Barnens budget
En studie av Växjö kommuns projekt i demokratisk skolning
Young people?s political influence has been surveyed, studied and discussed several times in Sweden during the last decade. There is a fear among the politicians that the young people are not interested in politics, especially not in party politics. On the other hand there is, among the youngsters a feeling of invisibility, not being seen or heard or for that sake respected. There are a lot of formal possibilities for young people?s political influence, but there are not as many real possibilities or situations to actually practice these possibilities. There have been many national, regional and municipal projects initiated during the last years to develop these possibilities and create more opportunities for young people to (1) take part in the decision-making and as well (2) create an interest for politics, and party politics in particular. In Växjö municipality in Southern Sweden such a project was carried out during the autumn 2003. The project was called Barnens budget (the Children?s Budget). Through this project the local politicians hoped to give the young pupils of Växjö a feeling and an experience of influence and power, which in the wishes of the initiators would create an interest in politics and a respect for democracy.The idea of the project was that the pupils in the primary and secondary schools of Växjö through a democratic process from class-level, via school-level, to the municipal level would share and split 500 000 Swedish kronor. The money would go to the pupil?s priorities no matter what they were, and in the end the priorities turned out to be everything from dictionaries to lizards and soccer-goals. We may call it an exchange between the politicians and the pupils: money in exchange for a democratic process.The project is studied and analyzed with help from different theories and studies about young people and influence, politics, democracy etc. A comparison is also made between the project in Växjö and a similar project from the Norwegian town of Porsgrunn, which was the main influence for Barnens budget in Växjö.The result from the study is that the basic idea of democratic schooling is a true and well-willing one, but that much of the goals aimed at were not reached. This mainly because of that it seems as the work was not given the time it needed for reflections, discussions and implementations. This is something that goes for all levels, from the political level to the class-room level. The project would also have earned more from not only aiming at educating the youngsters ? a top-down perspective, but instead being put into a whole, a mutual exchange of ideas and opinions between the pupils and the politicians.