Conference Program

This contribution examines how transformative education is enacted in practice from the perspective of students attending the Free School Leipzig, a democratic school connected to the European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC). Situated within current debates on transformative education, democratic schooling, and pedagogical innovation, the paper focuses on learning in a setting where participation in formal learning activities is not compulsory.

The contribution is based on a participatory qualitative study developed together with a young student from the school, who will conduct peer interviews and focus groups with fellow students at the Free School Leipzig and do participatory observation in a democratic school in Canada. This design is not only methodologically appropriate for accessing students’ perspectives, but also conceptually coherent with scholarship that understands education as a dialogic, democratic, and transformative process. Dialogic and facilitative approaches emphasise participation, shared meaning-making, and the co-construction of knowledge, while democratic education foregrounds student voice, agency, and learners’ capacity to shape the conditions of their own education (Baraldi et al., 2021; Graham & Fitzgerald, 2010; hooks, 2010). In this sense, transformative educational settings are characterised by a move beyond transmission-based models towards learning environments in which students are recognised as co-creators of knowledge, take responsibility, and develop ownership of their educational processes. Such a perspective also redefines the role of teachers, who are understood less as authoritative transmitters of predefined content than as facilitators of meaningful participation, exchange, and power-sharing. Against this background, the paper asks to what extent this specific democratic school supports self-determination, meaningful learning, and shared responsibility, and where tensions or contradictions may emerge in practice.

Empirically, the study asks what motivates students to learn in an environment without compulsion, how they perceive the role of teachers, which teacher qualities they value most, what they experience as better than in other schools, and what they would like to improve. On this basis, the contribution develops a reflection on whether and how students in democratic school settings can be understood as agents of their own transformation.

Rather than treating transformative education as a purely normative aspiration, the contribution investigates how it is lived, interpreted, and evaluated by students themselves. In doing so, it responds to the panel’s concern with educators as agents of change, while shifting attention to learners as co-constitutive actors of educational transformation. By foregrounding student voice, the paper contributes an empirical case study to current discussions on transformative education and democratic schooling and offers a critical reflection on pedagogical relationships, school culture, and the practical conditions under which transformative education may become possible in formal educational settings.