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Full-Text Articles in Education

Improving Equality Through Study In The Humanities. A Book Review Of Education And Equality, Jane Blanken-Webb Dec 2017

Improving Equality Through Study In The Humanities. A Book Review Of Education And Equality, Jane Blanken-Webb

Democracy and Education

Danielle Allen’s recent book, Education and Equality, forwards a much-needed perspective for considering the relationship between education and equality in an era in which the value of education seems to be almost unquestionably commensurate with the economic payback it produces in terms of future job earnings. Rather than thinking of education only as a proxy for the transmission of technical know-how and skill that can lead to higher-paying jobs and ultimately improve conditions of economic inequality in our society, Allen took up the intrinsic relationship between education and equality in which the practice of human development, in itself, contributes …


A Problem Of Play For Democratic Education? Abstraction, Realism, And Exploration In Learning Games. A Response To "The Challenges Of Gaming For Democratic Education: The Case Of Icivics", Benjamin Devane Dec 2017

A Problem Of Play For Democratic Education? Abstraction, Realism, And Exploration In Learning Games. A Response To "The Challenges Of Gaming For Democratic Education: The Case Of Icivics", Benjamin Devane

Democracy and Education

In this review article, I argue that games are complementary, not self-supporting, learning tools for democratic education because they can: (a) offer simplified, but often not simple, outlines (later called “models”) of complex social systems that generate further inquiry; (b) provide practice spaces for exploring systems that do not have the often serious consequences of taking direct and immediate social, civic, and legal action; and (c) use rules to allow players to explore this aforementioned outline or model by making decisions and seeing an outcome. To make these arguments, I perform a close reading of three examples of participatory …


Response To “Seeking Democracy Inside And Outside Of Education”, Catherine Broom Dec 2017

Response To “Seeking Democracy Inside And Outside Of Education”, Catherine Broom

Democracy and Education

This response considers the strengths of Carr and Thesee's paper and explores further areas of research related to education for democracy or citizenship education.


The Slow Work Of Democracy: Resisting Reductionist Views Of Women And Children, Stephanie C. Serriere Dec 2017

The Slow Work Of Democracy: Resisting Reductionist Views Of Women And Children, Stephanie C. Serriere

Democracy and Education

In her research article “State your defense!": Children negotiate analytic frames in the context of deliberative dialogue," Hauver offers important contributions to the field of elementary civic education that illuminate how young people apply various analytical frames to make collective decisions. First, I highlight significant contributions of her work, namely children’s capabilities to build perspective-taking through dialogue, which I suggest can be more solidly grounded in a sociocultural framework, not a developmental one. Second, I offer suggestions toward such a theoretical framework that loosens determinism for children’s development and offers a less deterministic framework for women. My review seeks …


Listening To Children In Dialogue. A Response To “‘State Your Defense!’ Children Negotiate Analytic Frames In The Context Of Deliberative Dialogue”, Kathy Bickmore Dec 2017

Listening To Children In Dialogue. A Response To “‘State Your Defense!’ Children Negotiate Analytic Frames In The Context Of Deliberative Dialogue”, Kathy Bickmore

Democracy and Education

In this appreciative response to Jennifer Hauver’s article about elementary children’s negotiation of analytic frames in deliberative dialogue during input into a school governance decision, Bickmore argues for the value of such agentic, citizenship-relevant learning opportunities in public schools. She points to their unfortunate infrequency (to the detriment of socially just democracy) in economically and racially marginalized communities. The concept of analytic frames is compared with the notion of interests—desires, needs, concerns, and ethical principles—underlying each party’s proposals in integrative negotiated conflict resolution theory. Questions are raised about the roles played by cultural context and status inequalities within dialogue groups. …


Democracy Dies In Dualisms. A Response To “Dewey And Democracy”, Dan Sarofian-Butin Dec 2017

Democracy Dies In Dualisms. A Response To “Dewey And Democracy”, Dan Sarofian-Butin

Democracy and Education

This essay reviews Atkinson’s article “Dewey and Democracy” and argues that while Dewey and the social foundations classroom may indeed be important for teacher preparation, it is not in the way Atkinson suggests. Namely, I argue that Atkinson’s essay has three distinct (yet interrelated) issues: his problematic oversimplifications, what I term as “Dewey doesn’t do dualisms”; his misreading of Dewey, where I point out that “Dewey doesn’t do debate”; and his unexamined positionality, where I make clear that “Dewey doesn’t do Descartes.” I conclude this essay with a different perspective of a way forward with Dewey: that Dewey’s antifoundationalism serves …


Countering The Neos: Dewey And A Democratic Ethos In Teacher Education, Jamie C. Atkinson Dec 2017

Countering The Neos: Dewey And A Democratic Ethos In Teacher Education, Jamie C. Atkinson

Democracy and Education

Neoliberalism and neoconservatism are two ideologies that currently plague education. The individualistic free-market ideology of neoliberalism and the unbridled nationalistic exceptionalism associated with neoconservatism often breed a narrowed, overstandardized curriculum and a hyper-testing environment that discourage critical intellectual practice and democratic ideas. Dewey’s philosophy of education indicates that he understood that education is political and can be undemocratic. Dewey’s holistic pragmatism, combined with aspects of social reconstructionism, called for a philosophical movement that favors democratic schooling. This paper defines neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies and makes a case for including more critique within teacher preparation programs, what Dewey and other educationists …


In Defense Of Ambiguity In Education. A Book Review Of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, And Sexuality, Caitlin Howlett May 2017

In Defense Of Ambiguity In Education. A Book Review Of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, And Sexuality, Caitlin Howlett

Democracy and Education

This article offers a positive review of Rethinking Sexism, Gender, and Sexuality, a readable and refreshing account of the ambiguities and possibilities relating to gender and sexuality in education today. The review argues that, with a focus on public school experiences, this collection of vignettes, lessons, and critical essays, amounts to a resource that is of great value to teachers, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and citizens as they navigate the ever-changing winds of gender and sexuality, particularly as they diverge and multiply along categories of race, religion, ethnicity, and class. This book offers hope and excitement for those of us …


Teaching Spirituality As Ontology In Public Schools. A Response To "Democratic Foundations Of Spiritual Responsive Pedagogy", Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon May 2017

Teaching Spirituality As Ontology In Public Schools. A Response To "Democratic Foundations Of Spiritual Responsive Pedagogy", Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon

Democracy and Education

In “Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy,” Lingley worried that talk of spirituality is taboo in U.S. public school classrooms. Lingley pointed out that the dominant narrative demands silence on the topic. She wanted to make the case for spiritually responsive pedagogy as vital to an inclusive democracy. I begin this responsive essay by describing Lingley’s argument, and then I strengthen her argument through my work on relational ontologies. When we equate spirituality with ontology, we realize it is impossible to avoid teaching spirituality in our schools, for we begin passing on to our children our fishing nets to help …


A Call For More Literature And Deeper Data. A Response To "The Cultural Contours Of Democracy: Indigenous Epistemologies Informing South African Citizenship", Moeketsi Letseka May 2017

A Call For More Literature And Deeper Data. A Response To "The Cultural Contours Of Democracy: Indigenous Epistemologies Informing South African Citizenship", Moeketsi Letseka

Democracy and Education

This review provides a critical appraisal of Kubow and Min's paper. It teases out their conception of liberalism and argues that the classical notion of liberalism as a political theory that advocates individual liberty based on assumptions of the unencumbered autonomous individual has lost currency. This is because over the years liberalism has mutated into a multiplicity of new forms, and there is no single view that can be said to define what it means to be a liberal. The paper raises methodological questions with respect to the use of focus group interviews. It implores researchers to first ask themselves …


The Critique Of Deliberative Discussion. A Response To “Education For Deliberative Democracy: A Typology Of Classroom Discussions", David I. Backer May 2017

The Critique Of Deliberative Discussion. A Response To “Education For Deliberative Democracy: A Typology Of Classroom Discussions", David I. Backer

Democracy and Education

My response to Samuelsson’s (2016) recent essay offers a different paradigm with which to think about education, deliberative discussion and democracy. I call this paradigm the critique of deliberative discussion. Following Ruitenberg’s application of Mouffe’s critiques of deliberative democracy to education, the critique of deliberative discussion focuses on what Jameson called the “political unconscious” of deliberative discussions like those presented by Samuelsson. There is literature that critique traditionally moderate-liberal notions of deliberative discussion, which Samuelsson defines his typology: reason, willingness to listen, and consensus. While others, like Ruitenberg, have developed this critique of deliberative-democratic citizenship education, the critique of deliberative …


Examination Of The New Tech Model As A Holistic Democracy, Jill Bradley-Levine 4355986, Gina Mosier May 2017

Examination Of The New Tech Model As A Holistic Democracy, Jill Bradley-Levine 4355986, Gina Mosier

Democracy and Education

Using the Degrees of Democracy Framework (Woods & Woods, 2012), we examined eight New Tech (NT) high schools to determine the extent to which they demonstrated characteristics of holistic democracy. We collected qualitative data, including observations and interviews during the fourth year of implementation. Findings indicated that the eight NT schools demonstrated many features of holistic democracy with a few exceptions. This study has implications for researchers and school communities interested in measuring holistic democracy in other schools and within school models.


Teaching For Toleration In Pluralist Liberal Democracies, Betto A.F. Van Waarden May 2017

Teaching For Toleration In Pluralist Liberal Democracies, Betto A.F. Van Waarden

Democracy and Education

This article determines which education enables the perpetuation of diverse ways of life and the liberal democracy that accommodates this diversity. Liberals like John Rawls, Stephen Macedo, and William Galston have disagreed about the scope of civic education. Based on an analysis of toleration—the primary means for maintaining a pluralist liberal democracy—I argue that schools should teach democratic participatory skills and a minimal exposure to diversity to enable citizens to participate in the democratic process of defining which cultural and religious practices the state should tolerate or prohibit through its laws. To make this argument, I contend, in contrast to …