Teacher education and the development of democratic citizenship in Europe : Introduction

Abstract

The English novelist and writer George Orwell, who was concerned about the quality of the English language in relation to politics, maintained in his essay Politics and the English Language (1946) that the word ‘democracy’ had a variety of interpretations and that it was impossible to extract its essence from them to create a single meaning. His perception still has relevance today. It raises the fundamental question investigated by this book: if democracy, and hence democratic citizenship, cannot be defined, how can it be taught? There is no doubt that throughout Europe, countries consider themselves to be democratic, but what does this mean, ideologically and practically? And how do these countries pass on their conceptions of democracy through education so that their young people can act as democratic citizens?