Educating for a Thicker Type of Democratic Citizenship: A Conceptual Exploration

Abstract

In the last decade, educational researchers have identified various key components of a thick type of democratic citizenship education. This article presents our conception of thick democracy and explains how this conception resulted from an explorative inquiry into existing conceptions of thick democracy in educational research. With this thick conception, we want to offer a framework that teachers and empirical researchers can use to reflect on their conceptions of democracy and subsequent contributions to democratic citizenship education.