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The terms democracy and the pedagogy of the possible name an approach imagining schools as sites where more just, inclusive and participatory collective life can be practised, particularly in early childhood. The entry brings three traditions into dialogue. (a) Critical pedagogy, particularly in its post-structuralist, Foucauldian, and post-Marxist readings, engages with Rancièrian critiques of pedagogical mastery and offers a vocabulary for examining how power, knowledge, subjectivity, and hegemony are produced and contested within educational life. (b) Freinet pedagogy, extended through Fernand Oury’s Institutional Pedagogy, contributes a politically grounded, practice-first repertoire of cooperative techniques, classroom institutions, and democratic forms of organisation. (c) Educational commons approaches frame knowledge, space, time, and pedagogical relations as shared goods, collectively produced, cared for, and democratically governed by a community of teachers, children, and families. In this perspective, the child is approached as a commoner and agent in the here and now. The educator, in turn, is understood as a fellow commoner and reflexive practitioner, capable of acting beyond the logics of both the state and the market. Together, they co-shape the everyday life of education. Eight shared dimensions, namely the relational, the political, praxis, agency, anti-enclosure, prefiguration, community, and the schoolized mind, traverse all three traditions, with care as their transversal thread. The framework is conceived as a hospitable theoretical and practical space, not as a self-contained doctrine. It is heuristic in orientation, bringing these traditions into conversation because each contributes a complementary layer to democratic educational life. Full article

The school garden has a long-standing pedagogical tradition linked to active, experiential, and community-based education, represented by authors such as Montessori, Freinet, and Dewey. Currently, its role has been consolidated as a relevant educational resource used to address the challenges of sustainability education, pedagogical innovation, and student holistic development. This research takes a qualitative approach based on a multiple case study conducted in four educational centers in Spain and Portugal. Semi-structured interviews, documentary analysis, and reflective memoranda were used. Content analysis was performed using a deductive–inductive coding approach in ATLAS.ti software v. 25th, combining literature-derived categories with those emerging from the data, following a thematic analysis (TA) approach. The results suggest that school gardens promote meaningful learning, the development of transversal competencies, improved school climate, and community involvement. Pedagogical, social, and emotional benefits were identified, as well as high levels of satisfaction among all participants. However, obstacles were found to persist, mainly related to a lack of time and teacher coordination. The study confirms that the school garden serves as a pedagogical resource with a high transformative potential. Its effectiveness depends on intentional curricular integration, teacher commitment, and the engagement of the educational community, aligning with the principles of an active, sustainable, and contextualized pedagogy. Full article