The Civic Education Study IEA distinguishes differences between different countries and parts of Europe when it comes to students’ involvement and democratic experiences. Many 14-year-old students from Denmark, Norway and Sweden have been members of student councils and express strong beliefs that their democratic engagement will actually lead to positive results. In addition to these results, Nordic educational research describes complex and shifting gender patterns within democracy processes in schools. For girls, lower secondary school can imply both a threat of marginalisation and possibilities to positions implying agency. Taking these composite patterns as a starting point this paper will highlight a portion of the material provided by an ethnographic study of democracy processes among Swedish lower secondary school students. The aim is to focus on students’ actions and attempts to influence a certain issue in school. More specifically it explores the establishing and work done by a student governed environmental group at a Swedish lower secondary school. The forming of the group, in October 2007, was initiated by two girls, and the group came to engage students, mostly girls, in grade 8. The analysis stresses the organization, constitution and work of the group, internal and external relations, and some of the group members’ experiences, with focus on individual-collective agency and institutional frames. The study draws on participatory and communicative democracy theories. The British political scientist Carole Pateman argues that participation, except for further participation and political interest, also opens up to political confidence. She has influenced contemporary research on citizenship and democracy processes, pointing out that women’s political actions are marginalised and privatised. Work by the American political scientist Iris Marion Young focuses communicative aspects of democracy and procedural issues of participation in deliberation and decision-making. Her theoretical framework provides analytical tools for highlighting both institutional structures and agency. Starting from questions of justice she discusses institutional processes which prevent individuals from self-actualisation. Agency is conceptualized by the terms group and serie, by which one can take notice of collective agency without defining individuals as a definitive group in relation to gender or other social aspects. Emphasizing the gender perspective further, I also use theories and concepts by R.W Connell; the construction of gender in relation to democracy processes, gender order and gender regimes.

I use data provided by an ongoing ethnographic study about citizenship education and democracy processes in lower secondary school with focus on institutional structures and students’ and teachers’ actions. The ethnography has been carried out in three Swedish lower secondary schools, with material consisting of 229 participative observations (lessons, formal meetings and other school related activities), 63 interviews (students, teachers and principals) and 89 recorded conversations with students, teachers and principals. The data in use in this analysis consists of six participative observations of the environmental group’s meetings, and interviews with four of the group members, the two girls who founded the group, and two participating boys.

By forming the environmental group a seriell condition of being “students”, changes into a group condition, a condition which is strengthen by the work and thoughts of the two initiators; the outspoken policy of joint aims; the communicative ideals; the ambition to agree on procedures; the distribution of tasks and responsibility. The group is supported by the school staff, and is adapting to existing local organisational and institutional structures. The political action and internal relations within the group are characterized by politically active girls and boys taking subordinate roles. This is discussed in terms of individual and collective agency and a conclusion drawn is that the initiators actions reflect both, while the boys act more individually orientated. The analysis also shows different individual experiences. These are discussed in terms of self-actualisation and it’s concluded that the initiators’, not the boys’, experiences reflect self-actualisation.