Action 2.1: MULTILATERAL DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION

Action 2.1 consists in a consolidation of different ways of approaching democracy – by different social groups – theoreticians and practitioners, scientists and activists, teachers and learners, etc., coming from different countries, environments, educational systems. Basing on two fundamental principles that (1) democracy is a personal construct (created on the basis of individual experience and a unique network of notions), and (2) democracy as a concept belongs to different sciences and disciplines (none of which is more important or less significant than the others). Action 2.1 aims to work out strategies of multilateral democratic education – i.e. relating to values, affect, actions, and cognition, at the same time excluding scientific affiliation of democracy, thus resting on interdisciplinarity and equal treatment of various sciences and socially-and-substantively negotiation of meanings.

In practice, pro-democratic educational strategies boil down to a consolidation of answers to four fundamental questions: How do we value democracy? What do we do for the sake of democracy? How do we feel with regard to democracy? How do we understand democracy? – considered from the position of different sciences and disciplines. Both (a) approaching democracy from the perspective of one educational domain only (e.g. through how we understand democracy without taking into account what we do or how we feel with regard to it), as well as (b) assigning democracy to one discipline (be it political science or economics) without viewing it through the prism of other disciplines, renders democratic education deficient and thus essentially harmful as it generates a faulty picture of democracy. (Executing such a consolidation of approaches to democracy and democratisation, the European Centre for the Education for Democracy shall become a meeting place – in the literal and figurative sense – for various, mutually complementary, viewpoints.

Action 2.1 assumes paying particular attention to linguistic and contextual facets – which per Se point to the need for undertaking and continuing the consolidation in question: with democracy being a personal – socially and substantively – negotiated construct with participation of a different language and a different context, we all must be sensitive to various points of view, differently expressed and experienced in different circumstances, whilst our joint sensitivity in this respect may substantially contribute to safety and peace. No-one can be denied the right to construe democracy in their own way, albeit socially determined, and no particular way of speaking about democracy can be imposed on anyone, as due to diverse networks of terms and diverse social experience, for each human being particular concepts may signify something markedly different.

The sense of Action 2.1 and the consolidation in question can also be presented by reversing the said perspective: as people are different, as they have different interests and speak diverse languages, education which has the chance of – democratically – “reaching” them all must draw on various conceptual categories. In other words, the language (language code) which successfully clarifies the essence of democracy to one person does not need to be by definition suitable for any other person (despite many educational systems placing students in one line, so to speak, as if their network of terms was completely identical). We thus presume that thanks to the consolidation realised under Action 2.1, ECED will work out interdisciplinary strategies of democratic education which can be employed by different countries in Europe and in the world. For the time being, this type of consolidation of approaches to democracy is not carried out by any other UE entity.