This is the central question behind The Living Classroom for Policy Makers, the policy brief published in March 2026 by the AECED project (Aesthetic and Embodied learning for democracy), funded under Horizon Europe and co-developed across six European countries through 19 participatory research case studies.
The brief makes a clear and grounded argument: current education for democracy frameworks overinvest in cognitive transmission. They teach about democratic values rather than cultivating the conditions in which those values can be lived. What is missing — and what AECED proposes to restore — is attention to the aesthetic and embodied dimensions of learning: the role of senses, movement, emotion, imagination, and relational encounter in forming democratic sensibility.
What the research shows
Across diverse educational settings — from vocational training in Portugal to secondary schools in Germany and Latvia — AECED documented how aesthetic and embodied approaches deepen empathy, strengthen participation, and transform institutional cultures. Students who worked through dance found new capacity for trust and self-expression. Teachers who engaged in embodied role-play developed perspective-taking in ways that cognitive exercises had not enabled. Slowing down with images opened new kinds of attention and conversation.
These are not peripheral enrichments. AECED argues they are central to how democratic culture is actually formed.
Three policy recommendations
The brief calls on education systems to do three things: recognise aesthetic and embodied methodologies as legitimate in democracy education; embed them within curricula, assessment frameworks, and funding priorities; and protect dedicated time for educators to learn these approaches through practice, not just instruction.
These recommendations align directly with the Council of Europe's Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture and EU citizenship education priorities — AECED shows not just what matters, but how it can be sustained in everyday learning environments.
Why this matters for WellSpaces
Although the AECED brief spans all phases of education — from early years to adult and professional learning — it is absolutely relevant to WellSpaces because the methodological ground is shared. WellSpaces Network for Youth is built on the same conviction: that emotional literacy, embodied practice, and relational presence are not supplements to youth work, but its foundation. When supporting youth workers in facilitating inner development, or when young people in our member organisations engage with the Climate Emotions Protocol or participate in co-creation processes, we are drawing on the same methodological convictions that AECED's research supports.
AECED provides WellSpaces with research evidence, policy language, and a broader European conversation that strengthens our own advocacy for wellbeing-centred approaches in youth mobility, civic participation, and the next generation of Erasmus+ standards.
Resources, guides, and practice companions are freely available at www.aeced.org.
*image from aeced.org