Democratic Values and Participation as a Part of the Basic Education System and Everyday Schooling Life

Almost without exception, student councils are part of democratic education in schools in many Western European countries, but it seems that the role of student councils in everyday school life may remain superficial. A Nordic study published in 2025 highlighted the need to develop structures for participation and support the growth of students into active citizens at a time when democracy is increasingly facing new challenges. In several countries, such as Finland, school student councils are a central and statutory mechanism for implementing democratic education and increasing participation, but their activities have previously been relatively little studied. In this paper, we examine how the educational policy guidance documents of the three countries participating in the I-CIVIC project, i.e. Finland, Estonia and France, have provided for democratic education and student participation as part of teaching and upbringing in basic education, and the different ways in which students are guided towards participation and adopting democratic values as part of everyday school life. The research questions we will answer in this paper are as follows: RQ1: How do legislation and educational documents, such as curricula oblige comprehensive schools to promote democratic education and student participation? RQ2: How are democratic values and participation implemented as part of student council activities in schools, according to students? For the first research question, our research data consists of educational policy documents from the three countries mentioned above. They are analyzed qualitatively using document analysis. To answer the second research question, we collect data from approximately 1,000 students (approximately 300 comprehensive school students from all three countries) using a questionnaire, in which we map how student councils function as part of democratic education and the implementation of participation in the country in question. The collected data is analyzed using abductive content analysis. According to our preliminary results, there are differences between countries in how student participation and democratic education are regulated. In addition, there are differences within the country in how student participation and growth in democratic values are guided as part of student council activities. At the end of the paper, we consider what could be the next practices that could be used to guide student participation and commitment to democratic values. We also considered how these next practices could be addressed in teacher education so that democratic values would be implemented as an integral part of the everyday operations of schools.