Confronting the Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century

Report Home Message from the Steering Committee (html, pdf) Democracy as a Starting Point (html, pdf) Excerpts from the Keynote Address by Fernando Henrique Cardoso President of Brazil Greetings from Around the World (html, pdf) Democracy Courage Tributes (html, pdf) Workshop Reports Topical (html, pdf) Regional (html, pdf) Functional (html, pdf) Participants (html, pdf) Press (html, pdf) Assembly Support (html) Download Acrobat Reader

Education for Democracy-Democracy for Education

• Civic education is important in both emerging and established democracies.
• Civic education through schools and in the classroom remains the most effective and long-term strategy to building and sustaining democracies around the world.
• Democracy education is a necessity for both students and adult citizens. It should be made available to politicians, civic leaders, traditional rulers, NGOs, journalists, judicial officials, and individuals at the grassroots.
• Civic education requires long-term commitments and yields long-term effects, but it can also produce immediate benefits, even in crisis situations. Most societies have educational systems that reach into a wide range of communities and involve a large sector of society (students, parents, teachers, and local officials). When education for democracy is introduced into these schools there is great ferment in these communities and a sense of cultural change is in the air.
• How democracy education is carried out (i.e., the methodology) is as important as the content of instruction. While it is important that students develop the knowledge, skills, values, attitudes, and disposition to motivate and inspire their citizenship, it is also important that the schools themselves be democratic. Students learn by emulating their teachers and other adults; if their classrooms are not democratic, the students are not likely to become democratic either.

• Assistance strategists often put off educational initiatives with the argument that economic assistance should take priority, but communities that are not culturally prepared for democracy see this economic aid as either wasted or stolen. Therefore, cultural and economic assistance must proceed side-by-side as a two-track strategy.
• To advance such a two-track strategy, an institutional foundation for addressing the cultural issues and transformation that come with democracy education should be created. Philanthropic and multicultural organizations should be encouraged to invest in this effort in addition to their efforts to address traditional areas of democracy work, such as rule of law, economic reform, building effective democratic institutions, and elections.
• The participants recognized that low pay and poor conditions of work are obstacles to teacher participation in civic education programs, which in some cases impose an extra workload on teachers. Therefore, teachers' work conditions should be improved, but democracy education programs should also incorporate teacher exchange components, both within particular countries and internationally, as an incentive to teachers who would participate in such exchanges and as an attraction to others to join the profession. Moreover, projects and activities that offer the benefit of professional advancement should be made part of democracy education programs.
• A database and Web site for trainers in civic education should be established. In addition to other information and resources it would provide, the Web site could be used to advertise jobs and consultant vacancies available in the area of civic education.
• Educational institutions for the teaching of democracy should be established.