Democratic Education

Petkovska, S. „Analysis of Public Policies in Serbia: Education“ (Serbian)

by Sanja Petkovska

Co-authored with Jana Bacevic. in: Podunavac, Milan (Ed.), Public Policy of Serbia, Heinrich Böll Foundation, Belgrade, 85 –107, 2011.

On Educational Sensemaking and the Antinomy of Liberty and Equality

by Karen Paiva

published in the Journal of Educational Controversy, Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2006

Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich: Technology, Politics and the Reconstruction of Education

by Richard Kahn

Co-authored with Doug Kellner, Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 5 (4), 2007

Toward a Critical Pedagogy of the Global

by Noah De Lissovoy

In Critical Pedagogy in Uncertain Times (S. Macrine, Ed., Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Historical trends and contemporary issues in representing research in education

by John Schostak

This is a paper written in 2009.... The editors of the intended book changed publisher and has been a long time in limbo until the book was accepted by its new publisher. It is presented here in its draft prepublication form in the expectation that at some point this year it will be published.

Schostak’s chapter sets the scene for contemporary discussions about the nature of representation in the context of... more Schostak’s chapter sets the scene for contemporary discussions about the nature of representation in the context of what counts as research and what counts as education in the struggle for voice, the representation of voice and the creation of public educational spaces where voices may be heard and views represented. Who has the ‘right’ – politically, ethically - to represent themselves, others, events, circumstances, ‘realities’? More specifically, in what ways may representations be expressed and to what extent should representations be negotiated in contexts where power is distributed unequally and where people complain of injustice? It is here that the political and ethical senses of representation come to the fore and educational research confronts what counts as a view or a voice that can be recognised and how to render ‘data’ and ‘evidence’ visible in ways that can be called ‘valid’ and ‘generalisable’. Rather than reducing the experiences of people to measurable facts alone, the complexities, richness, messiness of everyday life requires methods capable of exploring the discourses, feelings, observed practices and the meanings given to those practices. The chapter traces the development of methodologies and critical perspectives developed to meet the challenges posed by the complexities of social life and educational experiences in the construction of democratic public space.

Suffering And The Work Of Emancipation Through Education

by John Schostak

A conference paper a revised version of which will be published later in 2012 in the Journal Power and Education http://www.wwwords.co.uk/power/

The paper begins:

Everyone goes through some form of schooling, not just in their youth but, in its widest... more The paper begins:

Everyone goes through some form of schooling, not just in their youth but, in its widest definition, all their working lives. Schooling, in the sense it is being employed here is intimately connected with organisational power and the politics of social and economic order. Some of the pressures and demands made by such forms of schooling at every stage of life may often be experienced as problematic at psychological, personal, and social levels that hinder development and cause health problems that in the extreme may involve medical, child psychiatric or psychological interventions. There have been many approaches to analysis. From a moralising point of view the child may be seen as lazy, undisciplined, naughty, even wicked. Medical and psychological perspectives may focus on learning difficulties, dyslexia, hyperactivity and so on. From an organisational and system point of view blame may be placed with a lack of resources, the quality of the teaching staff, the structuring of the school day, the teaching methods, the pressures and forms of assessment. What is not in question is the 'good' that schooling represents.

In this paper we question this 'good'.

A Comparative Research on the Democratic Attitudes of the Teachers and the Prospective Teachers

by Halil Eksi

A. Seda SARACALOĞLU, İlke EVİN, S. Rana VAROL
Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice
4 (2) • Kasým / November 2004 • 356-364

The main purpose of this research was to assess the democratic attitudes of the teachers and the
prospective... more The main purpose of this research was to assess the democratic attitudes of the teachers and the
prospective teachers. The sample of the study consisted of teachers of various branches working
at different levels (N = 317) in Ýzmir and the prospective teachers (N = 768). In terms of gender,
58.4 %of the teachers are females and 41.6 % of them are males. 28.7% of them are 20-30
years old; 38.2% are 31-40 years old; 30.6% are 41-50 years old; and 2.5% are 51 years and
older. In the prospective teachers group, 52.7% are females and 47.3% are males. In this group,
18.1% are 18-20 years old; 60.02 % are 21-23 years old; 21.88% are 24 years old and older. A
democratic Attitude Scale, developed by the Attitude Research Laboratory adapted into Turkish
by Gözütok (1995), was administered to the sample. The scale’s alpha reliability coefficient was
.87. The results of the study revealed that there was a statistically significant difference among
the prospective teachers’ democratic attitudes by the institutions, departments, gender, age,
social environment of the family, which high school graduated, educational level of the parents,
and how keen they are in their professions. The study shows that there is no statistical difference
in between the democratic attitudes of the teachers and the institutions where they work, gender,
branches, seniority, the institution where they graduated, their satisfaction from their branch and
the institutions where they work. When democratic attitudes of the teachers and the students
were compared, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference in the favor of the
prospective teachers.

Ben-Porath, Sigal. 2006. Citizenship Under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

by Carolyn Chernoff

An Investigation of Devotion to Democratic Values and Conflict Resolution Abilities: A Case of Elementary School Students

by Halil Eksi

Mediha SARI Sezen SARI Mine Suat ÖTÜNÇ
Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice
8 (1) • January 2008 • 183-192

The main purpose of this study is to investigate devotion to democratic values and
conflict resolution abilities... more The main purpose of this study is to investigate devotion to democratic values and
conflict resolution abilities of elementary school students. In the direction of this general
purpose, the level of the students’ devotion to democratic values and conflict resolution
abilities were investigated by the Devotion to Democratic Values Scale
(DDVS) and the Conflict Resolution Ability Scale (CRAS), respectively. Gender differences
and relationships on devotion to democratic values and conflict resolution abilities
were also studied. In addition, differences between students who scored low and
high on devotion to democratic values were investigated in relation to the scores of
Collaboration, Conformity, Forcing, and Avoidance subscales of the Conflict Resolution
Ability Scale. A total of 257 elementary school students from fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh grades in elementary schools located in Adana participated in the study. 123
of the students were girls and 134 of them were boys: 62 fourth grade students (24.1
%), 63 fifth grade students (24.5 %), 81 sixth grade students (31.5 %), and 51 seventh
grade students (19.8 %). According to the results, students’ mean scores on the DDVS
and CRAS were upper average on a 1-5 scale. Statistically significant differences were
found in favor of girls on the DDVS scores and the Collaboration subscale scores of the
CRAS. On the contrary, significant differences were found in favor of boys on the Forcing
subscale scores of the CRAS. The correlation between students’ DDVS and
CRAS scores were.51 for Collaboration, -.10 for Conformity, -.65 for Forcing, and -.30
for Avoidance. Correlations between the DDVS and all the subscales of the CRAS were
significant at .01, with the exception for the Conformity subscale. Students who have
higher scores on the DDVS also scored higher on the CRAS-Collaboration subscale.
Those who have lower scores on the DDVS have higher scores from the Conformity,
Forcing, and Avoidance subscales. In short, results show that students in this
sample had higher democratic values and conflict resolution abilities; that girls had
higher level of devotion to democratic values than boys, and that there were significant
correlations between devotion to democratic values and conflict resolution abilities.

Pedagogy in Common: Democratic Education in the Global Era

by Noah De Lissovoy

Published in Educational Philosophy and Theory

That Wich Depends on Us: Responsibility, Democratic Courage and Shame

by Ingerid S. Straume

Submitted for Cahier Castoriadis No. 8, L'autonomie en pratique(s), Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, Bruxelles

Key words: education - responsibility - democracy - courage - parrhesia - shame - teachers - politics Key words: education - responsibility - democracy - courage - parrhesia - shame - teachers - politics

Review of Revolutionary Social Transformation: Democratic Hopes, Political Possibilities and Critical Education, by Paula Allman.

by Stella Gaon

Published in Philosophy in Review/ Comptes rendus philosophiques, vol xx (3): 81-82.

Allowing Artistic Agency in the Elementary Classroom

by David Rufo

Published in the May 2011 issue of the journal Art Education.

Entitled, “Allowing Artistic Agency in the Elementary Classroom,” the article chronicles experiences that led to Mr.... more Entitled, “Allowing Artistic Agency in the Elementary Classroom,” the article chronicles experiences that led to Mr. Rufo’s realization of  the significance of a child-centered learning environment in fostering artistic creativity and of the seminal role played by the teacher-student dynamic. The article examines such issues as what actually constitutes art, whether art is as much about the process of creating as about the ultimate product, and how teachers can allow students to control and direct their own creativity.

Education, income, and political attitudes in Muslim countries: Evidence from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey

by M. Najeeb Shafiq

Must a developed democratic State fully resource any tertiary education for its citizens?

by Vanessa Scholes

SCHOLES, V. (2011), Must a Developed Democratic State Fully Resource any Tertiary Education for its Citizens?. Educational Philosophy and Theory. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00817.x

This paper focusses on the concept of a developed democratic state and what this requires in terms of educating... more This paper focusses on the concept of a developed democratic state and what this requires in terms of educating citizens in an environment with competing resourcing obligations. I argue that there is an absolute obligation for such a State to fully resource some tertiary education for some citizens - even if this requires the State to allow some otherwise preventable suffering or deaths.

Journal licensing prohibits the uploading of this paper to this site, but if you are interested, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REQUEST A COPY of this paper via the "Send Vanessa a message" box at the bottom of the left hand column of my Academia page.

Staring at the bird in the tree: ‘mind rights’ in schools

by Helen E Lees

Submitted to a journal.

School experience for children and staff is significantly characterised by attainment and performance. Within such a... more School experience for children and staff is significantly characterised by attainment and performance. Within such a mentality lies a theoretical and practical omission relating to the role of discrete experiences, where nothing is deliberately gained or performed. This paper presents the idea of ‘mind rights’ as a theoretical framework to address this omission. Using a metonymic example of a child looking out of the window at a bird in a tree, having the right to be attendant to one’s mind, independent of the school as function, form and institution, is presented as a part of the growing respect for various ‘silence practices’ in schools. Furthermore these rights are suggested as ‘educational rights’, intrinsic to an educational education, which is here conceived of as underpinned not by legal and social frameworks but enabled by ideas such as love, trust, openness and generosity and a dialogic relational attitude between teacher and student. Using theoretical resources about the ‘educational’, the emergent field of ‘silence studies’ for schooling and the idea of rights, the article argues that ‘mind rights’ are rights to have personal regard for the state of one’s mind in school, irrespective of the institutional, social and political drives of schooling and society. ‘Mind rights’ are seen as part of a package of necessary educational school-based conditions to facilitate the child staring at the bird, which together can act coherently as a potential agent for the transformation of the nature of schooling from instrumentalism to educational purposefulness.

Democracy, Public Reason and Peace Education

by dale snauwaert

Published in the Global Campaign for Peace Education Newsletter #88.

Peace education, as Betty Reardon suggests, should be fundamentally concerned with the development of the political... more Peace education, as Betty Reardon suggests, should be fundamentally concerned with the development of the political efficacy of future citizens. Political efficacy is dependent upon “sound political thinking,” “for inquiry into obstacles and possibilities for transformation should form the core of peace pedagogy, so as to provide learning in how to think and to act for political efficacy in peace politics . . .” Learning how to think concerns conceptual clarity, thinking within conceptual frameworks, posing questions, rationality, and most importantly reflective inquiry. Peace education is thus closely aligned with democratic education grounded in the ideas of public reason and deliberation.

Building Bridges Between Tellers and Listeners: The Role of Digital Storytelling in the Construction of Democratic Frameworks

by Margaret Anne Clarke

Published in Omar Swartz (ed) (2011) Communication and Creative Democracy, Suffolk: Arima Publishing, pp. 209 - 235

This chapter gives an overview and description of the history and development of digital storytelling , beginning with... more This chapter gives an overview and description of the history and development of digital storytelling , beginning with its origins in community based arts practices and radical democratic culture  in the USA, to its establishment as a genre and practice by the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California from the early 1990s onwards. The chapter then goes on to trace the subsequent diffusion of digital storytelling throughout the United States with specific examples from NGOs dedicated to disseminating new and innovative forms of democratic practice, such as the Right Question Project and Stories for Change, and from there the role of digital storytelling within global civil society of the new millenium, adopted across national boundaries. This  analysis is also underpinned by the ideas first set out by John Dewey in the early twentieth century concerning the nature of associative and participatory democracy, and the healing of the rupture between creative art and actual experience effected by both capitalism and nationalism.

How Would a Focus on Unique Potential Transform Schools?

by Craig Cunningham

A paper presented to the Chaos and Complexity SIG of AERA, Denver, May 2010

The Cultivation of Unique Potential in Public Schools

by Craig Cunningham

A paper presented to the Spirituality and Education SIG of AERA, Denver, May 2010