Democracy without Participation does not Support Sustainable Education in Estonia

Juri Ginter, Tartu University

Doyle Stevick, University of South Carolina

Introduction

Disturbing trends in free and democratic societies, such as exclusion, terrorism, youth riots, school violence, high dropout rates, the growing disconnect between people and politics, etc. (Mintrom, 2001) – have led some to raise questions about whether democracy is really the best way to govern society and schools. (Bobbio, 1990, Ojap, 2005) Too often, only one alternative is imagined: a more authoritarian approach.[1]

Democracy can be consistent with freedom and positive outcomes for society, but there is no guarantee that democracy will produce positive results, or avoid negative outcomes. Democracy is no guarantee of prosperity, peace or of stability. Further, while democracy and sustainability can and should be compatible, democracy is not inherently sustainable. We may believe in democracy for good reasons, but if we become complacent once the basic procedures of democracy are established, we may well encounter problems. Put simply, democracy is not enough.

But what more is needed?

We argue that participation is the key element for moving from formal democracy to true sustainability. This paper is based on three elements: a review of recent literature on democracy, participation, education and sustainability; the recent history of participation in Estonian education, and a survey conducted of Estonian schools. We will discuss all three elements in order.

The fundamental structure of contemporary democratic institutions was developed in the nineteenth century, but society has changed profoundly since then. (Dalton, 1988, 242). At the same time, political participation, civic engagement, and social capital have declined sharply (Mintrom, 2001, 615-616). Just as democratic institutions have not kept pace with societal changes, educational systems are not meeting the challenges now facing society (Loogma, 2005). It is unsustainable for the institutions of democracy and education to remain static while society changes so quickly.

This paper is about a third way for education--and perhaps also for Estonian society and other countries: participation (Sterling, 2003, Dahl, 1989). “Expanding participation is... an opportunity for Western democracies to come closer to matching their democratic ideals” (Dalton, 1988, 244). Historically, the education system has had particular importance in providing democratic experiences of participation to citizens. As McGinn and Epstein (1999, 4) emphasize, in transitional states, we should “understand democratization not just in terms of the existence of majority rule or guaranteed rights, but in terms of participation, participation both in decision-making and in the formulation of choices.”

While schools can provide the primary opportunity for adult participation in this way, a school is also a model for students (Talts, 2001). If they get some experience of democracy and participation in schools, their subsequent attitudes and behavior will grow out of that experience and they will be more likely to participate as adults. By the 1970’s, it was well understood “that school systems have the power to transform individuals into citizens through higher levels of …participation.” (Ramirez, 1979, p. 80) Unfortunately, this civic mission of schools has been neglected, and schools are much more focused on preparing students for the entrance examinations of universities. When there is only “play” democracy and no real participation in schools, students do not develop trust in their public institutions or government policy and alienation grows. Democracy without participation is democracy in name only.

Minimal conceptions of democracy that focus on narrow institutional arrangements and traditional procedures are neither sustainable nor sufficient for education in Estonia. While the ideal of democracy places power in the hands of people, elections themselves are a form of organized conflict. Elections must be contested, and decisions are made through the authority of votes and majorities. This process does not require widespread participation, and 51% percent is sufficient to rule. In such a situation, a very small number of people can change their allegiances, and power and policies will change dramatically. Policy can swing back and forth like a pendulum, making it very difficult to follow consistent and coherent practices. In a system that values participation, a broader range of people are included in decisions, and consensus is built among a broader swath of the population. Policies are much less likely to flip back and forth in unproductive ways.

While elections are necessary and indispensable for managing existing conflict peacefully, the need to have opposing views in an election, the need for candidates to differentiate themselves, and the need to build constituencies can all help to generate conflict where little existed before. While a conflict-free homogeneous society is undesirable and even immoral, an overemphasis on conflict and differences may take time and energy away from the crucial skills of cooperation and negotiation that are needed throughout society, particularly in the long periods between the organized conflict of elections. Participation offers a solution. Society can only function sustainably when individuals complement each other in a responsive ways.

Sustainable education

In this paper, we mean sustainability in a broad sense: not simply sustainability of the natural world, but sustainability of culture and society (including educational systems)—through societal sustainability the sustainability of nature becomes possible. Although much has been written about education for sustainability, education should itself be sustainable.

Sterling (2003, 32) defines sustainable education as,

a change of educational culture which both develops and embodies the theory and practice of sustainability in a way which is critically aware. This would be a transformative paradigm which values, sustains and realises human potential in relation to the need to attain and sustain social, economic and ecological wellbeing, recognizing that they are deeply interdependent.

Participation is a manifestation of our interdependence; it is impossible for people to realize their potentials—especially in the interactive realms of the social and economic spheres that Sterling emphasizes here—if there is not participation.

Mintz supplements these ideas about sustainability with a further critique. Speaking of the competition and accountability-oriented education system of the United States, he argues that,

What is NOT sustainable is the national craze of high stakes testing. It is from the last vestiges of a failed education system. Its paradigm was ‘We are the teachers. We have all the information you will need to have a productive life. Just listen to us, learn what we think you should learn, and you'll be set for life.’ If that paradigm were ever useful, it certainly is not today. What people need today (and children ARE people!) is confidence in themselves as learners, tools so they can find the answers to their questions themselves, preparation for life-long learning, and in general, a learner-centered approach rather than one which is curriculum driven.“ (Mintz, 2006).

Once again, learner-centeredness is premised on the ideal of participation. The passive recipient of a lecture is the opposite of this ideal. Sustainable education means, “co-evolution where both education and society (or at least parts of them) are engaged in a relationship of mutual transformation” (Sterling, 2003, 51)

Participation

One tradition of widespread participation emerged recently in the economy (Dalton, 1988) when shareholders` companies tried to involve their management and employees more effectively in order to promote greater loyalty, creativity and profits. They understood that loyalty and creativity cannot be achieved merely through incentives and by raising salaries, and so they gave some shares to the managers and workers so that they would have a sense of ownership as well.

In society, participation has emerged as an answer to people’s frustrations both with political systems that are dominated by political parties and with democracy that is practice meant nothing more than the right to elect and to be elected. People wanted direct influence on the development of society beyond the mechanisms of voting in representative democracy. Social capital is becoming the crucial factor of such developments. Participation offers a path beyond alienated, individualistic post-modernism and promises the birth of participative societies.

“The participatory worldview is more than a scientific revolution, it holds the promise of cultural change...a new sense of belonging to a greater whole.” (Sterling 2003, 36). Participative knowing involves both connectedness and critical thinking (Sterling, 2003, 67), both of which are critical elements in the development of responsiveness, a key ethic of free markets and democratic theory.

Democracy and participation

Strictly, democracy means that all members of the society have the same share in electing the rulers. (Stout, 2003). In ancient Greece, Aristotle included democracy alongside tyranny and oligarchy in his list of corrupt forms of governing society (Bealey, 1999, 98) because of demagogy, which fools common people into voting for things that they do not really understand. Aristotle’s positive systems included monarchy, aristocracy and polytheia. The last term meant that people are informed and educated enough to understand what they are doing. For two thousand years, this concept had not received much attention because of the low educational level of the majority of the population. In traditional societies, the main avenues for participation were families and to some extent religious institutions.

In the 21st century, the situation is changing: in many countries, more than half of students attend universities and the rate of illiteracy is very low. Polytheia could reemerge as a meaningful possibility. And participation would be a core element of that reemergence. “The main criticism of democracy as it operates today is that not enough citizens participate in it.” (Bealey, 1999, 234). “Modern liberal democracies lie” (Held, 1992, 259), and majorities may vote to persecute minorities (The Concise, 2003, 141). The basic democratic principles of equal rights, voting and resolving questions through simple majorities no longer fulfill the democratic ethos that they were intended to support. (Bealey, 1999, 98). In the 21st century, the term “equity,” which takes into account people’s differences (Equity, 2005), has supplanted absolute equality. At the same time, deliberation is reemerging as an important component of democracy.

Instead of one person – one vote we have stakeholders’ involvement. It is not always as important that everybody has precisely equal power but that participation varies according to people’s interests. How often elections or meetings take place and how many people participate are important as well, but the purpose is to help people get out what they need. The division of powers, which is so essential when power is concentrated in a few hands, becomes less pressing when the people who are interested both prepare and carry out their own decisions.

One feature common to democratic societies is the existence and the leading role of political parties. People may join a party and vote for a party, but the party leaders hold the power, make the decisions, and they are not always responsive. Some parties develop structures to support participation inside of the party, but usually the members are engaged primarily to raise money and to support the election campaign. In most societies, these political parties have become too big and most of their members have no real possibility to influence their policy. On the other hand, big political parties are not flexible enough for new challenges. The ideal of participation therefore is to work in groups that are small enough for each participant to have an influence and for the group as a whole to be responsive to each of its members. Groups of 3-9 persons are much more dynamic and task-oriented than the calcified bureaucracies discussed above.

In democratic societies with a strong political party system, governing is divided into the ruling coalition and the opposition. All decisions are made by the members of the coalition. Often decisions are more oriented towards sustaining the coalition and less towards the real interests or needs of participants. If you do not belong to the coalition you have no possibilities to influence the policy. In a participative society, everyone who is interested in an issue can participate in all stages of a decision and people who have no interest in a specific issue do not influence the process.

When only big political parties or groups get financial support from the state, participation may be blocked. Democratic institutions need not recognize participative initiatives if they are not representative and do not mach other classical criteria of democracy. For example, in Estonia, the Teachers` Union is not represented on the Teachers` Professional Council, which deals with the duties and responsibilities of teachers. Democratic regulations may even become obstacles to participation when they require that people belong to a political party in order to participate in a local council.

The term “democracy“ is often used in an exclusively positive sense, as the opposite of “autocracy.” (Mintrom, 2001) In this conception, democracy serves freedom and human rights. Such a concept is not balanced, however, because it does not involve the duties and restrictions necessary for peaceful and effective co-existence and co-operation. In Estonia, people mostly learn only to stand up for their own rights, but are not taught about the importance of recognizing the rights of the others.

Participation, which often involves very effective processes of consensus-building, can be a preferable mechanism in decision-making than voting alone. “If people know opportunities exist for effective participation in decision-making, they are likely to believe participation is worth while, likely to participate actively and likely, in addition, to hold that collective decisions should be binding.” (Held, 1992). But participation does more even than confer legitimacy. The National Academy of Public Administration declared in 1993 that, “the key to achieving change in organization is the participation of the work force in organizational design and implementation processes and a system for continuing communication among all members of the organization” (Leading, 1993, 9). According to this conception, participation and the communication on which cooperative participation is premised are keys to sustainability.

Democracy and participation in education

Democracy without participation is not democracy. “By acknowledging how far our political realities fall short of ... ideals, we open the way for asking how current institutional settings could be transformed to positive effect” (Mintrom, 2001, 617). Indeed, the difference between our ideals of democracy and the current practice of democracy is very often the lack of participation itself. Participation generally, and participation within schools in particular, can be the transformative element necessary to help our practice of democracy recover its ideals.

There is a gap between the concept of democracy and the experience students get in schools and society. But concepts like participation, inclusion, and involvement are still not often included even in political textbooks (Bealey, 1999, Robertson, 1993, The Concise, 2003). “The historical record shows that choice and freedom for all groups in society is most likely to be secured when members of these groups have opportunities to voice their concerns and to control outcomes through participation in political decision making“ (Mintrom, 2001, 640).

As this study shows, participation in schools offers many likely benefits, including the improvement of the situation in schools, the level of education, the economy and broader aspects of society as a whole. (Children, 2000, Fields, 2001) The first experience of participation is quite encouraging (Empowered, 2004). Participation helps to learn better (Student, 2003) and increases identification with school avoiding dropouts (Beekhoven, 2005).

Learning Participation, Through Participation

Participation isn’t something that is taught, but something that is done, and therefore it can´t be conveyed merely by textbooks and lectures. It requires new methods of teaching (Johnson, 1991, Ginter, 1999). The experience of participation should be an important part of curriculum in every school. In practice, it can take many different forms because “The terms ‘participation’ and ‘involvement’ are subject to widely different interpretations by schools and the level at which pupils are included in activities is highly variable” (Madge, 2003). It takes time for teachers and students to converge upon a shared understanding of participation.

Schools have mostly maintained an authoritarian ethos over the last centuries. A school may technically be a democratic organization, but traditionally it has not been a participative organization. Its headmaster may be elected by parents, or by an elected board or by officials appointed by the elected board, etc. Sometimes teachers are also elected. The process of having an election provides democratic legitimacy to the conduct and actions of the directors, even if they are very authoritarian themselves. Every teacher and headmaster is supposed to be a professional; in some countries she has even a title of a civil servant and carries out her task before the body that elected or appointed her. The autonomy of teachers is emphasized, but seldom their cooperation. Teachers who are naturally united in their struggle for their rights (higher wages, shorter working days and better working conditions) may not come together for other purposes.

After World War II there has been a great emphasis on democracy and citizenship in schools (Haav, 2006). In reality, schools act as enlightened monarchies under headmasters (Hämäläinen, 2004) or as noble aristocracies under teachers. In many schools a board is elected, but their task is merely supervision.

The situation has been different in so called alternative schools. Some principles of participation have been introduced also into “ordinary” schools. It helps those schools to become more efficient and gives a vivid example of participation to the students. Parents organize excursions, participate in events, help with lessons, etc. (Step by step and other methods). Schools and communities act hand in hand (Adams, 2005).

Democracy and participation in Estonian education

Estonian society participated very actively in education in the 19th century. Education was almost the only field where public activities were allowed and national self-determination was very closely related with education. Educational societies were organised throuhout Estonia.