Introduction

1. What does this manual offer? – A brief outline

This manual contains nine teaching units in Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) and Human Rights Education (HRE). As both the title, Taking part in democracy and the cover picture indicate, the units in this manual address students in their role as young citizens. Each unit offers a specific approach to empower and encourage the students to participate in their communities.

Each unit can be used by itself, or combined with other units in many different ways. The whole manual comprises a curriculum of competence training for taking part in democracy.

The units, consisting of four lessons each, are intended for students at upper secondary level (grades 10-12). Each unit focuses on a key concept related to EDC and HRE: identity – responsibility – diversity and pluralism – conflict – rules and law – government and politics – equality – liberty – media. This set of nine key concepts links this manual to the companion volumes for primary level and lower secondary level (EDC/HRE, volumes II and III).¹
Together, the three volumes provide a spiral curriculum of key concepts in EDC and HRE.

Each unit focuses on a key concept and consists of four lessons. For each lesson, a sequence of sug-gested teaching steps is described in detail, as far as this is reasonably possible. Handouts are supplied in a separate manual for students.

This book therefore addresses teachers, not students. We hope that trainees and those new to the teaching profession will appreciate the detailed lesson plans, but perhaps experienced teachers will find also ideas and materials they may integrate into their classes. Teacher trainers might use this book as a manual for training EDC and HRE teachers.

This manual also addresses curriculum developers and textbook editors and translators in the member states of the Council of Europe. It may be translated and adapted to meet the specific requirements within their education systems.

The Council of Europe presents this manual in a revised version. The first edition was developed in Bosnia and Herzegovina to support a newly introduced school subject, Democracy and Human Rights (2002). Since 1996, the Council of Europe had been engaged in training teachers and teacher trainers in EDC and HRE by providing in-service training and developing materials. Rolf Gollob and Peter Krapf (co-editors), belonged to the international team of trainers that participated in this project.

2. What is EDC/HRE? – The three dimensions of EDC/HRE

The goals and principles of Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) are linked to three dimensions of teaching and learning. Students at upper secondary level are young citizens who:

• should know what their human rights are and have understood the conditions they depend on (learning about democracy and human rights);
• have experienced school as a micro-community that respects the liberty and equality of its stu-dents, and have been trained in exercising their human rights (learning through democracy and human rights);
• are therefore competent and confident to exercise their human rights, with a mature sense of responsibility towards others and their community (learning for democracy and human rights).

This brief outline of EDC/HRE can be best explained by an example – the right to free opinion and expression. The introduction to EDC/HRE Volume III (p. 5) addresses the same example; in this manual, reflection on this human right is taken a few steps further (spiral curriculum).

2.1 The cognitive dimension of EDC/HRE: learning about democracy and human rights

In EDC/HRE classes at secondary level, students should surely study key documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights; ECHR) (see student handouts 2.5 and 2.6). They should know that every person enjoys the right to free thought and expression, and free access to Information through uncensored media (ECHR, Article 10). The students should understand how important, indeed indispensable, this right alone is to making democracy come to life.

Students should also understand Article 14 of the ECHR. It adds to the freedom of thought, expres­sion and Information the key principle of equality and non-discrimination: men and women, rieh and poor, young and old, nationals and immigrants – we all enjoy these rights equally

Finally, the students should understand why liberties require a framework of laws and that they also carry responsibilities (UDHR, Article 29). Freedom of expression allows Citizens to promote their interests in a pluralist society and, in such a competitive setting, there will be winners and losers. A constitution, rules and laws must provide a framework that limits the liberties of the strong and protects the weak – without equalising differences. Rules cannot take care of every problem, so the members of a community must share an attitude of responsibility towards each other.

In short, these three articles outline the tension between individual liberties and the framing of liberty through a public order that both limits and protects these liberties.

Students who can explain this have learnt a lot about democracy and human rights, and the reader will see that this key theme runs through all the units in this manual. This is the cognitive dimension of EDC/HRE.

Diagram: The “architecture” of human rights – the leitmotif of this manual

2.2 The participative dimension of EDC/HRE: learning for democracy and human rights

The title of this manual, Taking part in democracy, reminds us that students should learn how to exercise their rights to liberty, for example their right to free access to information, and to free thought, opinion and expression. They should also have active experience in interacting with others – for example, promoting their interests, negotiating for compromise, or agreeing on how to define “the general welfare” (UDHR, Article 29). They should be able to act in a framework of rules and accept the limits that may be imposed on them. They should have developed an attitude of respon-sibility for the welfare of others and the community as a whole.

In short, they should not only have understood the implications of and links between the three human rights articles addressed above, but also have learned to appreciate their underlying values and act accordingly. In doing so, they must be able to balance their own interests with those of others and their community as a whole.

Students who have been trained in this way have learnt how to take part in democracy. This is the action-based dimension of EDC/HRE – learning for democracy and human rights.

Young citizens who wish to take part in democracy need a set of multidimensional competencies that are shown in the model below.

These competencies should be value-oriented; in the hands of racists, for example, they would turn into a threat to a democratic community.

This manual focuses on developing such competencies. The introduction to each unit includes a matrix that allows users to combine units so as to design curricula of competence training, depend-ing, for example, on their students’ learning needs or specific requirements of their school curriculum. Here is the competence chart for unit 2 (key concept: responsibility).

2.3 The cultural dimension of EDC/HRE: learning through democracy and human rights

Taking part in democracy is a demanding business – the competencies can, and must, be learned and developed in school. EDC/HRE therefore has a cultural dimension. The culture of teaching and learn-ing must reflect the message of EDC/HRE. One way to acquire knowledge is through instruction (listening to a lecture, reading); competencies are developed through training (demonstration, practice and coaching). Self-esteem and values of mutual respect are acquired through a process of socialisa-tion in school. The experience in class and the role models set by parents, teachers and peers influence a young person’s development of attitudes and values. While teaching about democracy and human rights is a task assigned to special subjects (e.g. social studies, history, civic education), teaching through democracy and human rights is a challenge for the whole school – human rights and democ-racy become the school community’s pedagogical guideline.

This manual adopts the approach of task-based learning: each unit contains a key task that gives the students the opportunity to develop specific competences. We develop our competencies as we need them, which is why these tasks address problems for which no clear-cut solution exists – as is the case in real life. In EDC/HRE, the method carries an important part of the message.

3. The conceptual framework of this manual – the three “Cs” in EDC/HRE (Challenges, Constructivism, Competencies)

Young citizens who take part in democracy do so as free individuals with equal rights, but unequal opportunities.

As members of dynamic pluralist societies that are globally interdependent, they face increasingly complex challenges (e.g. climate change, exhaustion of natural resources, failing states) for which school cannot provide any concrete solutions, but can offer competence training to equip the young generation with tools with which to develop solutions.

How such challenges are to be met is a matter of trial and error and negotiation of compromises between different interests. The outcome of such decision-making processes can be understood as an attempt to achieve the goal of the common good. The result is always incomplete, and immediately open to critical discussion and improvement. A pluralist democracy therefore has a constructivist approach to policy making. Democracy is therefore a precarious state that literally depends on the competencies and responsibility of every generation. And constructivism is also the principle behind competence development – again a never-ending process.

These then are the “three Cs” – the core concepts that run through every unit and every learning step of this manual:

• Challenges in dynamic pluralist democratic communities;
• Competencies of taking part in democracy;
• Constructivism as a paradigm of democratic decision making and competence development.

Within each unit, a key concept of EDC/HRE is linked to specific challenges that create learning opportunities for constructivist competence development. Therefore, the concepts do not deliver nine isolated modules of cognitive learning. Rather, they create a network of skills, values and perspec-tives that are linked with each other in many ways. The following matrix outlines the conceptual framework of the manual.

4. The “European approach” to EDC/HRE

For over a decade, the Council of Europe has initiated the development and implementation of EDC/HRE in its member states. EDC co-ordinators, experts, teachers and trainers from many member states have participated in the discussions that have encouraged the editors and authors to produce this six-volume series for practitioners.

EDC/HRE stands for a “European approach” to teaching democratic citizenship and human rights. In the specific contexts of our schools and education systems, our traditions of teaching and learning, the dimensions of teaching “about” and “for” democracy and human rights may differ. But we share the understanding that EDC/HRE stands for a pedagogical guideline for the school as a whole. We agree that in EDC/HRE the method carries the message – teaching through democracy and human rights.

With this EDC/HRE edition, the editors and authors attempt to reap the harvest of the EDC/HRE process in the Council of Europe. The sources of support that I received when writing this manual reflect the “European approach”. In particular, I wish to mention the following.

Ms Manuela Droll and Ms Karen O’Shea were my co-authors in producing a forerunner version to this manual for EDC teacher training in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mr Emir Adzovic, the co-ordinator of the Council of Europe EDC/HRE project in Bosnia and Herzegovina, provided the organisational framework for our project. We developed the framework of key concepts with Mr Don Rowe, Mr Ted Huddleston and Mr Wim Taelman. Don read some of our first drafts, and Ted was one of our most critical, and constructive, partners in discussion.

Ms Olöf Olafsdottir and Ms Sarah Keating-Chetwynd were our partners and co-ordinators for this project in the Council of Europe. With patience and determination, they saw this project through.

Peti Wiskemann has enriched this manual with a cover image that provides rich and stimulating comment on the key topics of the nine units, and a puzzle on the corresponding key concepts. Ms Wiltrud Weidinger and Mr Rolf Gollob supported me as co-editors and partners in countless discussions.

My co-operation with Mr Christian Fallegger stands out in several respects. He had discussions with me during the early stages of writing, contributing valuable ideas and suggestions, and later read the final draft of this manual; all the way along, his critical and constructive feedback kept me busy.

Without the support and inspiration of all these colleagues, collaborators and friends I could not have written this book. I am deeply grateful to all of them; however, I remain responsible for any fault or error that the reader may find.

Peter Krapf

Zürich and Ulm,

December 2009

Materials for teachers

Materials for teachers have been added as supplements at the end of each unit.

Student handouts

The unit descriptions frequently refer to student handouts. These have been included in a separate manual for students that has been integrated into this volume and which can be printed out as a whole or in parts and distributed to the students.

1. EDC/HRE Volume II: Growing up in democracy – EDC/HRE lesson plans for primary level; EDC/HRE Volume III: Living in democracy – EDC/HRE lesson plans for lower secondary level.