Participedia School
Participedia Schools are intersectional, interdisciplinary, and international, democratic education spaces co-created by the Participedia community for students, practitioners, educators, government, and global civil society. Each Participedia School explores democratic innovations in a unique way, with new partners, in cities around the world.
Visit Participedia.org/participedia-school for more information about our Participedia School events.
Visit Participedia.orgPast Participedia Schools
Participedia Schools involve iterative process design rooted in design thinking. Review learnings from past schools by downloading summary reports below.
Transnational Democratic Innovations
2024 | Cape Town, South Africa & St Johns, Canada
In partnership with McMaster University, Memorial University, the Coady Institute, Memorial University, Politics and Urban Governance (PUG) Research, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Missions Publiques, Democracy International, and Innovation for Policy Foundation, Participedia School on Transnational Democratic Innovations (June 10-15, 2024) was hosted simultaneously by Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada and the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. With two decentralized sites, this transnational event brought together more than 110 students, faculty, practitioners, researchers, and facilitators to share, listen, design with, and learn from, one another. Together, we created a global ecosystem of learning to explore the transnational involvement of individuals or groups from multiple countries in political processes, decision-making, design, or advocacy that transcend national borders and issues. New innovations, theories, movements, policies, and successes are happening around the world, and Participedia School 2024 explored these transnational participatory processes, methods, and tools seeing uptake. Centering intersectional and interdisciplinary exchange, we came together to co-design transnational democratic innovations and the theory and practice of democracy across borders.
Download the Summary Report Here
Radical Democracy
2023 | Vancouver, Canada
Hosted with partner Simon Fraser University’s Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi), the CERi-Participedia Summer School on Radical Democracy (June 4-10, 2023) centered the theory and practice of radical democracy to explore themes of power and disruption, Indigenous governance, creativity, and care. The school brought together leading experts, researchers, graduate students, community leaders, activists, and practitioners for a week of workshops, discussion, dialogue, community events and field trips. Students joined from the social sciences, including political science, political philosophy, media and communications, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, economics, environment and related disciplines. Together, with the summer school team and invited guests, we explored what it means to radically re-imagine, research, and practice democracy in their communities and in everyday life.
Download the Summary Report Here