Relationships between Democratic Education and Dialogic Education: Conclusion

Abstract

In my conclusion, I want to return back to the issue raised by the co-editors of this special issue: what are the relationships between Democratic Education and Dialogic Education, between dialogue and democracy? For that, I consider the following three topics: 1) their polysemy, multiple meanings, of these two concepts, 2) their complementarity; and 3) their tensions and incompatibilities.

Dialogic pedagogy in democratically run schools: Introduction

“…Why is the term "democratic education" so often used to describe educational practices in otherwise non-democratic progressive schools? As Matusov points out in his Conclusion to this Special issue (Matusov, 2023), the term "democratic education" is polysemic. It is used to name various forms of democratization of educational practice, including those in otherwise conventional or progressive, hierarchical schools with their authoritarian paternalistic regimes.…”

“…Namely, many scholars of dialogic pedagogy are not very familiar with democratic schooling, if at all. The term "democratic education" is polysemic (Matusov, 2023), and many educationalists use it to refer to civic education in conventional schools. However, in this special issue, we explore the relationships between dialogic pedagogy and democratically run schools.…”

Stand on Dialogic Pedagogy in Our Times of Peace and War: My Perspective on December 12, 2022

“…focuses primarily on student authorship of self-education and, especially, of self-determined education, 8 aka deliberate self-education. Education differs from learning by a dialogic evaluation process of this learning, among other things (Matusov, 2023a). A student is truly involved in education only when they evaluate their own learning in a dialogue with themselves and/or others.…”

Self Managed Learning: a hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education

“…It uses the educator's manipulation of the student's subjectivity to make them study what the educator wants them to study: "let [the student] always think he is master while you are really master," advised the father of Progressive Education, Jean Jacques Rousseau, to a progressive educator in his pedagogical novel "Emile" (Rousseau, 1979, p. 120). In contrast, the paradigm of Democratic Education assumes that the educatee is the final authority of their own education (Matusov, 2023). The educatee decides whether to study, when to study, what to study, how to study, with whom to study, where to study, for what purpose to study and so on.…”