Democratic Education: A Theoretical Review (2006–2017)

Abstract

This theoretical review examines how democratic education is conceptualized within educational scholarship. Three hundred and seventy-seven articles published in English language peer-reviewed journals between 2006 and 2017 are discursively analyzed. Democratic education functions as a privileged nodal point of different political discourses. Two discourses against (elitist and neoliberal) and six discourses pro democratic education (liberal, deliberative, multiculturalist, participatory, critical, and agonistic) construct its meaning. It is argued that the different versions of democratic education respond to various (a) ontological and epistemological assumptions, (b) normative approaches to democracy, and (c) conceptions of the relationship between education and politics. For educational policy, the review provides a critique of elitist and neoliberal policies and support for participatory decision making across discourses. Recommendations for educational practice are made by identifying pedagogies across democratic education scholarship as well as specific pedagogies for each discourse.

Freedom with Responsibility: Building Student’s Integrity Through a Democratic School Culture

“…For a long time, critical voices have been raised against democratic education and its contemporary dangers. This theoretical review provides a detailed examination of how the meaning of democratic education is currently formed in the literature, considering a normative approach [13].…”

The Servitization of Australian K-12 Educational Settings

“…Exploration of the question is contextualized within Australian K-12 settings that have free apps and platforms firmly embedded as part of educational practice. The findings explore the notion of 'evening out the playing field' within a variety of Australian K-12 settings, underpinned by the principles of deliberative democracies described by Sant (2019) and are guided by the historical progression of MOOCs (Corbeil et al 2018). Presented according to the headings 'Freemium Models and Subscriptions' and 'Badges, Certificates, and Micro-credentials,' the focus of the findings is to explore and critically reflect on how Australian K-12 teachers are negotiating servitization and its impacts on educational practice in relation to deliberative democracy.…”

The affective atmospheres of democratic education: pedagogical and political implications for challenging right-wing populism

“…However, I neither want to overestimate nor underestimate the influence of affective atmospheres of democracy (or populism) and their sociospatial capacities in the context of democratic education. Thus, this concluding discussion highlights some implications of adopting the notion of affective atmospheres not only to understand how the affective matters for strengthening democratic education (Sant, 2019), but also how it makes a difference for contesting right-wing populism (Zembylas, 2020). Given the complexity of this task, my aim here is not to provide a list of specific pedagogical actions, but rather to sketch some theoretical ideas that could be useful in highlighting the capacity of students and teachers, individually and collectively, to affect and to be affected in the context of democratic education.…”

“…liberty, the rule of law, free speech, etc. ), and with how to promote such values in the context of education (Callan, 2004;Gutmann, 1999;Mannion, Biesta, Priestley, & Ross, 2011;Sant, 2019). Needless to say, democratic values are contested concepts in the sense that there is not a transcendental signified that can always be understood to be absolute and/or necessary.…”