What are we teaching when we teach democracy and citizenship to teacher education students?

In this paper, I will present the first article of my PhD-project. The main aim of my project is to explore the perspectives on citizenship as expressed in democracy and citizenship education in social studies at a selection of teacher education institutions in Norway. Democratic governance, as used by March and Olsen (1995), illustrates the different ways in which governments actively reproduce and strengthen the democratic culture, institutions and citizens that is necessary to sustain themselves, in which the education system plays a central part (March & Olsen, 1995; March & Olsen, 2000). Policy documents in Norway and other Nordic countries promote teaching that facilitates active citizenship, with an emphasis on participatory and deliberative models of democracy. However, existing research on democracy and citizenship education in Norway show that minimalist perspectives dominate, and education is largely limited to information about democracy and political action is often limited to voting behavior. The paper is a review of the literature used in democracy and citizenship education as a part of social studies at selected teacher education institutions. The overarching theoretical framework for my PhD-project will be based on the idea analysis approach as presented in Beckman (2005), Bergström and Boreus (2012) and Bratberg (2021), where the aim is to map which conceptions of democracy and citizenship education dominate teacher education in Norway. The project will follow a deductive approach, and I will use the eight ‘political discourses’ presented in the article Democratic Education: A Theoretical Review by Edda Sant (2019) as categories of analysis. My PhD aims to provide insights into the education for democracy and citizenship education in teacher education in Norway by exploring which models of democracy that influence the democracy and citizenship education in social studies at selected Norwegian teacher education institutions. It also wants to contribute to a better understanding of the role of teacher education in democratic governance. Beckman, L. (2005). Grundbok i idéanalys: Det kritiska studiet av politiska texter och idéer. Santérus. Bergström, G., & Boréus, K. (2012). Idé- och ideologianalys. In K. Boréus & G. Bergström (Eds.), Textens mening och makt: Metodbok i samhällsvetenskaplig text- och diskursanalys (3 ed., pp. 139-176). Studentlitteratur. Bratberg, Ø. (2021). Tekstanalyse for samfunnsvitere (3 ed.). Cappelen Damm akademisk. March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1995). Democratic governance. Free Press. March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (2000). Democracy and schooling: An institutional perspective. In L. M. McDonnell, P. M. Timpane, & R. W. Benjamin (Eds.), Rediscovering the democratic purposes of education (pp. 148-173). University Press of Kansas. Sant, E. (2019). Democratic Education: A Theoretical Review (2006–2017). Review of educational research, 89(5), 655-696. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319862493