Conference Agenda

We live in difficult times. Knowing and acting have become a complicated relationship, as political repression globally is on the rise and people are threatened when expressing their democratic opinions or when they try to protect their neighbours. In times of rising fascism, socio-political polarisation, ecological crisis, and rapid technological transformation, this symposia trilogy brings together scholars to reflect on the potentials of knowing and acting in the context of education for democracy, democracy learning, democratic experience, and cultural democracy (Dewey 1916).

In our triple symposia, democracy and organisational democracy are understood as embodied, contested, and continuously unfolding social practices (Butler 2015; Dewey 1916; hooks 1994) that integrate knowing and acting. Emphasising becoming over being means that actors such as youth, educators, policymakers, and researchers participate in democratic becoming, co-produce knowledge, and transform educational settings and institutions into spaces of resistance, possibility, and hope (Castoriadis 1975).

In this way, our symposia trilogy intends to reimagine how democracy can be cultivated as a lived, relational, and continuously evolving practice - one that actively shapes the complex challenges of our era. Centred on the concept of democracy-as-becoming, the contributions explore how the organisation of education can function both as a site and a process for co-creating democratic futures. Drawing from the three Horizon Europe sister projects - AECED, CCLAB, and DEMOCRAT - the triple symposia examine and analyse how democracy-as-becoming can be analysed, understood, and fostered across institutional levels.

Examining how citizenship education is organised and provided—from governance and national curricula to school and classroom practices—we reflect on relationships between knowing and acting (Dewey 2011). As in the special call on organisational education, we ask whether we can identify its relational patterns: Is knowing and acting in a productive relation within organisational settings and institutional strategies that aim to open and support culture change? In which ways do organisations and governance shape the potential for transformation through democratic approaches and citizenship education? The papers of the first symposium examine embeddings and how organisations, regional networks, and multilayered governance systems support living democratically and educating towards democracy-as-becoming. The symposium reflects on ways of learning in, of, and between organisations that become relevant here.

The second symposium of our trilogy reflects on the second pattern addressed in the special call, namely the relational pattern of knowledge in action (Arnstein, 1969; Castoriadis, 1975). What takes place in these encounters? What happens in aesthetic and embodied interventions and encounters, and in which ways might they open institutionalised settings? What are the results of these learning intentions within, and perhaps even of, organisations? This symposium refers to empirical studies on exemplary aesthetic and embodied interventions in institutionalised settings (Göhlich et al., 2018).

The third symposium of this trilogy addresses the notion of openings. It reflects on and discusses organisational democracy and its enabling spaces as a question of de-institutionalisation (Meyer & Rowan 1977). It offers new perspectives on resistance, on accepting difference, on transgressing the given, and on opening up and “lifting the roof” of our educational institutions (hooks 1994). Which relational patterns of knowing and acting might we find here? Clearly recognising the “knowing–doing gap” in institutional life - the separation of knowing and acting in many ways - we start from this point and discuss the fourth relational pattern: knowledgeable acting and transforming our educational institutions from within (Chen et al. 2024; Scharmer 2007). Deep aesthetic experience then supports knowledgeable action in de-institutionalising given educational settings (Dewey 1934). In this trilogy, AECED, DEMOCRAT, and Critical Change Lab may contribute to supporting such openings.

In contexts of democratic backsliding, socio-political polarisation, and accelerating ecological and technological change, educational institutions are increasingly positioned as sites where “knowing and acting” must be brought into a productive relation. Yet organisational routines and policy logics often reproduce a knowing–doing gap by privileging what is measurable over what is lived. This presentation argues that emotional work is a pivotal, yet systematically under-specified, mechanism through which Education for Democracy (EfD) can become organisationally sustainable as a practice of democracy-as-becoming. We synthesise and advance a relational account of learning-as-change in EfD, foregrounding how democratic becoming unfolds through affective, embodied, and reflective engagement with uncertainty, disagreement, and value conflict (Dewey, 1916; Mezirow, 1991; Zembylas, 2013; 2023). This account is consequential for organisations because it shapes what counts as legitimate learning work in organisations, what becomes shareable as institutional knowledge, and what is rendered invisible in professional learning and evaluation. Reframing emotional work as an organisational learning process highlights how democratic capacities are cultivated not as stable individual attributes, but as emergent accomplishments of activity systems, professional communities, and institutional cultures (Biesta, 2011). The presentation goes on to show that educators’ capacity to host emotionally and politically demanding learning is conditioned by the organisation’s emotional climate and institutional support, making leadership and organisational infrastructures central to EfD implementation (Hargreaves, 1998). Conceptually, we contribute to a pedagogical–ecological heuristic for enabling emotional work – through intentionally held spaces that support safety, courage, and care – thereby strengthening knowledge-in-action and opening possibilities for organisational change from within (Arao & Clemens, 2013; Hytti & Sandström, 2025). Overall, the presentation positions EfD as a form of organisational learning oriented toward democratic futures: institutions learn democracy insofar as they redesign policies, practices, and professional learning to legitimise emotional work as collective, knowledgeable action rather than individual vulnerability.

Arao, B., & Clemens, K. (2013). From safe spaces to brave spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice. In L. M. Landreman (Ed.), The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators (pp. 135–150). Stylus Publishing. Biesta, G. J. J. (2011). Learning democracy in school and society: Education, lifelong learning, and the politics of citizenship. Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-512-3 Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Macmillan. Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotional practice of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(8), 835–854. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(98)00025-0 Hytti, M., & Sandström, N. (2025). Reclaiming emotion and reflection in education for democracy: A transformative learning perspective on the RFCDC. Journal of Social Science Education, 24(4). https://doi.org/10.11576/jsse-8310 Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. Jossey-Bass. Zembylas, M. (2013). Affective citizenship in multicultural societies: Implications for critical citizenship education. Citizenship Teaching & Learning, 9(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1386/ctl.9.1.5_1 Zembylas, M. (2023). Political anger, affective injustice, and civic education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 57(6), 1176–1192. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhad073

This part aims to analyse the transformative effect of aesthetic and embodied learning on the traditional hierarchical teacher-student dynamic, turning it into an intergenerational collaborative and democratic dialogue for co-living and co-creating. Incorporating intergenerational dialogue into the classroom is crucial, as education is not merely about transmitting knowledge from the teacher to students, but rather about enabling them to share their cultures and resources and participate in the community's social life (Dewey, 1916). The oppression-free and responsive intergenerational teacher-student dialogue is key in transforming education for mutual respect and shared knowledge that aligns the educational process with democratic ideals (Freire, 2005). Such a dialogue fosters an open classroom climate, allowing learners to express themselves, explore various perspectives, and dissent, which has been positively associated with support for human rights, increased civic knowledge, political self-efficacy, and enhanced political participation (Knowles et al., 2018) Our research, which was conducted within the Horizon project AECED, witnesses individual and collective transformations both in teachers and students through the epistemic transformation; they are principally changing their understanding of the concept of learning from just a cognitive act into a holistic process with the seeing of also emotions and the body as a source and means for learning. Teachers and students made reciprocal positive discoveries, bridging generational gaps, enhancing mutual trust and appreciating each other’s talents, competencies, and human qualities, and expressing confidence that aesthetic and embodied co-learning should be implemented throughout the entire school practice, causing organizational transformation for democracy. Thus, the school community, through letting go of old habits and ways of thinking and moving through the “presencing” phase with a deep state of awareness and open-mindedness, is creating new possibilities for a more democratic future (Scharmer, 2009), stepping into a new dimension of collective knowing, where thinking and feeling are fully integrated (Scharmer & Käufer, 2020).

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Macmillan. Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.; M. B. Ramos, Trans.; D. Macedo, Introd.). Continuum. (Original work published 1968) Knowles, R. T., Torney Purta, J., & Barber, C. (2018). Enhancing citizenship learning with international comparative research: Analyses of IEA civic education datasets. Citizenship Teaching & Learning, 13(1), 7–30. https://doi.org/10.1386/ctl.13.1.7_1 Scharmer, O. (2016). Theory U: leading from the future as it emerges: the social technology of presencing. San Francisco, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Scharmer, O. & Kaufer, K. (2013). Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies. San Francisco, California: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

The paper explores how action-based interventions can be used to study the manifestation of democratic civic competences in the course of joint action, and what can be learned in organisational terms. Conceptually, it draws on the competence model developed within the Horizon Europe Democrat project (Krüger et al. 2024) and its elaborations (Hytti et al. 2024; Kalev et al. 2025). The analysis focuses primarily on democratic resilience among the four core competences, while also addressing solidary participation, deliberation, critical thinking, and judgement. Empirically, the paper is based on an intervention conducted in the Tallinn University science kitchen. Participants were required to make decisions collaboratively, share responsibility, and adapt to tensions and changing conditions that emerged during the process. The intervention design and the accompanying assessment instrument were guided by the aim of examining how democratic civic competences manifest and develop in an activity-based situation that involves tension and requires cooperation. Food preparation served as the intervention context as an embodied and meaningful activity that makes visible group relations, decision-making logics, and ways of coping with tension. Because decisions have immediate and perceptible consequences, and because the group’s final outcome depends directly on the contributions of its members, the science kitchen format supports the manifestation of democratic civic competences in a natural, real-life setting. The paper also discusses organisational learning that occurred during the intervention on at least two levels. First, it involved the development of students’ teamwork capacities. Student groups were treated as micro-organisations in which participants - previously unfamiliar with one another - had to establish a division of labour within a limited time frame, make joint decisions under time pressure, and develop norms for collaboration. Second, the intervention functioned as a context for organisational learning for the organising team itself: shared practices and divisions of labour emerged for developing and implementing the intervention within Tallinn University and the science kitchen. This learning encompassed teamwork, project management, resource coordination, and related aspects. Finally, we reflect on the intervention and its results from both democratic citizenship education and organisational learning perspectives.

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