European Democratic Education Community

Abbreviation| EUDEC
Formation| March 2009 (March 2009)[1]
Type| Nonprofit organisation

Region

| Europe
Services| Supporting democratic education throughout Europe.

Official language

| English

Main organ

| Dorianne De Groot (chair), Stella Serger (vice-chair), Katrin Saage (treasurer)[2]
Website| www.eudec.org

The European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC) is a European non-profit organisation that promotes democratic education as a sensible educational model for all democratic states.[3] EUDEC aims to further democratic education in Europe. Founded in February 2008[1][4][5] as a project of the United Kingdom-based Phoenix Education Trust, the organisation has been an independently registered non-profit[2] NGO in Germany since 2009.

## About EUDEC

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EUDEC's members are individuals, schools and institutions throughout Europe with decades of experience in democratic education.

The organisation of EUDEC reflects the democratic education philosophy which advocates that school students should play an active role at all levels of the organisation: e.g. as individual members, in conference-planning, the organisation of programmes and on the EUDEC Council itself.

EUDEC facilitates a network of mutually supportive democratic education practitioners and institutions through the exchange of online information about democratic education in theory and practice, publications, conferences, meetings and seminars, school partnerships and exchanges.

Individuals, schools, school start-up groups and organisations may become members of the Community.[6] As of November 2018 the Community represents some 8000 people in 72 groups from 29 countries including over 7,800 school students, 44 schools, 26 start-up groups and 2 organisations including the German National Association of Free Alternative Schools (BFAS) and UK-based Phoenix Education Trust, as well as about 400 individual members.[4]

EUDEC is mentioned in several publications about inclusion in education.[7][8][9]

EUDEC seeks collaboration with other European organisations concerned with education such as the Council of Europe, the European Union through its Erasmus Programme, the Swiss Union of Student Organisations (USO)[10] and the Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions (OBESSU).[11] It seeks dialogue and information exchange with national state education systems through these international activities. In 2016, EUDEC participated in the World Forum for Democracy organized by the Council of Europe.[12] In 2018, a EUDEC member school, the Netzwerk Schule (Berlin), participated with 10 state schools from many countries in the Council of Europe Free to Speak, Safe to Learn. Democratic Schools for All project conference held at the European Wergeland Centre[13] in Oslo.[14][15]

EUDEC also seeks dialogue with state school systems at the national level through its growing number of national chapters such as EUDEC HUNGARY, EUDEC FRANCE and EUDEC GREECE.

In 2008/2009, EUDEC was an official project of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development of the United Nations.[16] The Community was formed in parallel with the European Democratic Education Conference, which is now a part of the Community's regular activities. The conference, which takes place annually, also includes the EUDEC's annual general assembly of members, in which officers of the community are elected and decisions are made about Community policy. Every two years the Community elects a Council of 7 to 11 members who administer its business between assemblies.

## Democratic Education

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Main article: Democratic education

There are two main pillars of democratic education: self directed/managed learning in a community based on democratic process and human rights with equality and mutual respect between adults and children/young people. Students in democratic schools and universities choose how to spend their time in school, pursue their interests and prepare themselves for their lives and chosen careers. Learning can take place in classrooms, as in conventional schools, but also in many ways outside classrooms as informal learning, such as independent study, internet research, internships, playing games, volunteering, doing projects, visiting museums, travel and discussions with friends and teachers. The best setting for living, learning, or indeed working, is one in which our rights and opinions are respected. Democratic schools have school meetings in which all members of the community have an equal vote, regardless of age or status. Students and teachers sit together as equals to discuss and vote on school rules, curricula, projects, the hiring of staff and budgetary matters. This process is one of the ways that democratic schools create an environment in which children can flourish and grow up to be tolerant, open-minded, responsible individuals who know how to express their opinions and listen to those of others and be active citizens of a modern democratic society. They are well equipped to manage their own lives and create their own identities and thus to face the emerging challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

## EUDEC Events

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The first EUDEC Conference[17][18] took place in Leipzig, Germany from 25 July – 3 August 2008. Since 2008, there has been an EUDEC annual general meeting or conference each year. The events are listed below in chronological order:

* 2008 - EUDEC Conference Leipzig, Germany - hosted by the Freie Schule Leipzig
* 2009 - EUDEC Annual General Meeting Cieszyn, Poland
* 2010 - EUDEC Annual General Meeting Roskilde, Denmark - hosted by Det frie Gymnasium and Den Demokratiske Skole
* 2011 - IDEC@EUDEC Conference Devon, England. This conference was a combination of the EUDEC Conference and the 2011 International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) \- [2]
* 2012 - EUDEC Conference Freiburg, Germany - hosted by the Kapriole \- [3]
* 2013 - EUDEC Conference,[19] Netherlands - [4]
* 2014 - EUDEC Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark - Hosted by Det Frie Gymnasium - [5] Archived 2016-02-10 at the Wayback Machine
* 2015 - EUDEC Conference, Warsaw, Poland - Hosted by Fundacji Bullerbyn - [6] Archived 2016-01-22 at the Wayback Machine
* 2016 - IDEC@EUDEC, Mikkeli, Finland[20]
* 2017 - EUDEC Conference, Paris, France - [7]
* 2018 - EUDEC Conference, Crete, Greece - [8]
* 2019 - EUDEC HUNGARY conference, Budapest March 2019
* 2019 - IDEC@EUDEC Conference, Kiev and Vinnytsia, Ukraine, 1. - 9. August - [9]

## Member schools

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* Summerhill Great Britain (founded 1921)
* Sands School Great Britain (founded 1987)
* Neue Schule Hamburg Germany (founded 2007)
* Det frie Gymnasium Danmark (founded 1970)

More member schools can be found at [10].

## See also

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European Democratic Education Conference

## References

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1. ^ a b The beginning of EUDEC, 2006-2009 Retrieved March 21, 2019
2. ^ a b EUDEC- website Legal Notice Retrieved November 14, 2019
3. ^ "Articles of Association". EUDEC Website. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 2 May 2019.
4. ^ a b Gronert, Maren & Alban Schraut (Hrsg.), Handbuch Vereine der Reformpädagogik, Bibliotheca Akademica, Reihe Pädagogik, Band 13, ISBN 978-3-95650-459-4, Ergon Verlag, Baden-Baden, 2018, p. 455
5. ^ Klemm, Ulrich (2013): Geschichte und Gegenwart Freier Demokratischer Schulen. Warte, bis der Schüler den ersten Schritt macht. In: Gürlevik, Aydin (Hrsg.)/ Palentien, Christian (Hrsg.)/ Heyer, Robert (Hrsg.): Privatschulen versus staatliche Schulen. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. ISBN 978-3-531-18199-8, p. 133
6. ^ European Democratic Education Community — EUDEC Membership Fee Schedule Retrieved March 21, 2019
7. ^ Nicola Kriesel/Hannah Hummel/Petra Burmeister, Spagat zwischen Inklusion und Exklusion? Teilhabe von Eltern in der Konzeption von Demokratischen Schulen, p. 190, in: Robert Kruschel (Hrsg.), Menschenrechtsbasierte Bildung. Inklusive und Demokratische Lern- und Erfahrungswelten im Fokus, Bad Heilbrunn 2017, ISBN 9783781521490
8. ^ Niklas Gidion, Der Beitrag der "Demokratischen Schulen" zu einem inklusiven Schulsystem, p. 211, in: Andreas Hinz (Hrsg.), Auf dem Weg zur Schule für alle. Barrieren überwinden – inklusive Pädagogik entwickeln, Marburg 2011, ISBN 9783886173167.
9. ^ Meital Hershkovich/Toni Simon, Demokratie als Grundlage 'guter' und inklusionsorientierter Schulen, p. 225, in: Gabriel Hund-Göschel/Swantje Hadeler/Klaus Moegling (Hrsg.), Was sind gute Schulen? Teil 1: Konzeptionelle Überlegungen und Diskussion, Immenhausen bei Kassel, 2016, ISBN 3934575889
10. ^ The what, why and how of student Participation in democratic decision making in schools. And does it work? In: Schools & Democracy, by the Network of democratic citizenship schools (funded by Erasmus+), No. 01/2017, published on November 23, 2017, p. 7. http://democraticschools.ecos.pt/magazine-sd/
11. ^ "EUDEC website". Archived from the original on 2019-03-28. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
12. ^ Initiative 2
13. ^ European Wergeland Centre. Archived 2018-06-12 at the Wayback Machine
14. ^ The European Wergeland Centre celebrated its 10th Anniversary Conference  Archived 2019-03-21 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved March 26, 2019
15. ^ Alternative Education Resource Organisation
16. ^ Datenbank der UN-Dekade „Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung“, Retrieved March 30, 2019
17. ^ Deutscher Bildungsserver, EUDEC 2008 (European Democratic Education Conference), Retrieved March 22, 2019
18. ^ Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) Eröffnungsrede des Präsidenten der bpb (Federal Agency for Civic Education), Thomas Krüger, zum Kongress EUDEC am 31. Juli 2008 in Leipzig, Retrieved March 22, 2019
19. ^ John W. Moravec, Report from the European Democratic Education Community 2013 Conference, Soest, The Netherlands Other, in: Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives, ISSN 2049-2162, Volume 2(2013), Issue 2, pp.113-115 [1]
20. ^ IDEC 2016 Report Retrieved March 22, 2019

## External links

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* European Democratic Education Community - official homepage