Academic year 2025/2026
Overview
This course engages participants in both the theory, values, educational psychology, and practices of democratizing teaching, learning, and leadership. Participants will learn the principles of adult education, as well as the participatory and collaborative modalities of folkbildning together with tools from restorative pedagogy.
The course also explores how folkbildning, as both a movement and an educational infrastructure, can be adapted to serve the emancipatory needs of different contexts. Special emphasis will be given to questions concerning how to bridge the gap between civic engagement and structures of governance. Together, participants will learn to design collaborative learning environments by adapting and applying learning taxonomies to create learning outcomes that promote the personal integration of knowledge, self-awareness, and the holistic formation of both groups and individuals.
Throughout the course, participants and instructors collaborate to model collegial workflows that tie together the experiences and material learned during the course into the practical skills of designing learning outcomes, course plans, and syllabi that explicitly promote democratic processes.
The aim of the course is to enhance awareness and practices for professional educators, with a particular focus on community building, democratic education, folkbildning, and restorative practices. The course explores dialogue and humility as the foundation for seeking knowledge.
Learning Approach
At Sankt Ignatios Folkhögskola, the overarching principle that guides learning is that all knowledge is intersubjective.
Knowledge is dialogue, which requires humility and empathy.
This course is built on collaborative and dialogical learning where participants actively shape not only their common learning journey but also the course itself. The content, materials, and methods will be adapted in real time based on participants’ needs, interests, and input. Beyond mastering subject matter, a central goal is for each participant to become aware of how shared learning experiences and dialogue transforms their thinking, practice and identity. Through dialogue, narrative, group discussions, shared reflection, creative expression, and collective exploration, participants develop awareness of their own growth while supporting others’ development. The learning community becomes a space where everyone’s experiences and questions not only enrich understanding but actively guide the direction of the course, helping each person to integrate learning into their own life context in meaningful, personally transformative ways.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, the participants are (individually and collectively) expected to be able to:
- apply democratic educational leadership principles and practices with conviction, competence and confidence;
- examine and modify folkbildning ideas and methods for different local educational settings, considering the insights shared by diverse group members and stakeholders;
- put democratic and collaborative learning methods into practice effectively, incorporating feedback from fellow participants;
- use restorative education approaches in teaching and learning situations, practicing these techniques with other participants;
- work with diverse educational situations with cultural awareness, including trauma-informed approaches, drawing on the group’s collective experiences;
- create course materials and learning activities that support democratic processes and build self-awareness for both individuals and groups; and
- reflect on their development as leaders, describing how collaborative learning has transformed their understanding of democratic pedagogy and how they’ve integrated these principles into their personal teaching philosophy.
Other requirements
Attendance is mandatory. Students are expected to participate in all course activities, both by being present and playing an active role in scheduled sessions and by completing assignments outside of scheduled lessons. If participants miss lessons, they may be required to complete extra assignments to fulfill the learning outcome requirements of the course. For the course to be considered complete, 80% attendance and participation are required.
The Deans Council revised the syllabus on February 26 and March 18 2025.
