: Critical citizenship: Trust and democracy in Social Science Education on theoretical and vocational tracks

Schools in general, and social science education in particular, have an assignment to prepare youth for democratic citizenship. Teachers deal with tensions between socializing students while at the same time developing their critical thinking. Recently, students' knowledge of democracy has decreased at the same time as segregation and polarization have increased. Furthermore, research suggests that teaching in vocational and preparatory programmes is informed by different civic ideals, which affect the compensatory assignment of schools in terms of democracy. This interdisciplinary project aims to investigate how inquiry-based teaching focusing on trust issues in social science education can contribute to developing students' critical citizenship skills and how such teaching can bridge differences between different student groups. The teaching intervention which the project rests on is developed in collaboration with teachers and is based on research on powerful knowledge and subjectification. The project builds on insights from, and expands on, a VR-funded project that has shown good results in increasing students' critical citizenship knowledge. Among other things, the current project examines the potential of bridging differences between student groups in an inquiry-based design. Before and after the teaching intervention, a questionnaire and focus group interviews will be conducted. The collected data material is analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods.