Democracy & Education (E-Journal)
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Public Schooling for Democracy. A Book Review of \u3cem\u3ePublic Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy\u3c/em\u3e
Full text linkThis essay is a book review of Public Education: Defending a Cornerstone of American Democracy
The Impact of Polarization on the Political Engagement of Generation Z Elementary Preservice Teachers and Their Teaching
Full text linkThis instrumental case study of Generation Z preservice teachers enrolled in elementary teaching methods courses in social studies and literacy explores the impact of polarization on their political engagement and teaching. Using the 2020 presidential election as a teachable moment, participants developed and taught literacy-infused civics units in order to bring to light their understandings of their role in preparing elementary students as political actors. This study has important implications for how teacher educators can better facilitate elementary preservice teachers’ own political engagement, thereby ensuring equitable democratic learning opportunities for students
Social Movements, Deliberation, and Educational Governance. A Response to “Pragmatist Thinking for a Populist Moment”
Full text linkIn this response essay, the author provides an account of the role of social movements in a democracy as part of a larger argument about democratic school governance. Focusing on Black Lives Matter (BLM), the author contends that social movements like BLM support a vibrant and legitimate democracy because they constitute vital nodes in the ongoing, norm-governed conversation that constitutes democratic politics. To make this argument, the author defends an account of democratic deliberation that recognizes (1) the contribution of emotion to our capacity for reason and (2) the fact that deliberation extends beyond the confines of official democratic fora. Zooming in on democratic school politics, the author argues that this expanded account of democratic deliberation and attendant recognition of the role that social movements can play helps clarify how to realize democratic school governance under conditions of unjust racial inequality
Navigating Context Collapse: A Strengths-based Approach to Building Youth Civic Empowerment. A Response to “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era”
Full text linkIn the article “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era,” the authors joined a new area of research on civic media literacy, or the capacity to use media with civic intentionality. Building on previous scholarship that examined how to support youth capacity for effective civic inquiry, dialogue, expression, and action in the digital age, the authors contributed to this literature by usefully elaborating on the phenomenon of “context collapse” and the challenges this blurring of the boundaries between public and private spheres may present, particularly in the liminal spaces where the shifting boundaries most clearly depart from the pre-internet era. A central premise of the feature article is that youth and adults are entering into this context with “no training.” However, it has been more than a decade since social media emerged, and we respond by pointing out that in some sense, youth have been training for this for most of their lives. In our response, we reinforce many of the major points of the feature article, but we elaborate to draw focus on youth-driven practices and adaptations that have emerged in our own research and discuss the implications for civic education
Liberating Children, or Breaking the Backbone of Our Democracy? A Book Review of \u3cem\u3eHostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child\u3c/em\u3e
Full text linkIn Hostages No More, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos provides a 10-chapter memoir in which she argues for school privatization, including the expansion of government funding of charter schools. DeVos argues that the modern public education system, supported by an “establishment” of government bureaucracies, the education industrial complex, and teacher unions, holds American children, especially poor Black and Hispanic children, “hostage” (DeVos, 2022, p. 261) and that her life’s work has been a civil rights struggle to help parents and their children obtain their “education freedom” (p. 216). However, many of her claims are supported with misleading information, and while DeVos provides a vision for American education that she claims will liberate our children, her plan contrarily works against that aim and is better characterized as a blueprint for undermining the institution that serves as the backbone of our democracy. This book review rebuts many of DeVos’s premises and argues that her vision of replacing traditional public schools with segregated charter schools run by outside private interests with little transparency and little accountability is not the direction we should turn for improving American education—it’s bad for our democracy, and it’s the wrong direction for America
Position and Power. A Book Review of \u3cem\u3eReclaiming Democratic Education: Student and Teacher Activism and the Future of Education Policy\u3c/em\u3e
Full text linkIn his book, Reclaiming Democratic Education: Student and Teacher Activism and the Future of Education Policy, Thomas (2022) provides an overview of historical connectedness between student and teacher activism. He proposes that while the Nation At Risk paradigm has effectively positioned students and teachers as passive objects and recipients, respectively, of education policy, recent activism by both groups demonstrates a rejection of the paradigm. Although I am not entirely convinced that wholesale rejection of such a pervasive paradigm is at play, I appreciate Thomas\u27 (2022) reminder that the struggle to reclaim democratic education is certainly worth fighting for
Who’s Afraid of Populism? A Book Review of \u3cem\u3ePolitical Education in Times of Populism\u3c/em\u3e
Full text linkEdda Sant’s Political Education in Times of Populism offers a helpful, minimalist understanding of populism. By separating the form of populism from its content, we can reserve our moral panic for particular populist movements, while understanding the role of populist contestations in the democratic process. The book offers educators new and provocative points of departure for discussing present conditions and their historical antecedents, including the role of populist movements
Learning from Literature and Legality: Supreme Court Cases and Young Adult Literature in a Social Foundations of Education Course
Full text linkIn this article, I detail how I revised a social foundations of education course to center major Supreme Court cases relating to K–12 public schools. Scholars in social foundations of education have articulated a vision for the field that fosters and promotes democracy and democratic dispositions. Focusing on the Supreme Court in a social foundations of education course is the result of two factors. First is the Supreme Court’s storied role in shaping K–12 public education. Second is the Supreme Court’s increasingly steep lurch toward antidemocratic jurisprudence, which many legal scholars and journalists covering the judicial branch are raising alarm over. Specifically, I paired 10 consequential Supreme Court cases relating to K–12 education identified by education lawyer Robert Kim with young adult literature. I demonstrate how and why I used young adult literature to illuminate how the law impacts the “lives of ordinary people,” especially people within schools
Democratic Disagreements. A Book Review of \u3cem\u3eLived Democracy in Education. Young Citizens’ Democratic Lives in Kindergarten, School and Higher Education\u3c/em\u3e
Full text linkAs the title Lived Democracy in Education suggests, the predominantly Norwegian writers of the book share a deep and robust vision of democracy. Drawing on deliberative democratic theory and many other theoretical perspectives, the authors blend theory, practice, and empirical case studies to illuminate these modes of “lived democracy” in educational contexts. In particular, the book’s chapters examine different communicative interactions between children and young people, presenting these as examples of learning to live with controversies in communities of disagreement. The book contains valuable perspectives on democratic discussion in education. As several authors are experts in mathematics and science education, and some chapters integrate democratic education into STEM, the book might particularly benefit readers interested in democratic education within STEM subjects
Deliberative Facilitation in the Classroom: The Interplay of Facilitative Technique and Design to Make Space for Democracy
Full text linkWidespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policymaking in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In school deliberation, as in other settings, a key and sometimes neglected element of high-quality deliberation is facilitation. Facilitation can help to establish and maintain deliberative norms, assist participants to deliberate productively, and enable collective goals. By participating in facilitated deliberation, students can develop awareness, skills, and voice that empower them to engage with democracy, in school and beyond. This article draws on our experience as scholar/practitioners running a Deliberation in Schools program in Australia to explore challenges and strategies for deliberative facilitation. The challenges we discuss are power, inequality, diversity of expression and knowledge, and disagreement and these are discussed in the general context of inclusiveness. We highlight two facets of deliberative facilitation—technique and design—that are important for dealing with these challenges and increasing inclusion in school deliberation and in democratic deliberation more generally