One of the most central aims for Swedish educators is to teach young people to become democratic citizens who are not only acquainted with the democratic procedures but who also act democratically in relationships with others. Hence, democracy as an inter-personal phenomenon can be comprehended as responsibility for others - a channel that generates the "proper" responses to others which in turn are seen as essential for a democracy that strives to include everyone. Even though this dimension of democracy is described as important in Swedish school documents they none the less direct the major attention towards the procedural dimensions of democracy or more precisely the procedures believed to be necessary within a deliberate democracy. In addition, factors such as how schools are organized, reinforcement structures as well as narrow definitions of learning all work to emphasize practices of passing on specific subject matter to students. What thus is being neglected is the amount of, and nature of, practises that involve setting the preconditions which allow or facilitate for such learning to occur, in concurrence with learning responsibility for others. We argue that a living democracy is inseparable from the encounters that take place between concrete people and that these encounters are not by-products of a procedural schemata but the actual cradle of democracy itself. By emphasizing democracy as an inter-personal phenomenon we want to problemize the general assumption that democratic citizenship is something for the individual to acquire in the future, instead of something we practice in the present. Consequently, there is a point in acknowledging the silenced but nonetheless existing expressions of democracy as an inter-personal phenomena which appear in practices of teaching and encounters with other concrete persons. We will be drawing mainly on feminist theory, supplemented by empirical examples from students and teachers. More precisely, the paper aims to discuss and exemplify terms such as the concrete other, marginalisation, relations, emotions, power, personal politics, and justice as tools to deal with and understand responsibility for others as an inter-personal phenomenon indispensable for a democratic society.Old theories about a just democracy based on rules and principles between general others is thus questioned in this paper. Instead we claim that if a living democracy is to be taken seriously new theories that places the emphasies on human relations and relationships are required. bell hooks (1990). Yearning - Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press.Biesta, Gert. (2006). Beyond learning: democratic education for a human future. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Biesta, Gert J. J., & Miedema, Siebren. (2002). Instruction or pedagogy? The need for a transformative conception of education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18:2, 173. Biesta, Gert, & Lawy, Robert. (2006). From teaching citizenship to learning democracy: overcoming individualism in research, policy and practice. Cambridge Journal of Education, 36:1, 63. Bingham, Charles W., & Sidorkin, Alexander M. (2004). No education without relation. New York: P. Lang. Bronwyn Davies (2003). Hur pojkar och flickor gör kön. Stockholm: Liber.Colnerud, Gunell, Thornberg, Robert (2003). Värdepedagogik i internationell belysning.Skolverkets rapport nr 7. Stockholm: Fritzes. Edling, Silvia (2006). "Har jag verkligen makt att ta ansvar för andra?" In (ed. Säfström Carl Anders) Den mångtydiga skolan. Utbildning i det postmoderna samhället. Lund: StudentlitteraturEkman, Joakim, Todosijevic, Sladjana (2002). Unga demokrater. En översikt av den aktuella forskningen om ungdomar, politik och skolans demokrativärden. Stockholm: Myndigheten för skolutveckling.Fielding, Michael. (2006). Leadership, radical student engagement and the necessity of person-centred education. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 9:4, 299.Frelin, Anneli (2006). "Perspektiv på professionalitet. Analys av hur en lärare handlar i syfte att främja demokrati i skolan". In (ed. Säfström Carl Anders) Den mångtydiga skolan. Utbildning i det postmoderna samhället. Lund: StudentlitteraturPhillips, Anne (1998). Feminism and Politics. Oxford REadings in Feminism. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.Säfström, Carl-Anders (2005). Skillnadens pedagogik. Lund: Studentlitteratur.Weedon, Chris (1999).Young, Iris. Marion (1990). Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton/New Jersey: Princeton University Press.