The social crises of the last few years have led to social uncertainty among the younger generation (Andresen et al., 2022). In Germany, this is also accompanied by doubts about the existing democracy, especially among young people from middle and low educational backgrounds (Habich & Remete, 2023; Open Society Foundation, 2023). In addition, young people hardly feel noticed by politics, which reduces satisfaction with democracy (Vodafone Stiftung, 2022).

In Germany, youth work, youth organizations and clubs are important places for leisure activities and important settings for non-formal education. These activities bring together young people and the support of youth workers or educators, so that young people can express and organize themselves for their interests and take responsibility (Düx et al., 2008; BMFSFJ, 2012).

In these contexts, young people's insecurities are addressed by them having access to democratic forms of action, creating and establishing norms and values in everyday interactions and being able to communicate their needs and interests. Democracy – at least in the intention – is the “goal, object and practice of education” also in German youth work (BMFSFJ, 2020, p. 125).

The focus of the paper is the promotion of civic participation as a special approach to democratic education. Especially in the non-formal educational context of youth work, which is based on maxims such as voluntariness or interest orientation (Sturzenhecker, 2021; BMFSFJ, 2020), there are special participation opportunities for young people: Here participation itself is a maxim, and can have a variety of forms, f.e. the adoption of responsibility in youth associations, the participation in youth committees (e.g. youth parliaments) or informal participation through interactional everyday processes (Züchner & Peyerl, 2015).

The article therefore aims to discuss the extent to which (the facilitation of) participation in youth work as a non-formal place of education can enable democratic education.
To determine the goal of democratic education, discourses around citizenship learning draw on the distinction learning about, for and through democracy (Bîrcéa et al., 2004; Sant, 2019), which together supposed “the meaning and functioning, the normative expectations and perspectives for action as well as open up the rules, behavior, conventions and creative scope of democratic communities" (Edelstein, 2009, p. 82). While learning about democracy is primarily aimed at imparting knowledge, learning for democracy is primarily about promoting democratic value orientations (Kołczyńska, 2020).

In particular, learning through democracy is closely linked to Dewey's idea of democracy as “a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience” (Dewey, 1916/2023, p. 144). Dewey (1939/2021) assumes that democracy as a way of life is characterized by the ability to judge and act intelligently (Dewey, 1939/2021), which is achieved through experiential learning is acquired in one's own local area (Dewey, 1939/2021). Particularly in youth work, democratic education is strongly based on the idea of democracy as the idea of an “embryonic society” (Dewey, 1899/1980, p. 12) and fosters participation experiences.

Particularly for pedagogically initiated participation processes, the question arises, whether all forms of participation contribute to democratic education or whether democratic education as learning through democracy requires reflection processes that clarify the connection of everyday interactions and decision making to the concept of democracy. Drawing on the concept of democratic consciousness (Abdi & Carr, 2013), which includes one’s attention to social processes, an understanding and appreciation of democratic norms, sensitivity to different political power relations, and the recognition of rules and institutions for the creation of general obligations (Himmelmann, 2007), the article discusses the extent to which participation in youth work promotes democratic consciousness.

Based on a theoretical framework and selected findings from the Shell Youth Study (Hurrelmann et al., 2019), a representative repeated youth survey in Germany, which examines, among other things, the orientations and activities of adolescents and young adults, the article draws on materials from the scientific support of the Youth Action Program 2022-2024 in Hesse, in which 19 participation projects in youth work are analyzed. The projects have varying degrees of relevance to promoting democracy, but all focus on fostering youth participation. The projects currently concern, among other things, the de-sire for or design of a pump track system, the support of a youth advisory board and also a state-wide youth congress in Hesse. The article takes this different starting point into account but focuses more on the perceptions and experiences of the young people in the projects. A total of 12 group interviews were conducted, each with three to six participants (aged 13-18). Depending on the project, the partici-pants have a broad variety of social-structural backgrounds. The group interviews collected are evaluated using content analysis and, within the framework of the article, evaluated primarily on a category-based basis (Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2022). The focus is on the analysis of the categories of the forms of participation experienced, the motivation to participate as well as implicit and explicitly expressed references to democracy from the perspective of the young people.

The findings of the shell youth survey show a correlation between engagement for youth interest in youth organizations and democratic orientations, leading to the question, if and how democratic orien-tations are fostered through participation and engagement. The analyses of the interviews so far indi-cate that the young people take part in the participation projects for a variety of reasons, which in at least some projects arise from social or political perceptions and thus have their origin in a democratic consciousness. For some young people, participation arises from their current living environments and social spaces and the desire for changes for young people as a whole. Other young people were fun-damentally committed to strengthening young people's opportunities to participate in (local) politics – both groups expressing not being heard enough as a motive for engagement. And yet other participants primarily strive for social relationships in their groups. Concerning the idea of democratic education, the interviews with the youth groups show, that democratic values such as equality go without saying in the interactions with each other, with youth-workers and politicians. However, it seems as if they are often not aware of these as fundamental parts of democracy.

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