Educating democracy: Competences for a democratic culture

The focus within the European tradition of democratic education has increasingly been on personal traits or character traits, values, and skills, rather than on broad structural features or systemic issues. This is reflected in a recent publication by the Council of Europe titled Competences for Democratic Culture: Living Together as Equals in Culturally Diverse Democratic Societies. In that publication relevant character traits are grouped under the heading ‘competences for democratic culture’. We scrutinize the notion of ‘democratic competences’ which is developed in the publication and suggest a different one. The Council of Europe presents a model with 20 competences, each of which falls into one of four categories: (1) a value, (2) an attitude, (3) a skill, or (4) knowledge and understanding. We suggest a notion of competences where a competence is conceived of as a complex construct composed of elements from all these categories. We then describe seven democratic competences, grounded in a Deweyan conception of democracy, which we think are both central to a democratic culture while also educationally relevant and manageable.