Transforming Students’ Knowledge about Democracy and Citizenship through Art and the Use of Educational Media

Abstract

Democracy and citizenship are two values that are closely linked to the education of each individual. Most education systems seek to transform attitudes and enhance individuals’ knowledge by offering courses related to citizenship and democracy. In Greece until the school year 2019-2020, the course “Modern World, Citizenship and Democracy” was taught to 11th grade students. In a sample of 76 students, research was conducted to explore how different works of art can contribute to the expected transformation. Students were given a digital list of concepts related to “Democracy” and “Citizenship and Rights” and were asked to choose a concept and link it to a work of art by submitting their project to a digital repository. The concepts that students mostly chose were racism, democracy, and rights (individual, political, social). In addition, projects were recorded, in which the selected work of art referred to two concepts. The works of art they chose were mainly: painting, cinema, photography, and sketch/comics. The use of the internet as a source of artwork was limited. There seems to be a strong correlation between the choice of concepts and socio-economic reality. In addition, the operation of the digital classroom and the dialogue developed in relation to their projects, strengthened the educational framework, created a variety of perspectives, and contributed to the expected transformation.