Democratic Schools: Towards a Definition

Democratic Schools: Towards a Definition

This analysis of school democracy, extensively rooted in UK-based research but drawing also on experience from Europe and across the globe, is obliged to begin by attempting a definition. Can a school be democratic? Some would assert that it cannot. In general, schools operate within a fairly rigid command structure. However heads/principals may choose to run their institutions, above them will be a hierarchy of governance and government which almost inevitably imposes a traditional line of authority and accountability. Indeed, heads have such considerable positional power because they are appointed by that hierarchy, however much consultation may have been involved in the process. Similar pressures operate on others: teachers in many countries feel beleaguered by the requirements of government-enforced examination and programmes of study. Thus Huddleston (2007: 6) finds in a survey of European member states:

Similarly, although Torney-Purta et al. (2001: 5) see the argument being won for the ‘effectiveness of an open and participatory climate in promoting civic knowledge and engagement’, they find that such an approach is ‘by no means the norm in most countries.’ Moreover, if externally imposed constraints provide a measure of justification for the perpetuation of autocratic leadership styles, Hahn (1984) identifies what she describes as ‘self-righteous authoritarianism’: those who work in schools will recognize that trait as far from being limited to the American setting of Hahn's study. Indeed, Huddleston adds as a European footnote: ‘The All-European Study reported that in the Eastern and South-Eastern European regions the democratic school is ‘not yet the prevalent model … the dominant model continues to be an authoritarian-type governance and a rigid institutional background’ (Birzea et al., 2004: 39).

So can this kind of organization have any hope of giving rise to democratic practice [Page 411]within individual institutions? In practice, and despite this widespread and persistent authoritarian tradition in schooling, schools do indeed function well as democracies, frequently in a highly developed state. As long ago as 1989, Polan (1989: 29) was describing school as the ‘inevitable democracy’: ‘Despite impressions to the contrary, schools amount to some of the most advanced formal social institutions … in terms of democracy, debate and participation.’

Certainly there is no simple definition of a democratic school, though a good starting point is Watts (1977: 129), writing about his experience of running a school that was - in UK education terms - democratic during the 1970s: ‘… a formal school in which teachers and school students have been able to enjoy an increase in dignity which results from their sense of determining, to a large extent, the conditions under which they work and grow.’

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