International Democratic Education Conference

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IDEC stands for International Democratic Education Conference. It is not the name of an organization or a group. The conferences are run by schools or other organizations whose proposals have been accepted at previous events.

There has been one conference every year since 1993, except for 2001, when the plans for a conference jointly organised in Israel and Palestine had to be cancelled. The Israelis organised a smaller event which was attended by Arabs, Jews and Germans.

Once representatives of a school have agreed to run a conference, everything is in their hands - dates, participants, cost, accommodation and style of conference. The length of the conferences has varied between two days for the first one to a fortnight in 1997. Students from both the host school and visiting schools play a large part; the conference at Sands School in 1997 and the Tokyo conference in 2000 were run almost entirely by students.

There are differing views as to the purpose of the IDECs:

  • They can be seen as an opportunity to discuss shared problems in a supportive atmosphere.
  • The organisers may hope to spread the idea of democratic education by inviting possible converts and attracting favourable publicity.
  • Others see the conference as a means of bonding schools so that they can offer support in times of crisis, on the "united we stand, divided we fall" principle.
  • Some see them as a way of improving the public perception of the host schools in their own countries.

The purpose of any given conference is decided by the school that is organising it.

These are the host schools for each conference, and a list of the countries represented there:

1993 The Democratic School of Hadera, Israel: Austria, Israel, UK, USA

1994 Sands School [1], England: Austria, Israel, UK

1995 The WUK [2], Vienna, Austria: Austria, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Norway, UK, USA

1996 The Democratic School of Hadera, Israel: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, UK, USA

1997 Sands School, England: Austria, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Palestine, Turkey, New Zealand, Ukraine, UK, USA

1998 The Stork Family School, Vinnitsa, Ukraine: Germany, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, UK, Ukraine, USA

1999 Summerhill School, England: Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Japan, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestine, UK, USA

2000 Tokyo Shure [3], Japan: Australia, China, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Thailand, UK, Ukraine, USA

2002 Tamariki, New Zealand: Australia, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Nepal, UK, USA

2003 Albany Free School [4], and AERO [5] USA: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Palestine, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, Ukraine, USA

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