What is AELD
Aesthetic and Embodied Learning for Democracy, or AELD for short, starts from a simple but important idea: democracy is not only something we learn about, but something we experience, practise, and live.
Democracy can be enacted in learning environments through participation, dialogue, shared responsibility and collective decision-making. Learning spaces can become living examples of democracy in practice, where relationships, power, and participation can be explored reflectively and ethically. This orientation is reflected in frameworks such as the Council of Europe’s Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture as well as EU citizenship education initiatives, which emphasise participation, inclusion, learner agency, and democratic culture.
AELD builds on these foundations by integrating aesthetic and embodied ways of knowing. It understands learning as a whole-person process, shaped not only through words and ideas, but also through bodily sensations and movement, emotions and felt responses, imagination and creative expression, and relationships and shared experience.
In this way, AELD helps surface tacit knowledge, creates space for different forms of reflection and understanding, and brings bodily and relational experience into democratic learning and decision-making. AELD supports people to connect with democracy as something felt, shared, and lived in everyday life.
Pause and reflect prompt: How are thinking, feeling, and sensing integrated in learning experiences in my context?
By using creative and aesthetic approaches, participants can explore and express ideas, relationships, identity, and cooperation, helping to articulate meanings, for example through:
- visual forms such as collage, drawing, painting, or photography
- movement, dance, and drama
- storytelling, poetry, or reflective writing
- sound, rhythm, or performance
- mindful or sensory exercises to deepen awareness of self, others, and environment
These approaches are not about producing art, but about learning through creative processes that open space for listening, imagining, reflecting and co-creating meaning, where learning becomes tangible and felt, rather than purely abstract.
Pause and reflect prompt: Which activity are you most drawn to? How might it feel to try something new?
What AELD seeks to cultivate
In essence, AELD seeks to cultivate a personal and shared feel for democracy, which we call democratic sensibility.
The value of these approaches applies across the human lifespan, from early childhood through to adult and professional learning, helping everyone to connect with democracy.
Can I use it in my setting?
AELD is not a fixed method, but a way of designing learning activities that are responsive to context while remaining grounded in democratic principles such as power sharing, transforming dialogue, holistic learning and relational well-being – allowing them to take shape naturally in each context.
It can be adapted to different learning environments, including:
- schools and universities
- teacher education and professional learning
- organisational development
- community and cultural settings
Vignette: We step out of the campus hall into the yard. The students chatter, but I ask them to pause social talk and tune into the journey – listening to the surroundings, noticing feelings, tensions, thoughts. Feeling their feet on pavement, then gravel, then the soft forest floor. We walk in silence into the woods behind the university. I sense dew underfoot, smell wet soil. Birds call from the pond beyond the trees. Boots scratch; clothes shuffle. I hear my own breath, and theirs.In a small clearing, we form a circle. From my backpack, I take a ball of yarn. I hand it to the first student and say to them: share one insight from your thesis, another from you peer’s – keep hold of the string as you pass the ball on.
One by one, we become connected – threads stretching across the clearing as reflections weave between us.Sometimes we tangle. We crouch, bend, reach to untangle and pass the yarn. We learn not to pull the yarn too tight, nor let it drag so that connection fades. When the ball falls, we pick it up. In this web of yarn, participation, co-construction and collective decision-making become tangible: the journey we share, the knowledge gathered, the solidarity and challenges faced.
When the circle is complete, one more task begins: to move as one from the woods back to the campus, keeping the network intact. We negotiate – verbally, silently. How to walk a narrow path without someone falling? How to match pace, fit through a doorway? Finally, we are inside. Time to let go of the yarn – but hold on to the ties that bind us.
This journey taught us that democratic learning is not confined to dialogue – it emerges through embodied practices, shared movement, and affective atmospheres, in the rhythm of bodies and the weight of yarn between hands.
Students felt belonging, mutual responsibility, and freedom of expression. The yarn made visible what is often unseen: interdependence, care, and the fragile strength of connection, fostering power-sharing and relational wellbeing. Democracy in education is lived, negotiated, and co-created – felt in bodies as much as spoken in words. Something we could touch, carry and move through together.
AECED Case 5, Higher Education, Finland
Pause and reflect prompt: Where might there be space in your context for people to learn not only through discussion, but through shared experience, attention, or creative and sensory engagement?
Deeper exploration
Explore the key ideas and principles of AELD below, read the full Pedagogical Framework for a detailed exploration or take a look at the Pedagogy of Aesthetic-Embodied Learning for Democracy resource paper
Key characteristics of AELD
Co-creation
Transformative moments
Exploring tensions
Blended roles
Disrupting linear time
Safe spaces
Engagement and curiosity
Navigating institutional barriers and constraints
Moving beyond
Keys ideas that shape AELD
These ideas are intended to support reflection and deeper understanding
Democracy-as-becoming
Democracy is understood as a living, unfinished process that takes shape through everyday interactions, relationships, and shared learning.
How aesthetic and embodied learning connects
Aesthetic and embodied approaches influence how people are present with one another – how they attend, respond, share space, and experience being seen or heard. These lived relational patterns are part of how democracy continually forms.
What it changes
- shifts democracy from something people are taught about to something they actively live, practise and feel
- emphasises everyday interactions as sites where democracy is strengthened or weakened
- highlights responsibility and agency in shaping democratic culture, not only formal participation
What this might look like in practice.
Working with image-making, movement, shared silence, or collective sound, participants become more aware of how presence, attention, and atmosphere shape group experience – creating conditions for reflecting on how people participate together.
Read more
Pedagogical Framework (pp. 32-33)
Democratic values
At the heart of AELD are three interconnected democratic values These values guide how people relate to one another and how learning environments are shaped.
How aesthetic and embodied learning connects
Creative and sensory modes of engagement alter how people share space, time, and attention. They can support experiences of mutual recognition, responsiveness, and room for difference.
What it changes
- moves democratic values from abstract ideals to lived, embodied commitments
- supports dignity, participation, justice, fairness, and inclusion in everyday practice
- encourages educators and institutions to reflect on how values are lived in practice, not just stated
What this might look like in practice
Through collaborative visual work, shared rhythmic activity, or group spatial arrangements, learners experience negotiating presence, adjusting to others, and noticing whose contributions are visible or peripheral.
Vignette: In an online teacher education course, early years and primary educators explored democracy using aesthetic and embodied activities adapted to digital settings. One activity invited participants to reflect on their teaching practices through images and simple movement prompts.
During reflection, several educators became aware of how gendered expectations shaped classroom interactions – who spoke, who mediated conflict, and who carried emotional labour.
These patterns were often recognised with discomfort, including participants’ own roles in reproducing them.Small-group discussions revealed common patterns across different participant roles and settings (e.g. similar moments of hesitation, self-censorship, or uncertainty when talking about inequality).
Several participants said the online setting felt safer because it offered more control over how to participate (for example, taking time to think, using chat, or speaking without the same visibility and immediate judgement as in a physical room).
Participants also noted that embodied reflection helped them sense inequality not only as an abstract issue, but as something lived through everyday gestures, roles, and expectations. Rather than offering solutions, the process fostered critical awareness: it supported educators in recognising how inequality is enacted in practice and opened space for imagining more equitable relations.
AECED Case 16, Vocational learning teachers, Portugal
Read more
Pedagogical Framework (p. 34)
Democratic principles
- power-sharing
- transforming dialogue
- holistic learning
- relational well-being
These principles describe what democratic practice requires, guiding action rather than prescribing fixed methods.
How aesthetic and embodied learning connects
Aesthetic and embodied practices engage cognitive, emotional, and sensory dimensions together. They can shift habitual communication patterns and create a more attentive, relational atmosphere.
What it changes
- helps educators and institutions reflect on how democracy is practised, not just intended
- supports more ethical, participatory and inclusive learning relationships
- encourages shared responsibility and attention to well-being alongside learning outcomes
What this might look like in practice
A group may rotate facilitation roles, reflect through storytelling, drawing or collage, or use embodied exercises to experience different ways of listening.
Vignette: In a secondary school, a teacher introduced AELD activities within a tightly regulated curriculum and accountability-driven environment. Integrating embodied and dialogic practices involved professional risk.
Rather than abandoning the approach, the teacher clarified shared expectations and took responsibility for maintaining a safe learning environment. Power sharing developed alongside a clear structure, not in its absence.
The experience demonstrated that AELD does not remove authority or rules. Instead, it reshapes how responsibility is exercised, showing that democratic relations in education depend on both shared agency and accountable leadership.
AECED Case 19, Secondary Education, United Kingdom
Read more
The four dimensions of holistic democracy position paper; Pedagogical Framework (pp. 38–42)
Watch: Professor Philip Woods explains these principles
Responsive pedagogy
How aesthetic and embodied learning connects
Embodied and sensory approaches can heighten awareness of mood, engagement, or tension, supporting more attuned responses to learners and situations.
What it changes
- supports learning that is adaptive rather than fixed or standardised
- encourages reflexivity in educators and facilitators
- helps address power, difference, and inclusion in concrete ways
What this might look like in practice
An educator might adapt an activity when noticing discomfort or disengagement or invite reflection through movement or creative expression to surface unspoken perspectives.
Vignette: “Today, our teachers were more emotional than usual. They spoke about things that mattered to both them and us, so it wasn’t just a formal interaction but a conversation we could easily enter. They could “read the moment” and adapt to the class and context. We were surprised that teachers could laugh and be open, and that we could co-create something meaningful. They noticed where our ideas were heading, slowed down, and let us lead the next step. In today’s activities, we experienced democracy: teachers worked with us rather than simply listened to us”
AECED Case 13, Secondary Education, Latvia
Read more
Pedagogical Framework (pp. 42–43)
Democratic sensibility
Democratic sensibility refers to a feel for democracy: the quality of being attentive to, appreciating, nurturing and responding to senses, awareness, attributes and feelings, vital for the flourishing of democratic relationships and action.
It involves:
- aesthetic and embodied awareness
- connectedness
- democratic qualities in practice
- an appreciation of democratic values and principles
How aesthetic and embodied learning connects
Aesthetic and embodied experiences can deepen perception, emotional awareness, and sensitivity to relational and ethical dimensions of situations.
What it changes
- supports democracy becoming a living, ethical and responsive relational process, instead of a process mainly about rule-following
- supports empathy, humility, respect, and care
- helps people sense when democratic values are being supported or undermined
What this might look like in practice
Working with metaphor, image, sound, or embodied reflection can open space for noticing subtle feelings of connection, tension, belonging, or exclusion.
Read more
Democratic sensibility position paper
Pedagogical Framework (pp. 44–46)
Acceptive gaze
How aesthetic and embodied learning connects
Creative and sensory practices can slow immediate judgement and invite people to encounter experiences, perspectives, or expressions without rushing to categorise them.
What it changes
- helps create safer, more inclusive learning environments
- supports freedom, equality and equity and mutual recognition
- encourages ethical reflection rather than quick judgement
What this might look like in practice
Practising the acceptive gaze may involve collectively agreeing to notice reactions with empathy and staying open to other perspectives, especially when they are unexpected, uncomfortable, or challenge established ways of thinking.
Vignette: In a professional learning workshop, educators and organisational practitioners explored democracy-as-becoming through visual and embodied methods. Some participants initially expressed discomfort, worrying about exposure or judgement when working beyond familiar discussion-based formats.
Facilitators slowed the process, prioritising attentiveness to participants’ embodied responses. Simple grounding activities were introduced, and participation remained voluntary. Over time, participants reported feeling increasingly safe to engage – to move, speak, or remain silent without pressure.
As trust developed, the group began addressing sensitive themes such as hierarchy, exclusion, and power in their own organisations. Participants described how being met with acceptance rather than evaluation – the acceptive gaze – enabled deeper engagement.
The experience highlighted that relational safety is not an add-on to democratic learning, but a democratic practice in itself. Feeling safe enough to participate differently allowed new forms of agency and mutual responsibility to emerge.
AECED Case 10, Adult Education, Organisational and Professional Learning, Germany
Read more
Pedagogical Framework
Glossary
Aesthetic
The array of senses that evoke not only feelings and emotions, but also knowing, pre-reflective meaning-making processes and immediate, emotionally-charged evaluations.
Education for democracy
This is about supporting and preparing individuals to actively participate in democratic societies and settings and to relate to others democratically. Education for democracy includes learning about knowledge of democracy (its institutions and practices, human rights, inequalities, social justice and other matters) and democratic skills (such as people’s capabilities to initiate, engage with or respond to democratic activity). However, it is not only about knowledge and skills. It is also about supporting and preparing individuals to participate and engage with others democratically by nurturing democratic sensibility.
Equality and equity
Equality and equity are core democratic values at the heart of AELD and are based on a recognition that everyone is valued and that everyone’s voice, body and experience matter. Equality requires that each receives the same as everyone else: for example, that educators and participants in education for democracy are all provided with the same rights and responsibilities regardless of their age, gender, class, racial or ethnic identity and socio-economic background. Equity requires that each receives what they need to enable them to enjoy equal opportunity: for example, this may mean varying the resources and support some receive in order to counter the unequal effects of different socio-cultural backgrounds, gender, nationalities, age and physical capabilities which position participants in education for democracy differently in regard to principles such as power-sharing in educational interactions.
Embodiment
A holistic perspective on human beings, where the emphasis is on understanding the interconnections between body-mind, body-environment, body-other bodies and institutions-bodies.
Freedom
The ability to think, act and express oneself openly and responsibly. Freedom is one of the core democratic values at the heart of AELD. A felt sense of the value of freedom can guide the content and form of AELD, helping to shape how learning environments are created and shared.
Power sharing
Power sharing concerns active involvement in shaping the institutions, culture and relationships that make up our social and organisational environment. This includes having a say in decisions that affect us, holding power-holders to account and contributing to new possibilities that emerge from dialogue and collaborative interaction. It also includes individual discretion to take initiatives, express identity and act freely, exercising pro-active agency (initiation and enactment of change with confidence and conviction to carry it through), within the parameters of agreed values and responsibilities.
Relational well-being
Relational well-being is the product of the interplay between individuality and connectedness. It concerns the creation of social cohesion (within a broader sense of connectedness) and positive feelings of involvement through participation. It fosters feelings of empowerment and high self esteem as a member of a democratic community which values individuality – that is, the capacity to think for oneself, develop one’s holistic capabilities and exercise pro-active agency. Such community is characterised by fertile conditions and relationships that support and are enriched by each person being open to their own possibilities. It also creates a context that engenders a sense of belonging and helps to nurture a connectedness to other people, the natural world and all that nurtures the human spirit.
Transforming dialogue
Transforming dialogue involves exchanging and exploring views and engaging in open debate by practising mutual respect for participants and expression of diverse and different views in the dialogue, listening to all viewpoints expressed and enabling the sharing of constructive critique. The purpose, to which the dialogue aspires, is to reach beyond narrow personal or sectional perspectives and interests, enhance mutual understanding, and, with the greater good of all in mind, seek out areas of agreement, recognise and increase understanding of disagreements that endure and create new possibilities for shared action.
Further reading
Framework
Guides for Practice
Position Papers
Blogs
Partner Institutions
