Democratic education : How teachers work to educate active citizens in social studies in grade F-3

This study aims to investigate how the school’s democratic duty is implemented in school activities, both inside and outside the classroom but within the school framework, focusing on how active teachers work. Around the world, democracies decline, which is a threat to democratic societies. In the subject of civics, focusing on the younger grades, elementary school and middle school, there are limited range of research, which created an interest in exploring what kind of teaching and working methods affect students’ democratic engagement, according to the interviewed teachers. The study was based on semi-structured interviews with six teachers and is of a qualitative nature. The theory unpinning the work, analysis and discussion is based on John Dewey and pragmatism. According to the results that emerges, the teachers believe that they have an extremely important role in educating democratic citizens. They have great freedom in shaping the teaching they want, and their approach influences the students a lot, as they look up to them. The teachers see obstacles that affect their democratic teaching in a negative way. The reasons include lack of time and insufficient financial resources. Teachers also find it challenging to conduct class councils and democratic discussions when the class is not mature enough for that type of work, as the pupils may focus on the wrong topics. They say that the teacher needs to be a clear leader to be able to divert the pupils and minimise time talking about other topics during class councils for example. However, discussions, class councils, theme days and reward days are methods that they consider to be good methods that affects the pupils understanding for democracy in a good way. The results that emerge, are consistent with the findings of previous research. It suggests that a safe classroom environment and concrete practical exercises help pupils in elementary school to consolidate new knowledge. Keywords Schools’ democratic duty, Democracy education, Active citizens, Teachers’ interpretations, Democracy, Practical working methods