School is often considered a fundamental place for education, not only in disciplinary skills and learning, but also in active citizenship and democratic awareness, which is essential to prepare students to be responsible, engaged citizens in their community.

Despite this consideration, some EU documents and in particular the survey ‘The Europe Kids Want’, published in 2019, show that the children do not always feel that their opinions are heard by adults when making decisions, although surveyed are aware of their rights.

This also has consequences for the participation of the youngest in public life.
In relation to this, the situation in Romania is also particularly delicate: the Romanian Youth Barometer (2022, IRES) shows a low level of civic engagement among young people aged 18-29.

Based on these considerations, a survey was carried out in 2025 to understand the level of school participation of children in Romania.

The survey involved girls and boys aged between 8 and 10 years and was conducted through the administration of a 13-item questionnaire with closed and open-ended answers, investigating their perception of the usefulness of respecting the rules, what strategies they use to manage conflicts and what spaces and opportunities for discussion and confrontation the school reserves for them, also focusing on gender differences.

The exploratory analysis obtained 1885 answers from schools from the entire Romanian territory, achieving a valid national representativeness.

This article, after an analysis of the indicated national and international documents, aims to present the results of the exploratory survey in order to offer reflection on the importance of training in active and participative citizenship from primary school onwards.

Keywords: Democratic education, social participation, romanian primary schools, national survey.