CDE PhD Student engages children with democracy through rhythms and rhymes at the University’s Be Curious Festival

CDE member, Miranda Duffy, was part of this year's Be Curious festival held by the University of Leeds, where she led a live online workshop about democratic engagement aimed at families and young children earlier this month.

Her workshop was based on her PhD which utilises an Arts integrated approach to explore how performance can be used to enhance democratic engagement amongst young children.  The workshop follows her very successful podcast, The DEN of ENQUIRY. Her approach is to use rhythms and rhymes to get kids talking about democracy. Helped by two of her children, Carrot and Sir Nincompoop, the event was part of the University’s annual open research festival, Be Curious, and was aimed at 9+year olds.

Miranda’s Arts Integration approach uses arts-based games and poems to encourage children to use their critical thinking and oracy skills to explore democratic ideas.

The event is available to watch on YouTube.