Two hundred fifty-five students in grades 2 through 6 and 51 teachers participated in structured interviews to assess how democratic governance was practiced in their classrooms. Teachers also completed the Pupil Control Ideology Form (PCI), which measures orientation toward control of pupils. Findings showed that students do not want to rule their classrooms. Democratic governance is not given a high priority in the classroom, and is limited to procedures such as voting and arriving at consensus in controversial situations. Those teachers who do let students make decisions encourage them more often to work cooperatively and report observing students using democratic governance in informal situations. More experienced teachers tended to rely more on patriotic exercises but these exercises had little or no effect on promoting democratic governance. The PCI was not useful for evaluating democratic governance practices. Recommendations include additional training for teachers in group decision making and in facilitating cooperative grouping. Teachers should learn to differentiate patriotic exercises from substantive instruction in democratic governance. Structured interviews worked well but might be supplemented by classroom observation and examination of lesson plans. (IS)