DeFaKi: facets of democracy in children - Prof. Thomas Goll researches the majority principle at nursery age

10/06/2025 -

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Several children are sitting in a classroom or group room and raising their hands, some with two fingers extended to vote. — Results show that five-year-olds increasingly make decisions based on the majority principle, while younger children tend to follow their own preferences.

How do children understand democracy? Prof. Thomas Goll from the Department of Social Sciences and his colleagues are investigating whether three to five-year-olds already act according to the principle of majority voting. The DeFaKi project provides new insights for democracy education in daycare centers.

In the DeFaKi (facets of democracy in children) research project, Prof. Thomas Goll and Prof. Norbert Zmyj from the Department of Developmental Psychology investigated how children between the ages of three and five understand the central principles of democracy. The aim of the project is to gain well-founded knowledge about whether and from when pre-school children are able to understand key features of a democratic constitutional state.

The first sub-project, DeFaKi, focused on the majority principle. It tested whether and from what age preschool children understand and apply the majority principle. In the 156 tests, they experience voting in child-friendly scenarios and are asked to justify how a group should decide. The findings show that children only begin to understand the majority principle at the age of five.

You can find out more about the project and the initial results in the interview with Prof. Norbert Zymj on the TU Dortmund University website

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