Artistic Experiences of Critical Citizenship: Reimagining Democracy From the Classroom

The Esbrina Research Group — Subjectivities, Visualities and Contemporary Educational Environments (2021SGR00686), together with the Doctoral Program in Arts and Education at the University of Barcelona, ​​​​organize the Conference “Artistic Experiences of Critical Citizenship. Reimagining Democracy from the Classroom”, which will take place on July 8 and 9, 2025 at the Center for Specific Pedagogical Resources to Support Educational Innovation and Research (CESIRE – Av. Drassanes, 10. Barcelona).

Presentation

The conference is part of the Critical ChangeLab project (GA 101094217) of the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program, which aims to reimagine the relationship between youth and democracy. We invite researchers, educators, practitioners, and policymakers to contribute to an exchange on rethinking democratic practices in education.

In a context of profound social, political, and ecological transformations, it is urgent to rethink democracy beyond its institutional forms and promote its everyday practice in educational spaces. From this perspective, art and creative practices emerge as powerful tools to foster critical, active, and imaginative citizenship.

The main objective of these conference is to bring together researchers, teachers, artists, students, and others interested in exploring how artistic practices can open spaces for rethinking, imagining, and practicing democracy in the classroom.

Specifically, we are interested in discussing papers and experiences that address the following topics:

• Potentials and limitations of promoting critical democracy in education through artistic methodologies.
• Educational and creative strategies to foster political imagination and transformative agency in students.
• Experiences of student participation, co-creation, and collective action in educational settings.
• Methodological reflections on working with art to think of critical citizenship in educational contexts.

Guide questions

• What lessons and tensions emerge when we rethink democracy from a classroom perspective?
• How can artistic practices in schools and non-formal education spaces foster forms of democratic participation and critical approaches to contemporary eco-social challenges?
• In what ways can artistic practices open up new understandings of how we engage with community and territory?
• What methodologies enable us to promote critical citizenship beyond traditional discourses on democracy?

Contributions

The conference is open to various types of contributions that will allow us to capture the wealth of experiences, strategies, and critical reflections that have emerged around democratic education and artistic practices.

Three types of contributions are available:

• Experience Report: Narrations of projects, practices, or interventions carried out in educational contexts that promote critical citizenship, democratic participation, or political imagination through art.
• Description of strategies and methods: Presentations of resources, dynamics, pedagogical approaches, or methodologies used to foster critical thinking, student agency, or the exercise of democracy in the classroom.
• Critical reflection: Theoretical or methodological analyses of the challenges, limits, and possibilities of promoting democratic and transformative practices from an educational and artistic perspective.

Contibution proposals

Proposals must be submitted using the following template:

• Title of the proposal.
• Authors, affiliation, and email addresses.
• Contribution type (Experience report / Description of strategies and methods / Critical reflection).
• Extended abstract (up to 700 words).
• 3 to 5 keywords.
• Mini-biography of the author or group (up to 100 words).
• Motivation (Why do you want to participate? What can you contribute? What do you hope to learn?) (up to 200 words).

All proposals will be evaluated by the conference’s scientific committee based on thematic relevance, originality, and quality.

Proposals must be submitted using the following form:

Key dates

Accreditation

At the end of the activity, participants who meet the attendance requirement will receive a certificate of participation issued by the Professional Development Institute (IDP) of the University of Barcelona. For teachers from the Department of Education and Vocational Training of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government), the certificate for this course is incorporated directly into each teacher’s training file on the XTEC platform and may be used as accreditation to participate in the Department’s various selection processes, under the terms and conditions indicated in each call.

Header image by Rocío Perera on Unsplash