In studies my wife and I conducted, focusing on adolescent attitudes among first-year students in Gdańsk secondary education, we observed a range of responses that were both expected and unexpected when compared with existing literature and societal concerns. To begin with, adolescents exhibited a neutral to negative stance toward new and challenging situations—an outcome that contrasts with findings in child developmental literature. They also maintained a positive view of themselves, which was surprising given the widespread fears about a mental health crisis among adolescents. Furthermore, their attitude toward communication with others was neutral to negative, which runs counter to common assumptions based on adolescents’ smartphone habits. And, despite these reservations, students appeared to be positively socially integrated. This finding, too, was unexpected in light of the prevalent worries about echo chambers, algorithm biases that radicalize, diminished face-to-face communication, and cyberbullying. Notably, these results were nearly identical across every class, regardless of school type or year of research (2022-2024).
Our studies produced more results: a majority of adolescents reported experiencing loneliness, even though almost all had at least one peer and one adult with whom they could engage in honest conversation. And, most adolescents agreed—strongly in many cases—with the statement, “I have no meaning.”
Partial dislocation
A significant portion of adolescents appeared to experience what we started to name “partial dislocation.” On the one hand, they showed high levels of psychosocial integration within a core group of their closest family members and friends. On the other hand, they experienced dislocation beyond this core group. It was as if many had withdrawn to a “small island” or a “bubble” of trust amidst a vast sea characterized by distrust, awkwardness, and a perceived lack of agency.
Scientific corroboration
Elements of our concept of partial dislocation are supported by academic research on Generation Z. According to this research, concerning autonomy, adolescents show a diminished general sense of agency, although they experience agency in their immediate environment—a condition that was further aggravated by the top-down decision-making regarding adolescents ha occurred during the pandemic. Regarding belonging, research shows a noticeable withdrawal into a parental cocoon, where comfort is exchanged for acceptance of parental control, coupled with avoidance of in-real-life contact, widespread loneliness, and distrust of institutions. Additionally, their behavior regarding safety, research makes clear, points to a general tendency toward risk aversion. Lastly, among young GenZ adults a trend is noted to create their own, personal cocoon as a sign of achievement.
There is no indication so far that these phenomena are fundamentally different regarding Generation Alpha.
Dislocation and its threat over time
Dislocation, or the prolonged absence of psychosocial integration, is a dangerous condition. If individuals experience no real autonomy, belonging, achievement, and safety, they feel an excruciating pain and become vulnerable to the allure of pills, gang leaders, extremist religions, or violent political movements—essentially, any promise of relief. Dislocation can also lead to mental health problems, particularly anxiety and depression.
Over time, the protective effect of the adolescent “little islands” that at least provide partial psychosocial integration diminishes. As adolescents leave school, the distance to their school friends increases; as they move from their neighborhoods, connections with local friends weaken; and as they leave home, contact with the nuclear family becomes less intense. While current counterstrategies—such as extended stay within the nuclear family, considering friends as chosen family, shared housing or co-living spaces, or friendship with benefits—offer some support, they do not fully compensate for the loss of the original islands of trust.
Aggravating factors and classroom dynamics
Adolescents’ partial dislocation is deepened by aggravating factors. The accelerated pace of change in many aspects of contemporary life, a state described as “liquid life,” fosters an environment of unpredictability and anxiety. This pervasive anxiety is intensified by heightened affective polarization, in which divergent views are increasingly condemned as morally inferior or even evil. In addition, developmental tendencies during adolescence—driven by neurological changes—increase susceptibility to superficial group conformity, shame, and emotional excitability and reactivity.
Symptoms of aggravated partial dislocation manifest vividly in classroom settings. Students show a reluctance to share authentic views in what they perceive as a public setting, driven by a fear of judgment. They tend to dismiss differing opinions and are prone to immediate moralistic judgments. In Poland for instance, this phenomenon often presents itself as an adolescent “implosion,” with students avoiding genuine communication with out-groups, whereas in Belgium, it more frequently takes the form of an “explosion” characterized by loud, identity-driven communication and grandstanding directed at out-groups.
Current response: guidelines for teachers
Anyone with classroom experience knows that divisive topics can trigger vehement, moralistic, and biased reactions among students. That is why teachers and school boards sometimes steer clear of addressing potentially divisive topics in the classroom.
The default response to this situation has been to interpret it as a teacher problem and come up with support for teachers in the form of guidelines. Examples of such guidelines include those from the Council of Europe on teaching controversial issues through education for democratic citizenship and human rights (pdf), Google's guidelines for classroom discussions of controversial topics, Edutopia’s advice on productive classroom debates on sensitive topics, Oxfam's guide for teachers on controversial issues, UNESCO's materials on countering Holocaust denial and distortion through education, and the European Commission’s guidelines for educators on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy, of which I am co-author. And, there are books, quite a few books, that offer their advice.
Threats to democratic freedoms
It is not the observable symptoms we should react to. We should focus on the underlying cause, the aggravated adolescent partial dislocation, that has damaging implications concerning two fundamental democratic freedoms among adolescents: freedom of expression and free formation of opinion or freedom of thought. Reluctance to share authentic views in public settings and a pervasive fear of judgment stifle genuine expression (and thus obstruct freedom of expression as enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights). Simultaneously, the tendency to dismiss differing opinions and react with moralistic judgments to deviating points of view hampers the informed and rational decision-making process that is crucial to the free formation of opinions (and thus obstruct freedom of thought as protected under Article 10 of the Charter and Article 9 of the Convention).
There is a parallel between the challenges posed by aggravated adolescent partial dislocation and by disinformation. The protection of the free formation of opinion is a fundamental ground legitimizing dealing with disinformation. Initiatives to tackle disinformation, such as the European Code of Practice on Disinformation and the EU Action Plan Against Disinformation, implicitly aim to safeguard the free formation of opinion. The recent European Commission Call for proposals to foster citizens’ engagement and participation, CERV-2025-CITIZENS-CIV, explicitly states that one of its aims is to „safeguard the free formation of opinion”.
Need for a new approach
Given that adolescents will soon play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our democracy, a holistic approach is needed to enhance their resilience against the lure of extreme solutions and the threat of mental health issues. The new approach should reduce adolescents’ general experience of dislocation. It should widen their experience of autonomy, belonging, achievement, and safety to encompass the public sphere, beyond their existing “little islands”. At the same time, it should be understood that policymakers and adults are external to the adolescents’ “little islands” and thus risk inspiring further adolescent “implosions” or “explosions”.
Our format and method: Interdemocracy
To address aggravated adolescent partial dislocation, we propose a format and method called Interdemocracy. This approach creates a space between people—a temporary suspension of group loyalties and judgment—in which individuals can both express and absorb otherness based on their own experiences.
Interdemocracy prioritizes multi-perspectivity in peer-to-peer and teacher-to-student communication and aims to provide meaningful, experiences that foster autonomy, belonging, achievement, and safety. The fundamentals of Interdemocracy require that all students formulate their opinions individually, in silence, and in parallel, drawing solely on their personal experiences. They first express these opinions in writing by hand and then digitally to a common online channel, and only afterward are they shared sequentially by reading them aloud. Importantly, the sequence in which the opinions are presented is randomized, students are encouraged to use the first-person “I” form, and no reactions to the expressed opinions are permitted.
Interdemocracy is embedded in a structured format that includes a check-in (“How do you feel today?”), a science-informed introduction to a topic, a question related to the topic, student answers, and finally, a check-out (“What sense did his session have for you?”). The predictability of this format, combined with the absence of group communication, identical one-on-one teacher-student interactions, and the inclusion of all, ensures that every student is subject to the same terms of engagement—free of the threat of exclusion or favoritism. The random order of answer sequencing, coupled with the teacher’s role as a facilitator rather than as an all-knowing science advisor, creates a safe environment in which over time the formulation and expression of thoughts become more private, even when occurring in a seemingly public setting.
External corroboration for Interdemocracy is robust. The format has been included in the European Commission’s publication Guidelines for Teachers and Educators on Tackling Disinformation and Promoting Digital Literacy Through Education and Training. Additionally, our book and scientific article detailing the format, method, and its academic foundations have received very positive peer reviews. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has supported our work by financing the translation and publication of an e-book of the Polish version of our book.
Limitations
Interdemocracy does not replace traditional teaching. Its goal is not to transfer knowledge but to set the scene for adolescents to formulate their opinions without fear of being judged and to listen to opinions by others without judgment. Although the experiences of autonomy, belonging, and achievement offered by Interdemocracy are extended beyond the adolescent “little islands” to a seemingly public space, its impact is limited in both time and scope. Interdemocracy by itself does not provide a permanent link with the vast sea surrounding the islands. To achieve a lasting connection with the broader world, it is essential that the opinions formulated by adolescents in the Interdemocracy setting will be heard on a national or even European level.
Introducing: the Youth Resilience Council
The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently outlining the foundational framework for participatory bodies, Resilience Councils (RCs). An RC on European level is actively promoted within the frame of Poland’s Presidency of the European Council. RCs are designed to democratize responses to Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) by promoting transparency and inclusivity in decision-making, reducing distrust and polarization through prioritization of citizen well-being, strengthening societal resilience by empowering citizens to feel seen, heard, and valued, and enhancing accountability and legitimacy by distributing responsibilities among various stakeholders.
A similar participatory body could forge the link between adolescent opinions resulting from Interdemocracy and the world outside of adolescent ”little islands”. A Youth Resilience Council (YRC) can be envisioned as the interface between adolescents and high-level decision-makers and policymakers.
The YRC is to play an important role in Interdemocracy. The YRC is to draft both Interdemocracy questions and science-inspired introductions, a process that can be initiated by decision-makers, adolescents themselves, or other stakeholders. Adolescents then will provide their answers using the principles of Interdemocracy as well as the ideas originally proposed by James Surowiecki in his book “Wisdom of Crowds.” A dedicated AI system subsequently will translate the adolescent responses into a manageable format—through methods such as pattern detection, clustering, outlier identification, aggregation of insights, sentiment analysis, and quality control. The YRC then will use the AI output to formulate recommendations, optionally seeking further verification from adolescents.
A national set-up
An optimal national setup to implement Interdemocracy and YRCs would involve organizing Participation Hours for all adolescents simultaneously across all relevant schools. In Poland for instances, they would concern classes 7 and 8 PE and 1 and 2 SE.
The regular, structured sessions—for instance blocks of two hours every two weeks—would offer a safe framework within which adolescents can formulate and express their opinions safely. These sessions are enabled by facilitators, both teacher candidates and current teachers who subscribe to the concept. Members of the YRC would be adolescents who are selected stochocratically from the pool of all classes involved. Representatives from national YRCs might form an overarching European Youth Resilience Council (EYRC).
Last remarks
It is important to acknowledge that the intervention proposed here comes with a range of challenges—legal, institutional, logistical, and practical—but not ethical. In fact, this intervention represents a critical step towards safeguarding democratic freedoms among adolescents, fostering their resilience, and preparing them to navigate the complexities of contemporary society with a robust level of psychosocial integration. In the end, we all benefit from a vibrant democracy.
