A School in Democracy? A Study of Political Representatives' School Visits (SkolDem)

Political parties' school visits play an important role in fulfilling the democratic mission of schools. However, there are differences in the occurrence of such visits among different schools and a lack of knowledge regarding how these visits can be planned and carried out in the best possible way.

In Sweden, there has been a tradition of political parties and their youth organizations conducting school visits to inform students about their policies. These visits are significant for two reasons. Firstly, they contribute to fulfilling the democratic mission of schools. Secondly, school visits are the primary recruitment channel for new members for political youth organizations, and ultimately for political parties, making them crucial in ensuring the future of representative democracy.

Given the important role of school visits, it is concerning that there are indications that schools are denying access to political parties and youth organizations to inform about their activities. These issues have been raised previously and led to the revision of the Education Act in 2018, clarifying the circumstances and manner in which schools should provide opportunities for political representatives to inform about their activities. However, recent studies suggest that it is still common for schools to prohibit visits by political representatives, and there are significant differences between different types of schools.

The overall purpose of this project is to increase knowledge about political representatives' school visits. The project has two main objectives:

Develop the municipality's, schools', and school staff's knowledge and conditions for including political representatives' school visits in education to fulfill the school's democratic mission.
Generate high-quality research in the field of democratic education and the significance of schools and political parties for young people's political interests, knowledge, and engagement.

This project is conducted in collaboration with Sundsvall Municipality, in accordance with the collaboration agreement. The project is part of the program "Future Welfare: Healthcare and Education" at Mid Sweden University.

The complete project application can be requested from Mid Sweden University's registry via email: registrator@miun.se. Please provide the project title when making the request.