The purpose of this systematic review was to provide an overview of research on the question: Which teaching practices promote students' democracy learning? We utilized a rigorous approach to thoroughly survey the literature and report research findings. The studies chosen focused on teaching practices with the explicit goal of enhancing students' democracy learning in school. Our review encompasses both intervention studies, which investigate the hypothesized causal relationship between specific teaching methods and students’ democracy learning, and correlational studies, which examine the connection between the classroom environment and students’ democracy learning. The studies indicate that teaching methods involving a high degree of student participation, such as discussions, group work, role-playing simulations, and student involvement in decision-making, effectively foster democracy learning. Furthermore, the studies suggest that an open and positive classroom environment, and teacher engagement, leadership and attitudes, are crucial factors in promoting students’ democracy learning.

The information search was carried out in the following databases: Education Source – Education, ERIC – Education, APA PsycInfo – Psychology and Scopus – Interdisciplinary. The database searches were performed by first identifying relevant keywords in the three categories of (1) teaching, (2) students and children, and (3) democracy. The keywords in the three categories were gathered and formulated into search strings that were combined to find studies that included at least one keyword from all categories. The literature searches generated 7,771 unique hits that were entered into Rayyan QCRI software for screening. The team reviewed all titles and abstracts of the studies identified in the literature search. The studies that did not match the established criteria were excluded. The final part of the screening process was carried out by the three authors of this study, that independently of each other through a blinded procedure read the articles and judged whether they met with the criteria or not Studies that at least one of the persons judged to meet the criteria was passed on to the next step that included a joint quality appraisal. 139 studies remained for further screening in full text. The full text reading was also carried out by the authors, independently of each other. In this step the person who, after reading the full text, judged that a publication should be excluded was also required to indicate the reasons for this in accordance with the selection criteria and quality concerns. After the full text review, 54 studies remained, and after further discussions about remaining issues 21 studies that met the criteria remained. Based on the results, a citation search was performed to find studies that had cited the remaining studies, as well as a chain search to find studies in the remaining studies’ reference lists. A total of 29 studies were included in the review. After that we carried out a systematic result extraction. Data and result extraction involves extracting relevant information from the studies included in the review. The aim was to describe the studies in terms of the research methods used, the results, and the conclusions. The work involved reviewing each study and noting the research question, research method, participants, teaching situation, materials, and tools used in teaching, as well as the researchers' interpretations and conclusions.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this review. For upper secondary students, there are indications that it may be beneficial for teachers to combine teaching practices and include tasks and approaches that allow students to engage in discussions characterized by openness. For students in lower grades, there are signs that in certain contexts, it may be negative for teachers to use many different teaching methods to promote students’ democracy learning. The overall results of the review support the idea that teaching that involves students is beneficial for promoting their democracy learning, both in terms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values. Teaching for students’ democracy learning is about developing values and attitudes, which to some extent requires that the student is at the center of her or his learning process. Overall, the studies in this review show that there are different aspects of democracy learning that can be promoted through different teaching practices. The research field, we argue, would benefit from a more systematic way of studying the outcomes of various teaching methods and teaching interventions in the subject teaching and in different school years, such as in lower school years where research is particularly meagre. We hope that this research review can inspire researchers to develop such a systematic research agenda that, in turn, could provide a more comprehensive picture of what the most productive ways of teaching to promote democracy are and can be.

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