‘Education for democracy’ is called for in the Horizon Work Programme 2021-2022 of the European Commission. Education, it says, “plays an important role in bolstering democratic citizenship and strengthening the resilience of democratic societies“. The call also asks for proposals for “ways to support teaching staff, with a view to bolstering democratic values, critical thinking skills and positive social engagement in a holistic way”. Research on education, youth participation and belonging of minority groups, however, indicate that bolstering a fixed set of democratic values and a definite understanding of citizenship runs the risk of pacifying, excluding or just discouraging children and young people from taking part in democracy. On this background, we want to discuss an approach divergent to that of bolstering what is already there, which is education for democracy in the form of “political subjectification” (Biesta 2011, Ranciere 2004, Lieberkind 2021). Political subjectification is a matter of engendering subjectivity by engaging students in political processes, rather than socializing them into the existing order (Biesta 2011).

The purpose of this paper is to widen the discussion of what ‘education for democracy’ could be, as well as thickening the understanding of political subjectification. We also project a research design for exploring how political subjectification can come about.

Our starting point is the Danish case. The preamble to the School Act stipulates that Danish schools are obligated to support as well as to practice democracy, in regard to which we will make two points:

Firstly, classroom observations in school environment shows that ‘us-and-them’ polarisation and othering processes take place on a wide scale in Danish schools (see among others Lagermann 2019, Rasmussen 2018, Gilliam 2009). A monocultural understanding of democracy further such tendencies and tend to create cultural hierarchies and to dehumanise some individuals and groups. These traits, in turn, give raise to reactions that can take the form of actively opposing democracy or passively withdrawing from civic engagement.

Secondly, data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2016 (based on test results and surveys of pupils aged 14-15 in 24 countries) shows some contradictory findings when it comes to Danish students (Bruun et al. 2017). Danish students obtain the highest average of all countries in a test on civic knowledge, i.e. knowledge of politics, society and democracy. Yet Danish students are last of all participating nationalities when asked whether they consider it important that adults engage in protests, work for human rights and for the environment. The Danish students seemingly know about democracy, yet they render little importance to taking part in democracy. The Danish researchers in the ICCP name this cohort of youth, “the reserved citizens” (Lieberkind & Bruun 2021).

Apparently, various hinderings to the participation of young people exist. The question is, what it takes to bring about political subjectification in school in a ways that have a chance to promote participation of young people today?

We are currently building up to a future project where we intend to pursue this question and explore whether various dialogue schemes for dialog-based teaching (Jensen, 2014, 2016, 2019) can provide insights into ways of developing political subjectification. Dialog-based teaching is defined as a framework for a learning process that emphasizes high student involvement and activity with a goal of developing the ability of participants to think, reflect and collaborate, regardless of their age, socio-economic status or educational background. But to what degree does dialog-based teaching contribute to the development of political subjectification?

In asking these questions we draw on a wide range but also disparate empirical data – among them our own classroom observations (Rasmussen 2018) and studies of dialogue schemes (Jensen 2019). In the presentation we do not intend to discuss the methodology of our past work, but rather raise the question of the methodology and method of our future study, in which we wish to explore further how school support or hinder political subjectification. We will select methods that are informed by our use of theory and we focus on: 1. We will elaborate on privies studies by making observations of interactions that occur in the physical space: the class room. We build on Stake (1995; 1998) and his definitions of the characteristics of case study and meaning making of experiences and observations within a bounded context. With the qualitative based observations in classrooms, we give priority to the understanding of the complex structures of power and knowledge production in the classroom (micro level), and briefly touch on the school structures (meso level) and the national educational policy impact (macro level). 2. Interventions with dialoguebased teaching: With an Action research-based approach we will focus on developing opportunities for political subjectification in classrooms. The approach is, a methodology based on active collaboration between practitioners and professional researchers, entails co-creation and exchange between the practice field and academia (Coghlan & Brannick 2006). Action research has been used with particular success in educational settings (Chemi 2011) and builds on a belief that teachers/educators can make better decisions in the classroom if they have participated in research that can determine the basis for their decisions (Zeichner 2001:274). The research will in this case focus on dialog-based teaching that offers benefits for social cohesion, cultural engagement and democratic vitality (Alexander 2017) that can open doors to new ways of thinking (Reznitskaya et al. 2009; Mercer et al 2007). 3. Interviews with school children: We are inspired by Stephenson’s Q methodology (Stephenson 1953), which is an alternative form of factorial analysis concerned with the operationalizing of subjectivity. Q methodology and Q analysis make it possible to see which subject positions exist within a concourse and how they are configured. The Q method involve sorting by the participants, who must rank predetermined statements according to how much they agree or disagree with them. The statements will be used in qualitative interviews both before and after interventions.

With the proposed paper, we aim at putting to contest the platform for our future project in which we like to explore further the questions of political subjectification in school. And we aim at approaching the question of how teachers can engender engagement in a way that open doors for student’s political subjectification. The specific objectives are to: • Identify existing knowledge and research on democratic school culture and political subjectification in Europe (desk-research) • Conducting in-depth research and observations in classrooms that can elaborate on privious studies on political subjectification (Qualitative research and observation studies) • Developing, testing and implementing dialog-based teaching in an action-based research-driven collaboration between researchers, teachers, and teacher-students. • Evaluate the impact of the dialog-based teaching on the students experience of political subjectification The purpose of the paper is to widen the discussion of what ‘education for democracy’ could be, as well as thickening the understanding of political subjectification. In the presentation we will first discuss the premises of the outlined project – what is political subjectification and is it an alternative to that of bolstering the existing order? Secondly, we will discuss whether dialog-based teaching bears promises as to engaging students in political processes and bringing about political subjectification? Thirdly, we will present some preliminary findings from the pilot classroom observations in a Danish school.

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