Conference Program

One of the main contemporary issues in education is facilitating every child to develop democratic citizenship, as it is important to have an active participation in decision making based on its maturity and interest in matters of its everyday experience (Correia et al., 2022; Pechtelidis, 2018). The importance of such participation and acquisition of democratic values is underscored in National Constitutions and Educational Curricula in alignment with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Participatory and democratic pedagogy is based on the notion of the “child as a citizen of today” supporting the idea that children can have a role in the development of community practices through not only becoming visible, but also being involved in decision-making processes.

Despite the rising interest in young children as active citizens, their participation in local authorities’ decisions is still limited. This paper presents an educational program, implemented in several early childhood educational settings in Alexandroupolis, Greece, as part of the teacher students’ internship program in the 4^th year of their studies in the Department of Educational Studies in Early Childhood, at Democritus University of Thrace. The intervention was based on an educational project-based scenario, which student teachers developed with their academic mentors and revised taking into account kindergarten teachers’ input and children’s ideas. Children were facilitated to be actively engaged in the life of their community, proposing ways to enrich the municipality’s carnival celebrations for the following year. Their proposals were sent to the mayor for consideration. This way, children embodied an alternative discourse of their agency, that constructing them as active, competent, informed and interested citizens. Being engaged in a lived practice of democratic participation within shared spaces of togetherness, they enacted democratic practices and were empowered to feel that they could make a difference to their community. The presentation concludes with suggestions regarding more inclusive interactions between children and local governing bodies.