Attributes of democratic culture as represented in young children’s drawings

Abstract

Democratic culture refers to a set of values, attitudes, and practices shared by citizens and institutions, without which democracy cannot exist. Preschools and schools have a core role in teaching and transmitting democratic culture as they offer most children their early encounters with the public realm that provides social environments for democratic culture. The aim of this article is to increase knowledge on democratic education of young children and creative means to implement it. The core questions raised are: How do young children understand their classroom social environment and their own role in it? Which of the children’s understandings of their classroom social environment reflect attributes of democratic culture? The data include 125 children’s drawings and their linguistic explanations of them collected from schools that implemented the Cultural Literacy Learning Programme in Cyprus, Israel, Lithuania, Portugal, and the UK. The method used is data-driven content analysis, including qualitative categorizing of the data, quantification of its core features, and a reflexive interpretation of the contents of the drawings. The study reveals how children aged 5–6 are able to elaborate on the ideas, principles, and practices of democratic culture, including participation, collaboration, negotiation, dialogue, listening, and expressing one’s own opinions. The analysis of the data elicited five thematic categories of how children think about social life in their classroom, approach democratic culture, and understand their role in practising it in school. The categories were based on the children’s approach to rules; suggestions taking the action either alone or as a member of a group; and views of the purpose and beneficiary of this action. The analysis revealed how drawing with peers is a multimodal and dialogic process of learning democratic culture. Children engage in dialogic chains of thinking not only in verbal, but also in visual interaction. Since the ability to participate in a dialogue is seen as a core skill in democratic education, educators should better recognize visual dialogic chains of thinking as a way for students to familiarize themselves with and practise democratic culture. • Even very young children can elaborate on the principles and practices of democratic culture. • Drawing with peers is a dialogic process of learning democratic culture. • Young children’s understanding of democratic culture draws on different approaches to rules and agency.