Critical pedagogy and egalitarian school culture were two concepts that cannot be separated. The concept of critical pedagogy was still difficult to accept by Indonesian education philosopher, let alone implemented in schools.This research’s purposes were to explore empirically the background of the egalitarian culture of SMA 3 Yogyakarta, reflecting it and conceptualizing the democratization of education. A qualitative approach was used in this study, a type of phenomenological research. Interviews, observations, and documentation were used as data collection techniques. Data analysis techniques used Miles and Huberman with the steps of data condensation, data presentation, verification, and conclusion. Data validity used to source and technique triangulation. Research shows that the background of an egalitarian culture is students, teachers, learning, alumni, and the environment. The ideology of education is three concentric, which is a combination of three conservative, liberal and critical ideologies. Educational ideology is in pre-critical education, while the educational democracy conceptualization is an educational process that has an egalitarian culture embryo built with a critical paradigm that fulfills democratic requirements (openness, kinship, partnership). The conclusion that can be drawn from this research is critical pedagogy and egalitarian culture is a process that must occur in schools to actualize the educational democratization. The critical pedagogy praxis in Yogyakarta 3 State Senior High School can be used as a model to actualize democratic citizens and educational praxis that humanize humans.