Participation of students is defined as a conditional factor for the acquisition of democracy learning and is increasingly taken into account in Austrian schools. Nevertheless, in contrast to other countries, little research has been conducted in Austria about if or how democracy learning provides a template for the social practice of student participation within school improvements. The current qualitative case study sought to investigate, explanatively from the perspective of school actors, how a secondary school tries to implement a self-imposed demand for more student participation in school improvement by using aspects of democracy learning as template. Qualitative guideline-based interviews using a participative research method were conducted and the data were analysed by means of content-structuring qualitative content analysis. A total of 33 school actors (students, teachers, parents) participated. The two central findings emerged due to marginal rights and a limited understanding of student participation based on democracy learning. First, despite the demand for greater participation in school improvement, students remain dependent on individual actors and can only assert their interests within school objectives and not against the interests of the teachers or the school management. Second, participation within the framework of school development promotes not so much the strengthening of pupils as subjects as the strengthening of the identity of the school’s organization. The individual case study is thus a hypothesis-generating example of how the depoliticized participation rhetoric of imparting democratic competencies leaves the claim to equal consideration of students’ perspectives unfulfilled and ultimately prevents the redistribution of rights of disposal.

中文翻译：

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民主学习是建立学生参与以促进学校改进的失败模板：中学内的参与式案例研究

学生的参与被定义为获得民主学习的条件因素，并且越来越多地被奥地利学校考虑在内。然而，与其他国家相比，奥地利很少研究民主学习是否或如何为学生参与学校改进的社会实践提供模板。当前的定性案例研究试图从学校行为者的角度解释性地调查中学如何通过使用民主学习的各个方面作为模板来实现自我要求，让更多学生参与学校改进。使用参与式研究方法进行了基于指南的定性访谈，并通过内容结构定性内容分析对数据进行了分析。共有33名学校演员（学生、教师、家长）参加。由于边缘权利和基于民主学习的学生参与的有限理解，出现了两个核心发现。首先，尽管需要更多地参与学校改进，学生仍然依赖于个人行为者，只能在学校目标范围内维护自己的利益，而不能违背教师或学校管理层的利益。其次，在学校发展框架内的参与，与其说是加强学生作为主体，不如说是加强学校组织的身份认同。