School Parliament: A model for primary schools

A Parliament for Elementary School Students in Klagenfurt as an Encouragement of Civic Education in Terms of Learning and Living Democracy

Disenchantment with politics, voter fatigue and the suspiciousness of public sector institutions are alarm signals in a democracy. To overcome this development must be a main goal of civic education. Children as a part of different communities such as family, school or municipality are often confronted with the outcomes of the political systems, but they are not involved in the political decisions. One consequence is a feeling of being powerless. Nevertheless children know a lot about politics (or what they think is politics). This knowledge was the base, which was worked with, though it must be supplemented. But not the political parties or the government are in the core focus. It is the main problem of politics: How can people and different groups in a society learn to live together in a democratic way and what is the role of an individual?

Objectives

  • Political competency to form an opinion: ability to autonomously pronounce a judgment, to scrutinize other judgments and to recognize a prejudice;
  • politically oriented method competence: ability to have command of and apply appropriate methods of searching for information and building an opinion;
  • media competence: ability to analyze the media and deliberate about it as well as apply it;
  • political matter expertise to get a realistic impression about the work of politics;
  • social competence: the ability to communicate, respond and critically argue and cooperate with other people.

The project wanted to awake the interest of children for their social environment and their willingness to participate.

This project has been completed.