Our Focus and Expertise
Our activities can be categorized into various topical areas in which Demokrative has particular expertise, networks and experience. These topics are briefly described here with reference to specific projects and activities (not a complete list).

Demokrative focuses on democratic values as well as on the understanding and examination of individual value preferences. Our central approach is to address values and value controversies and to promote reflection of individual value preferences. Fundamental democratic questions are discussed controversially and on a scientific basis. Democratic values, such as the ability to tolerate ambivalence or respectful interaction with others, are understood and trained as democratic competences.
For example, the reflection of Democratic values and value preferences is important in the following projects:

The Swiss political system, the Swiss understanding of democracy and the landscape of civic education in Switzerland are central themes in Demokrative's educational offerings and networking activities. Fundamental democratic issues and democratic values are never treated in an abstract way, but are used as a magnifying glass to illuminate democracy and politics in Switzerland from different angles, to understand them better and to reflect them critically. In the international professional exchange we bring in specific experiences from Switzerland.
Swiss politics and democracy are especially prominent in the following projects:

For us, learning and teaching democracy also means further training practitioners. What competences do trainers and teachers need to be equipped with in order to shape democracy education? What knowledge do we need to be able to promote a differentiated and critical understanding of our political system? How do we prepare this knowledge for our target groups? What methods do we use to create a connection to the everyday lives of our addressees? How can the importance of democracy be conveyed and experienced? In democracy education, it is important to combine content and process and to advocate mutual respect and respectful coexistence.
We provide further training for practitioners in the following projects and programmes:
Demogames-Manual for Trainers
Dossier on the war in Ukraine for teachers and trainers

Games are activities with a defined framework that set goals for the players, impose certain rules of behavior, and require that the players actively interact. Games therefore create an experiential learning environment. The 'playing' itself is didactically embedded in an introduction and a reflection phase or de-briefing. This final phase is given special attention as it allows the players to share and evaluate their own actions and experiences. We want to enable innovative learning in our projects and therefore promote the approach of game-based engagement with civic education content.
Click here for our projects and activities with a focus on game-based learning:
Let's play Democracy Barometer – card-games
Democracy game box which contains the eight educational games that were developed in the project Demogames
Democracy-game-workshop for young people, guided by our multipliers
Demogames-Manual for teachers and practitioners

The current global challenges are so complex that ecological, social and economic aspects must always be included. Civic education therefore makes an important contribution to an education for sustainable development that follows a holistic approach and always takes these interactions into account. Our offers build knowledge and competencies that help to make collective decisions and thus solve societal problems through politics. We try to encourage our target groups to become more politically involved and participate, and to provide them with the necessary skills to make informed decisions and to understand their consequences for society and the environment.
For all these reasons, we focused on the topic of education for sustainable development at the annual training course for our democracy multipliers in September 2023.
Materials that are particularly suitable for education for sustainable development:
The Observers game, a democratic Black-Stories game which was developed within the Demogames project. We will publish a new set of cards around the topic of sustainability shortly.
The Demodice game, a story-telling game which was developed within the Demogames project and contains a sustainability-die. You can find tips on how to use the game for sustainability education in the game rules.
If desired, we also hold democracy-game-workshops for young people on the topic of sustainability.

Demokrative bases its work and, in particular, its understanding of civic education on nationally and internationally recognized concepts. In this context, we have dealt in depth with the Council of Europe's reference framework for competencies for a democratic culture since its publication 2018 and refer to it when developing educational programmess.
In a group of international experts and practitioners, we have developed recommendations for the application, implementation and further development of this instrument:
- NECE Focus Group on 'Competences for Democratic Culture'. Recommendations and Documentation. 2019. Download as PDF
We use the reference framework (among others) in our trainings and accompany and advise colleagues who want to use the reference framework for their work
- Example: Peer Processes competences for democracy
When developing educational offers the reference framework is a basis for the setting of objectives, description and evaluation.
- Example: Demogames

Political participation and partaking are both the subject and the programme of Demokrative's educational offerings. Who has a say in what issues and where in a democracy? this is one of the most fundamental questions of democracy, and yet it is often not questioned. For example, in our democracy building block modules, we focus on the rights and challenges concerning political participation. Participation is more than voting. The game Participedia, developed within the Demogames project, demonstrates this particularly well.
Participation plays a crucial role in all of our offerings, as our programs are experience-based and action-oriented. Participants learn through their active involvement. They reflect on and evaluate their behavior and experiences. This enables and motivates political participation.
Projects and Activities with a special focus on participation:
Building blocks of democracy, especially the modules island Utopia, time travel, and the value-barometer
Demogames, especially the game Participedia
If desired, we also hold democracy-game-workshops for young people on the topic of participation

As in all areas of life, digitalisation is also becoming increasingly present in democracy and is thus developing into a central topic of political education. Demokrative is in dialogue with experts and activists, analyzing which democratic spaces are opening up digitally, which challenges digitalization will bring, and reflecting on which skills are necessary in this context.
In our daily work, we strive to use high-quality programs that respect data protection and privacy, and we prefer transparent standards and open software ("open source").
Projects/Activities:
Round Table of the Demokrative, Edition 2019 "Chances and risks of digitalization for democracies"
