What is democracy?

Dr Seema Shah and Dr Alexander Hudson from The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) recently trialled a democracy activity with our Grade 10 MUN students over a 3-week period. One of the aims was for the students to think further than a democracy 'just' being a fair voting and election system that exists in a country, and that there are many, many layers to a democratically run country.

They were split into 4 groups of 4-5 students in each group, after being exposed to and briefed on various definitions that exist of democracy from political scientists around the world. Each group also received a collection of "puzzle pieces" that represented various aspects of the concept of democracy. In these groups, the students were tasked with creating their own definition of democracy and then creating what a democracy can or should look like by moving pieces of the puzzle around, such as 'Rights', 'Rule of Law', 'Participation', 'Representation', 'Credible Elections', 'Basic Welfare', 'Civic Engagement', and so on. The students were also allowed to create and add their own pieces to the democracy puzzle, such as 'Inclusive Suffrage', 'Effective Parliament', 'Participation as a Choice', 'Economic Wellbeing', 'Freedom of Religioin' and 'Gender Fairness'.

It was excellent to witness the students collaboratively develop a definition of democracy and construct their own democratic model under Seema and Alexander's guidance throughout the three Model United Nations sessions. The critical feedback and probing questions from their peers during final presentations were compelling, prompting sophisticated justifications and reasoning that demonstrated deep engagement with the material in a really challenging subject area.

Seema and Alex will use the results of the trial to further develop the activity, with the ultimate aim that International IDEA can offer it to more schools as a learning tool.