Institutions and Organizations as Learning Environments for Participation and Democracy Opportunities, Challenges, Obstacles

This book discusses opportunities and limitations to democratic participation in institutions and organizations across the life course. It demonstrates that democratic participation is not something that is learned once and for all and applied in formal political settings, but something that is lived every day throughout life in various contexts. Institutions and organizations frame human lives and strongly determine the ability to participate and co-determine their communities. They are places for learning, deliberation and the development of the common good. The book conceptually and empirically analyses the potential of democratic participation within various institutions. The contributions range from early childhood institutions, schools, youth programs, workplaces, and vocational education to cultural organizations and nursing homes for the elderly. The book thereby provides a cross-sectional and interdisciplinary knowledge base to inspire future research and practical efforts to promote democratic participation within and across institutions around the world.

Contributors.- Chapter 1: Participation in organizations and institutions across the life course.- PART I Early Childhood.- Chapter 2: Agency and participation: A critique of the epistemological, psychological, pedagogical and ethical premises.- Chapter 3.- Democracy Education in German Early Childhood Education Institutions – Empirical Research Results.- PART II Middle Childhood.- Chapter 4: Constructing the Neoliberal Citizen: An Ethnographic Investigation of Corporatized Practices in Education.- Chapter 5: Democracy and civics participation through youth forums in schools – reflections on practice.- Chapter 6: Creating “Thinking Pro” for High School Teachers and Students: Two cases of a local-news-driven curriculum in English and Social Studies classrooms.- PART III Young Adulthood.- Chapter 7: Democracy learning through participation in upper secondary education in schools and regulated companytraining.- Chapter 8: Participation and identity development in a multicultural academic context in the higher education institutions: Palestinian-Arab social work students in Israel.- Chapter 9:Youth on the Move? On the Transformation of Political Engagement in the Second Modernity.- PART IV Adulthood.- Chapter 10.- Workplaces as learning environments: How participative practices in enterprises provide learning opportunities for employees’ democracy relevant orientations and behaviors.- Chapter 11: Organization and Participation. Aspects of a Dialectical Relationship.- PART V Advanced Adulthood and Old Age.- Chapter 12: Participation and civic engagement in Scotland: the importance of contributions from older adults.- Chapter 13.- Democratic Care in Nursing Homes Responsive Evaluation to Mutually Learn about Good Care.

Reingard Spannring is lecturer and researcher at the Institute for Education Science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Vienna. Her main research areas include youth research with a special focus on transitions from school to work and political participation, as well as environmental education research.  In both areas, participative and critical approaches to learning in institutions and other social contexts are central. The most recent project "Surviving the Anthropocene" (2019-2022), funded by the Austrian Science Foundation FWF and the Slovenian Science Foundation ARRS, develops a citizens' science project to research and facilitate young people's engagement for ecologically just communities. 

Wilfried Smidt is a Professor in Education with a main focus on Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education, Department of Psychosocial Intervention and Communication Studies, University of Innsbruckin Austria. He holds a doctorate in Educational Science from the University of Bamberg and habilitated in Educational Science at the University of Bamberg. His main research interests have focused on professionalization in early childhood education, leadership in early childhood education, academic success and career success of early childhood pedagogues, personality traits of early childhood pedagogues, educational quality in preschool and family, and early literacy. The most recent project “Quality of Children´s Interactions in Preschool“ (2018 - 2021, funded by the Austrian Science Fund, FWF) investigates the quality of children’s interactions in preschools in Austria. He is board member of the commission Early Childhood Education in the German Educational Research Association.