive values.
• Fostering interaction and reflection at any time of the process.

FREEDOM

Openness to the other and oneself as encouragement of self-expression as well as space-giving to others’ freedom

• Building an environment that works to dismantle oppression, challenges othering, bullying or victimising behaviour, and encourages openness to oneself and others.
• Creating a culture that encourages appreciation and use of one’s own freedom for self-expression, giving space to others’ freedom for self-expression and acting in a respectful and non-violent manner within established and agreed social and cultural, moral and ethical norms.
• Creating opportunities to deepen understanding that our freedom is based on the freedom of others and is not a freedom of the isolated individual.