MISSION

ECED’s Premises

EUROPE is now observing the erosion of democratic systems and internal attempts at its unity’s destabilisation.

This being the case, if the European Union aspires to retain duration and secure its development and expansion, its member states badly need (1) educational solutions serving the civic agency of all generations, with democracy taught through active practice in various formal and extra-formal settings; (2) upbringing strategies strengthening identification and the sense of community on a local, national, and the European scale; (3) education helping citizens to counteract disinformation by developing their cognitive abilities and critical thinking under lifewide lifelong learning; (4) schools developing the legal and economic awareness of citizens enhancing their social trust.

The democratisation of societies is the most urgent and most vital task of the 21st century, and to achieve these goals, extensive international cooperation on the educational level is required. Europe clearly needs an international centre creating pro-democratic educational strategies.

AIMS

ECED as the “educational fuse” of democracy

ECED is meant as a widely understood European pro-democratic educational hub, generating, assembling, and spreading knowledge and experience serving democracy. Located in Poland, the Centre supports the community of Europe and fills a gap on the educational stratum. Treating education as a basis for positive local and global changes, ECED is to serve as a “fuse” of democracy which needs protection against the tendencies of deconstruction advancing around the world. Hence, ECED rests on the rationale whereby our safety can be substantially strengthened through well-informed democratic teaching and well-intended democratic learning.

Location

Poland as the location of ECED

Poland has made a substantial contribution to the development and protection of democracy – in the past and over the recent years, which can be regarded from two complementary perspectives:

(A) external perspective: whilst in the past it is in Poland that Solidarity was born and sparked the democratisation of different European states, now Poland is the state where pro-democratic formations have won the parliamentary, local, and European elections – despite the opposite, i.e. nationalistic and isolationistic trend gaining popularity in Europe and around the world. Poland is the state which has recently been showing its far-reaching solidarity to millions of Ukrainians fleeing their war-stricken motherland, whereby Poland has demonstrated the profound sense of community. Hence, Poland has become the brightest point of the democratic map of Europe and ECED aims to build upon these pro-democratic wins and to solidify and to transfer the Polish pro-unity experience on the level of education.

(B) internal perspective: Poland is furthermore the state where numerous other pro-democratic developments have been observed carried out by different groups of people on different strata, including:

  • the socio-political dimension: in 2023 the dominance of political forces dismantling the foundations of the democratic system was overcome. October 15 marked in Poland the victory of democracy comparable to the first, partially free elections in 1989. After 8 years, despite persistent indoctrination, the Polish society opted for democratic values. Taking place at the point when Poland proudly celebrates 25 years of self local-government and 20 years of her EU membership, that victory of the pro-democratic and pro-European options in the last EP elections places Poland in the role of a leader in cherishing values guaranteeing freedom and safety;
  • the pedagogical dimension: the humanistic legacy of Janusz Korczak/Henryk Goldszmit, whose social activity and educational work attest to the care for the child’s and man’s good, has been extensively and intensively drawn upon as a model for the subjective treatment of children/people and respect to their rights. The experience of two protective establishments for children – Dom Sierot, managed jointly with Stefania Wilczyńska, and Nasz Dom, founded by Maryna Falska – has provided grounds a long-term social and educational experiment, with the students learning democracy through practising it on a daily basis. Based on Janusz Korczak’s legacy, an increasingly larger number of non-governmental organisations and institutions have gathered in the social, Polish and international, Korczak movement;
  • the interdisciplinary dimension: an interdisciplinary study model of democracy, based on the notion of multilateral education, has been implemented. This model (described at length in the Annals published by the group initiating ECED) points to the necessity of taking into account throughout democratic education four questions – How do we value democracy? What do we do for democracy? How do we feel about democracy? How do we understand democracy? – that is the requirement of such education that treats democracy through the prism of axiological, pragmatic, affective, and cognitive aspects. Such a form of democratisation has two key merits: it renders democracy a personal educational experience and “gives the floor” to different disciplines of science and ways of experiencing reality, frequently underlain by diversified language and means of reasoning;
  • the scientific dimension: the so-called lexometry has been devised in Poland. Lexometry is a unique research method making it possible to comprehensively establish the volume of the legislator’s long-term engagement in the realisation of particular legislative policies. It covers an expert analysis of data on the goals adopted by legislative bodies and also application of mathematical modelling for the processing and presenting aggregated data. It enables the finding of deep connections between socioeconomic processes and the activity of legislatures. In this way lexometry allows diagnoses concerning the change of the social and legal order. One merit of the application of the method is that for years it has already been employed with regard to the 30-year legislative activity of one state (Poland).

It all makes Poland a highly suitable location of the European Centre for the Education for Democracy and justifies the Polish claims to the role of the leader in solidifying the heavily-jeopardised EU unity.

Steering Committee

Steering Committee

ECED’s Supporters

ECED’s Supporters

Founding Team

Founding Team

Managing Team

Managing Team
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