Emotional work in a safe–brave–compassionate ecology: staying with discomfort in education for democracy

Education for Democracy (EfD) requires confronting complex social issues, contested histories, and potentially traumatic topics that often generate discomfort. This paper argues that such discomfort is not incidental but central to democratic learning, as it opens space for emotional engagement, ethical awareness, and critical reflection. We conceptualize emotional work as an embodied, relational metaperspective through which teachers and students recognize, remain with, and meaningfully process