The capacity of democracies to serve as venues for the free expression of ideas and opinions has become threatened by discourse and debate in the global media that is ill-informed and unjustified while human suffering and inequities continue to plague the planet.  This situation calls for scholars and universities to take greater initiative on behalf of the social good beyond the ivory tower.  To this end, the application of deliberative democracy as a method for critical spaces in and across universities is explored.  Such spaces would harness the potential of scholarship for social change by explicitly considering both multi-disciplinary knowledge and values to address global problems and counter neoliberal trends in higher education and societies generally.A theoretical model for scholarly deliberation in critical spaces is elaborated in four stages, culminating in the advancement of proposals for social change to the public sphere.

It is commonly believed that mass public education is fundamentally concerned with the advancement of Western civilization and national strength through the dissemination of knowledge and skills. The ways that we think about and conduct educational practices are also related in no small way to basic rights such as individual freedom. Individual rights in the West are themselves grounded in beliefs about human nature, rationality, and behavior. This philosophical work identifies and critiques these beliefs as they were developed and established during the formative period of individual rights. It explores how these beliefs are embedded in educational practices, using some of Michel Foucault's ideas to provide a contemporary critical context. An alternative interpretation of these foundations is offered that challenges basic ideas about the purposes of education. A direction is provided for further work.

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