From influencing school food to handling hate speech: Methods, areas, and limitations of active citizenship in Finnish social studies textbooks

Historically, education for active citizenship has not been a high priority in Finnish schools. In this discursive study of Finnish social studies textbooks for grades 4–6, we investigate how students are encouraged to practice active citizenship, where the focus of active citizenship lies, and how active citizenship is limited in antidemocratic ways. Referring to the theoretical discussion about democracy in education, we note a discursive focus on individual influencing and communication skills as methods for active citizenship education. We find that active citizenship focuses on students’ immediate surroundings, the school, and the local area as potential fields of influence. We note how antidemocratic threats to active citizenship are often portrayed with a focus on individual feelings and manners, not on understanding democratic structures and antidemocratic threats such as silencing voices through online hate speech. We welcome a discussion about how young students can become active citizens, by encouraging a more democratic classroom culture within social studies, thereby creating space for imagining alternative futures and utopian thinking.