Research and Reports on Democratic Education

Education research is highly valued in our society, by educators, policy-makers, and the broad public. The practices and outcomes of democratic education have an extensive and credible research backing, and we present that research here.

By compiling this research we help educators, students, parents, policy-makers, and others have multiple studies at their fingertips that show the positive impact of democratic education practices on young people, teachers, families, and the community.

We welcome you to look through the studies presented here, print and download files, and show them to other teachers, students, parents, policy-makers, and others.

This is just the beginning of our work. We'll be adding a searchable database and a place for comments on these studies. If you know of additional research or reports to include here, please send them to us from the form at the left.

Choose a category of research below for studies within that scope.

1. Teaching and Classroom Practices


2. Psychology and Learning Theories


3. Student Involvement and Youth Voice


4. Social Issues in Education


5. Student Outcomes


6. School Change and Education Reform

*For research studies referenced in the IDEA Video Make Your Voice Heard, follow this link.

One note: We have focused on studies and articles that are freely available for download or viewable on a website. However, we do include a few strong studies published in journals that do not offer their articles for free. We suggest that you visit a local college or university library (which typically carry many journals) to photocopy the articles, or that you call a university library and ask them to copy and mail you the article.