Youth work as a school of democracy ? - Democracy education revisited

One of the ongoing challenges and tasks for a democracy is to develop a democratic culture among its citizens. Democratic institutions certainly form an important base but without the development of corresponding attitudes among the people, they are running the risk to remain an empty shelf. For the field of youth work the question therefore appears to what extend it can contribute to the development of democratic competences among their target group. This is of special importance as adolescence is a phase where basic features of the personality are formed and intensive reflections on one’s own position in society are taking place. With the use of the term democratic competences it is also implied that democracy education can't be limited to provide abstract knowledge about the political system. To close the gap between the theoretical teachings and democratic practices it rather needs approaches, which allow young people to go through an experiential learning process. These formats should give them the chance to get into deep reflections on their own explicit and implicit attitudes towards democracy and the consequences for their personal life. Apart from the question of how youth work can contribute to the development of a democratic culture an interrelated question is to what extent, youth work itself can be democratic. This question is of crucial importance for the task of democracy education as an inconsistency between the desired learning outcomes and the youth work framework can harm its good intentions. The possible ideal of youth work as a 'school of democracy' therefore needs to go beyond the question of the right methodology and to critically discuss the traditional power relations between educators and young people. Taking into consideration the described context the proposed project "Youth Work as a school for democracy? - Democracy education revisited" therefore wants to give youth workers and youth leaders from program and EECA + Russia partner countries the chance to gain new competences in facilitating experience based democracy education activities, while at the same time reflecting about the challenges and chances of a further democratization of youth work approaches.