Class councils in Switzerland: Citizenship education in classroom communities?

Abstract: Democracy depends on the participation of citizens. Citizenship education is taking place in classroom communities to prepare pupils for their role as citizens. Class councils are participatory forms of citizenship education guaranteeing the children’s right to form and express their views freely as written down in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Theoretical deficiencies and empirical objections have been formulated against participation in the school setting. Despite widespread practices, empirical data about class councils in Switzerland barely exists. In our project we video-recorded fourteen class councils in secondary schools, we interviewed the teacher and four pupils of each class, and all the pupils filled in a standardized questionnaire. Class councils are very popular forms of education with pupils although the actual power to influence decisions by deliberation is doubted to some extent. Quantitative analysis of the video-recordings shows the wide range of f.... http://www.jsse.org/index.php/jsse/article/view/612

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Class councils in Switzerland: Citizenship education in classroom communities? ; volume:11 ; number:3 ; day:26 ; month:06 ; year:2012 ; Journal of social science education ; 11, Heft 3 (26.06.2012)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Wyss, Corinne ; Loetscher, Alexander

Further information

• DOI: 10.4119/jsse-612
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2019011816083096591445
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:46 AM CEST