Competences for democratic culture – towards new priorities in European educational systems?

This chapter introduces the Council of Europe’s (CoE) new Reference Framework Competences for democratic culture (RFCDC), its underlying educational philosophy and conceptual basis, its elements as well as the phases of its development. In doing so, RFCDC is placed within the CoE work in education during the last two decades and in the specific context of Islamist terror and responses to that around 2015. Further, the chapter presents different strains of the implementation of the Reference Framework in the CoE member states in a “top down” and “bottom up” perspective.