How to Create a Democratic ‘People’ through Education? ‘Dannelse’ in the Danish Context

The word people lies at the heart of the concept of democracy. There are many theories that deal with ‘democratic rule’, but when it comes to defining the nature of ‘the people who rule’, we only have shadow theories. Before the introduction of democracy, the aristocracy and the clergy did not see themselves as part of the people. ‘The people’ was a term that was primarily used for the lowest class of society. But the lowest class–the peasantry–did not see themselves as ‘the people who rule’ Creating a democratic ‘people’ therefore requires a transformation of the concept of the people. How to create democratic ‘people’? In Denmark, N.F.S. Grundtvig is the person who has had the greatest influence on the transformation of the concept of the people. He made a connection between sovereignty of the people and education as dannelse. He saw the mob as a threat, whose destructive and ruinous power was visible during the French Revolution. Although the German and Danish concepts ‘volk’ and ‘folk’ share a common ideological basis, they acquired different social and cultural meanings. The fact that the concept of people took a different path in Denmark than in Germany has to do with a different understanding of the concept of Bildung and the concept of dannelse.