- A 5 step process for democratic action taking
The following 5 step procedure illustrates an ideal process for participatory, democratic action that you can apply in your school (based on Fung 2004). In this procedure you can involve the staff but also the students, parents and others who are affected by the issue to be decided....
- Class Council
Class Councils usually take place once a week per lesson in every class of a school. The class council is an institutionalized structure that enables students to articulate their concerns and to discuss them with their teachers and classmates....
- Methods - collecting, clustering, prioritizing, voting, consensus seeking
In a democratic decision-making process, many points of view, suggestions and ideas may arise. Thus, the chair has to process these issues and cluster them. This can be achieved in plenary sessions by simultaneously taking notes on the board or flipchart when the participants raise their points....
- Methods - Conflict resolution, world café, deliberation forum
Conflicts between persons or groups of persons should be dealt with in a systematic way. They offer important learning opportunities in democratic citizenship, as students can learn that conflicts belong to social life but can be resolved by taking the interests of both parties into account....
- Methods - survey for opinion polling, feedback, evaluation
Do you want to collect feedback on a specific issue or conduct an evaluation? Do you want to collect opinions or more detailed information from people? Do you want to enable the participation of larger groups of people and figure out priorities?...
- Poster 1 - Four basic steps of participation
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- Poster 2 - Community Participation
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- Poster 3 - To what extent are we part of the project?
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- Poster 4 - Participation Priorities
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