This report, conducted by researchers from the University of Iceland and funded by the Nordic Welfare Centre, examines the state of student councils and democratic participation in primary and lower-secondary schools across seven Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Rooted in the Nordic tradition of democratic education and the UN convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989), student councils are seen as key mechanisms for promoting students’ voices and democratic citizenship within the context of schools. However, recent global trends towards democratic backsliding, coupled with effects from market-driven education reforms and the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, underscore the importance of critically examining how student participation is enacted in everyday school settings.
Using a mixed-method approach, the study draws on multiple data sources to offer a holistic analysis on the status of student councils. A policy mapping exercise was conducted, analysing 14 national policy documents concerning student councils and democratic participation. Empirical data was collected through an online survey administered to students in grade 5 and in grade 9 or 10, depending on which grade was the highest of lower-secondary school in each country. The focus of the survey was on students’ awareness, participation, and experiences related to student councils in their schools. Further insights were gathered through workshops and informal discussions at the Nordic Baltic Youth Summit and the Nordic Youth Disability Summit alongside group interviews with students and educators across 19 schools in the Nordic region. The analysis was framed by Laura Lundy’s model of child participation, emphasising the dimensions of space, voice, audience, and influence, in relation to broader theoretical background and previous studies on student councils, citizenship education, and young people’s democratic participation in the Nordic countries.
The findings shed light on a complex and often uneven landscape of student participation across the Nordic region. While most countries mandate the establishment of student councils by law, the actual implementation often falls short of policy ideals. Although many students report high awareness of the existence of a student council in their school, many fewer – between a quarter and a third of the surveyed students – have participated in councils themselves. Considering the Nordic education tradition, democratic elections are the dominant method of selecting council members. Typically, students either volunteer or are nominated for class-based voting, sometimes with attention to gender balance. Other processes include open discussion about who to nominate, application processes, and attending student councils as part of an elective course. However, concerns were raised by students across all the Nordic countries about fairness, transparency, and inclusivity of these processes. Students described how popularity contests, perceived power status, lack of clear processes, and teacher influences can undermine trust in council legitimacy, particularly for marginalised groups such as students with disabilities or minority backgrounds.
The thematic analysis of open survey questions and interview data revealed that student councils tend to focus heavily on organising social events and minor school improvements rather than addressing broader current education, social, or systemic issues. Overall, students valued student councils as platforms where they could raise issues with teachers and school leaders. Yet, many also expressed frustration over limited follow-through and impact of their suggestions. Even when students felt that they were being encouraged to raise their voices and share their opinions on matters concerning them, they still experienced little visible feedback or change, indicating a perception of tokenism or superficial democracy. The young people consulted through the Youth Summits highlighted that for engagement to be meaningful, councils must be accessible to all students, address diverse issues that are relevant not only to one group of students, and provide clear pathways for influence on school governance.
Even though the report clearly highlights challenges in offering children and youth meaningful opportunities for participation within the context of student councils, findings from the focus group interviews with students and teachers give insight into promising practices that have been successful in mobilising a larger and more diverse group of students through participation in student councils. They demonstrated how rethinking participation through such measures as inclusive selection models, stronger teacher facilitation, and integration with broader municipal structures can foster more meaningful and diverse student engagement. These approaches can serve as an inspiration for school administrators, teachers, and students on how to better utilise student councils as an advocacy platform able to reduce social hierarchies and broaden the purpose and diversity of topics and activities of student councils beyond event planning for an exclusive group of students.
In conclusion, the report highlights significant gaps between normative ideals of democratic education and youth participation as embedded in Nordic policy and lived experiences of students in schools. It calls for deliberative strategies to ensure open and inclusive access to student councils, strengthen supportive administrative frameworks, foster democratic communication and feedback between and within student councils, broaden the scope of councils’ activities to address substantive and diverse issues of education which are meaningful to students’ well-being and global citizenship. Without such structural and cultural shifts, there is a risk that student councils remain symbolic and superficial rather than transformative spaces for young people’s democratic engagement. Moreover, the lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic further stress the urgency of considering how student councils can truly become a platform for resilient and meaningful participation where children’s rights are safeguarded, not only during ordinary times, but also at a time of future crises.