This paper aims to describe the development of an original instrument for the assessment of the current status of democracy within educational institutions. Existing instruments (e.g. Booth & Ainscow, 2002; Köhler, Weber, Brese, Schulz & Carstens, 2018; Scheerens, 2011; Skidmore & Bound, 2008) did not encompass the concept of institutional democracy holistically and were limited to certain aspects of democratic functioning and specific types of educational setting. Within Critical ChangeLab project, we developed Democracy Health Questionnaire (DHQ) and Democracy Health Index (DHI) to assess the democracy health of both schools and institutions providing non-formal educational programmes. DHQ is envisaged as a self-assessment tool that educational institutions can use to estimate the current state of their democracy and plan future activities to improve this important organisational characteristic. Democracy health is conceptualised through two broad areas that indicate the democratic culture of the institution: democratic values and democratic practices. The DHQ measures four democratic values: Participation, Accountability and transparency, Equality, diversity and inclusion, and Eco-social responsibility, and 26 practices that are organised in four domains representing the life-cycle of educational programmes: Development, Access, Delivery, and Outcomes and Impact of educational programmes. DHQ is designed to address the existing diversity of educational institutions, educational programmes, and various European contexts. It is developed in two parallel versions, one for schools and one for institutions providing non-formal educational services. In DHQ the participants are asked to estimate each of the democratic values and practices in their respective institutions on three dimensions: Importance, Current level, and Expectation in five years, using a scale from 0% (not at all) to 100% (very much). In the process of development of the instrument, the DHQ was applied in year 2023/24 across ten EU countries. In total, more than 1500 participants (school directors and individuals in charge of educational programmes within institutions providing a wide range of non-formal educational programmes to youth aged 11 to 18) completed the questionnaire through the online research platform Alchemer. Based on their responses, three indicators of DHI will be calculated: DHI Total and DHI Domain (indicating the current level of institutional democracy weighted by the estimated importance of corresponding items), and DHI profile, indicating democracy health gap between the current state and expectations in five years. In this paper we discuss the usability and validity of DHQ and DHI in measuring and comparing the levels of democracy within educational institutions.

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