Democratic Governance of Schools

This manual is a practical tool that is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice in EDC.

Authors: Elisabeth Bäckman and Bernard Trafford

What is democratic governance and how can it benefit schools in preparing young people to become participating, democratic adult citizens? How can schools and other educational institutions evaluate how they contribute to their students’ education for democratic citizenship (EDC)?

By looking at the ways in which their schools operate from day to day, the two authors of this manual, both of them heads of secondary schools, describe how the journey down the road towards democracy tends to take shape, help readers to estimate how far their school has traveled so far, and offer practical advice on starting, continuing and evaluating the journey.

This manual is a practical tool that is designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice in EDC. It is part of a series of tools that, together, make up the Council of Europe’s “EDC pack”.