This manifesto argues that by combining student voice, agency and practical wisdom, or phronēsis, a more equitable and just educational system can be created that supports students’ empowerment as leaders of transformative change who can make well-informed, values-based judgements. Practical wisdom is the ability to make well-informed decisions based on knowledge, experience and ethical values. The manifesto recommends specific actions in support of this, such as reevaluating curriculum goals; availing students of different types of knowledge, capacities and reasoning; and establishing environments that promote collaboration and reflection. It aims to inspire educators to nurture children to be better decision makers and collaborative problem solvers. It concludes that despite the challenges facing the world today, the voices of children and young people offer hope, and that we must listen to them.

On my interpretation of Kelsen’s ‘pure’ theory of law, his basic norm must be understood as a regulative assumption, a claim about inquiry and what individuals must assume if their inquiry is into the authority of law. As such, this idea has both theoretical and practical dimensions. As a matter of theory, it requires an elaboration of authority as legitimate and attention to the way in which the relationship between those who wield authority and those subject to it can be said to be one of right rather than might. As a matter of practice, it requires attention to the way in which, in light of legal subjects’ experience of law, legal order is and should be designed with a view to vindicating its intrinsic commitment to the rule of law and its concomitant commitment to constitutionalism. However, all that cannot be had without acknowledging the drive towards substance in Kelsen’s theory, one that sacrifices its claim to be pure of ideology in the sense of political value commitments. But it preserves purity in an account in exclusively legal terms of how politics can take place in a space constructed by law, internationally as well as domestically.

This manifesto argues for a global exchange of wisdom such that, on one hand, those worst affected by climate change have a good understanding of its causes and consequences, and, on the other hand, their knowledge and experiences are fully incorporated into the international understanding of this global challenge. Taking the example of Uganda, it highlights that although many young people are experiencing the effects of climate change first hand through flooding, landslides or the impacts on agriculture and the wider economy, there is a widespread lack of understanding of the drivers, with local deforestation viewed as the main cause. This leaves young people only partially prepared for the future of worsening climate disruption. Climate change education, with indigenous examples to help pupils apply a broader lesson to a local context, can inform young people and empower them to respond. Sharing insights internationally and incorporating them into global educational offerings can support climate justice.

This chapter explores the relationship between Hans Kelsen’s philosophical relativism and his theory of democratic leadership. First, it argues that Kelsen’s theory of democratic leadership cannot be fully understood unless placed within his broader political thought, which includes a commitment to philosophical relativism. Second, it suggests that Kelsen provided an original answer to the puzzle of democratic leadership that is significant in its own right. Writing during the rise of fascism, Nazism, and Soviet communism, Kelsen made a crucial distinction between autocratic and democratic forms of leadership: while autocratic leaders are seen as possessing absolute knowledge and, therefore, hold unlimited power, democratic leaders are thought to carry only relative truths, and their power is consequently limited. Kelsen demonstrated that if we believe moral absolutes exist, it is logical to have an absolute leader with unfettered power. In contrast, if we hold that moral absolutes are inaccessible to human knowledge and only relative truths exist, it follows that leaders should have limited power and be subject to constant scrutiny and control. Contrary to the common characterisation of Kelsen as an abstract and idealist thinker, this chapter shows that his approach to political leadership was normative yet realist. Rather than eliminating leadership, Kelsen associated democracy with multiple, temporary leaders who have limited and relative political power.

This volume challenges conventional interpretations by demonstrating that Hans Kelsen was far from being a purely formalist thinker. Instead, it highlights his profound and enduring engagement with the threats facing constitutional democracies. The political and institutional upheavals of interwar Europe significantly influenced Kelsen’s evolving vision of democracy, as this volume shows. His contributions to twentieth-century democratic theory include groundbreaking insights into multiparty systems, mechanisms of moderation, minority protections, and judicial review. Furthermore, Kelsen’s reflections on the crises and collapses of democracies during the 1930s remain strikingly relevant, offering valuable perspectives on contemporary challenges such as polarisation and populism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The notion of political compromise in party democracy is a cornerstone of Kelsen’s democratic theory. In the legislative, he argued, one party (or several parties) constituting a majority need(s) to somehow get along with a party (or several parties) in the minority if democratic government is to work and last. However, this vision goes against common sense understandings of what it means to have a democratically elected majority; it is also likely to raise some eyebrows among majoritarian theorists of democracy. This chapter explores whether Kelsen’s central idea can possibly be redeemed. Unlike Kelsen’s multiple critics in contemporary democratic theory, it argues that his account of compromise rests on numerous ambiguities that leave it underdetermined on both normative and institutional levels. It also argues and demonstrates that the most plausible understanding of Kelsen’s imperative to compromise rests on the notion of respecting the members of parties in the minority as co-rulers – an intuition derived from a Rousseauian conception of democracy as collective self-rule and adapted to societies characterised by persistent conflicts of interest and moral disagreements. It concludes that, despite its shortcomings, Kelsen’s valorisation of political pluralism, in the legislative and in the public arena, remains an important source of arguments for a time often characterised as a ‘crisis of democracy’ and in the face of rampant anti-partyism.

The response provides examples of children’s voices have been promoted in classrooms. The first example from the University of Cambridge Primary School is a Class Congress that is designed to be inclusive and involves weekly discussion sessions between all children and the senior leadership team. It builds on the well-established Oracy and Dialogue curriculum at the school and helps to develop the children’s sense of agency. The second example is Project Dhun, an initiative from the Dhun School for Now in India. The school is built on three pillars: Self, Community and Planet. These pillars encourage students to connect with their individual skills, collaborate with their community and engage with the natural world. The school emphasises experimental, project-based learning. It features unique spaces, such as a nature lab, in which the role of the teacher is evolved to be a facilitator.

United by their realistic approach to the study of democratic politics, Hans Kelsen and Joseph Schumpeter similarly sought to de-ideologise ‘classical’ accounts of popular sovereignty. Both developed an analytical framework to explain how modern democracy, based on parties and the electoral selection of representatives, functions and realises its ideals. Both emphasised that democracy lasts only if it successfully generates a ‘compromise’ between the contingent majority and the temporary minority (in the terminology for Kelsen) or if current majorities exercise ‘self-control’ (in the language of Schumpeter). However, neither explained the mechanisms that induce democratically elected majorities to limit themselves in the practice of governmental power. The chapter first charts the innovations introduced by Kelsen and Schumpeter into our understanding of democracy; then, it teases out their views on how majorities abstain from aggrandising their power beyond some limits. For both, such limits must be self-enforcing and observing them must constitute an equilibrium. Yet, a proper understanding of how this equilibrium emerges remains one of the greatest challenges for contemporary scholars of democracy. ‘Compromise’ or ‘self-restraint’ is almost definitionally a requisite of democratic politics, but it cannot be imposed from outside, and it cannot just follow from agreements about certain rules, unless those rules are self-enforcing. As the chapter explains, it must be in the best interest of the democratic rulers to stop monopolising power given the potential reactions of the opposition, and it must be in the best interest of the opposition to participate peacefully given that the incumbent stops. Despite the significant progress in the normative and empirical study of democracy over the past several decades, the greatest challenge faced by Kelsen and Schumpeter has not been completely resolved.

This manifesto argues that education should incorporate philosophical exploration to help young people address existential questions and find meaning and purpose in their lives. The manifesto suggests that to understand the meaning of one’s life, one must consider personal existence and consciousness and the reality beyond the here and now. It proposes that education should provide a neutral forum for discussing these big questions, without bias towards any particular belief system, and incorporating both scientific and spiritual perspectives. By engaging in such philosophical discourse, young people can develop a clearer sense of self and purpose, fostering resilience, mental well-being and a commitment to values and moral behaviour. This can support them to survive and thrive through the opportunities and challenges of the future.

This collection of manifestos and practitioner responses presents a compelling and multifaceted vision for the future of education. We hope that readers will engage critically with the ideas contained in them, adopting or adapting them to create their own visions for education, or rejecting them to clear new space for dialogue.

Our aim has been to present chapters that grapple with complex and interconnected issues, highlighting the need for a fundamental shift in how we educate children and young people in a world struggling with unprecedented social, political, environmental and technological change. What would it look like if you were to accept and explore the complexity of interconnected fields of learning? How might you exploit these interconnections to better prepare children for their future lives – both their challenges and their opportunities? We encourage educators to stop and reconsider what they do, and how and why they’re doing it.

This chapter addresses Kelsen’s democratic theory through the distinction that he established between ideal and real democracy. Starting from a reconceptualisation of Rousseau’s definition of democracy as full political self-determination, Kelsen negated the feasibility of ideal democracy as direct democracy while stating that heteronomy was impossible to overcome. Kelsen thus posed the problem of how heteronomy and freedom were reconciled in real democracy. By differentiating between the ideal and real significance of concepts such as the people and parliamentarism, Kelsen argued that such a reconciliation was made possible in the form of a ‘government by’ the people, based on freedom rights, parliamentarism, political party pluralism and respect of the minority. The chapter also shows how Kelsen critically addressed a series of political projects, movements and figures, from Lenin to Neo-jusnaturalism, passing through the supporters of corporative representation. Kelsen retained that their common objective to go beyond what he meant by real democracy was destined to create a political system characterised by heteronomy without freedom. In this respect, Kelsen developed a theory of democracy that was both a theory on how freedom and heteronomy could be reconciled and a defence of democracy against ideologically and politically connotated targets.

Vom Wesen und Wert der Demokratie is certainly Kelsen’s best-known contribution to democratic theory. To be adequately understood, however, it must be seen not as a one-shot theoretical effort, but as the epitome of a decade-long inquiry into the foundations of democracy. Indeed, the book was not written at a single stroke: it was first published in 1920 as a short essay and reappeared in 1929 in a revised and significantly expanded form. This chapter unearths the forgotten genealogy of Kelsen’s seminal work by comparing its two editions and exploring their profound and overlooked differences; by doing so, it unearths, contextualises, and unpacks the transformations, both normative and practical, that took place in Kelsen’s democratic theory between the two versions of Vom Wesen und Wert der Demokratie. A careful textual and contextual analysis shows that Kelsen’s most famous publication on democracy was a response to the multiple challenges that gradually emerged throughout the 1920s. It also reveals how Kelsen’s analysis of party democracy grew out of a careful study of actual democratic institutions and their fragile stand in the intellectual and political landscape of interwar Europe.

The response describes how transdisciplinary approaches can be adopted in the classroom to support skills such as creativity, innovation, adaptability and problem solving and to foster a more holistic and engaging learning experience. The first case study, ‘Constellations’ at the University of Cambridge Primary School, explores the night sky, the solar system and stars through scientific, historical, creative and literary lenses by combining real-world experiences with classroom activities. The second case study, ‘The Selburose’, connects computational thinking, programming, mathematics and arts and crafts by having students design and create a traditional Norwegian knitting pattern using Scratch programming and various craft materials.

This manifesto explores the biological effects of toxic stress, triggered by strong, frequent or prolonged adversity, on childhood development and long-term health. It highlights how emotion coaching, a form of responsive relationship, can mitigate those effects, support the healthy development of children and improve outcomes for children, young people and families. Emotion coaching involves being present, validating the child’s feelings and helping them understand and manage their emotions. The manifesto advocates for integrating the science of stress and the practice of emotion coaching into educational systems and communities, including strengthening skills and capabilities in the core life skills of adult caregivers. In this way, educators and communities can help children thrive.