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Education Commons

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Journal

Democracy and Education

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Democratic Theory

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Education

Deliberative Facilitation In The Classroom: The Interplay Of Facilitative Technique And Design To Make Space For Democracy, Kei Nishiyama, A. Wendy Russell, Pierrick Chalaye, Tom Greenwell May 2023

Deliberative Facilitation In The Classroom: The Interplay Of Facilitative Technique And Design To Make Space For Democracy, Kei Nishiyama, A. Wendy Russell, Pierrick Chalaye, Tom Greenwell

Democracy and Education

Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policymaking in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In school deliberation, as in other settings, a key and sometimes neglected element of high-quality deliberation is facilitation. Facilitation can help to establish and maintain deliberative norms, assist participants to deliberate productively, and enable collective goals. By participating in facilitated deliberation, students can develop awareness, skills, and voice that empower them to engage …


Education As Commons, Children As Commoners: The Case Study Of The Little Tree Community, Yannis Pechtelidis, Alexandros Kioupkiolis May 2020

Education As Commons, Children As Commoners: The Case Study Of The Little Tree Community, Yannis Pechtelidis, Alexandros Kioupkiolis

Democracy and Education

This paper presents the emergent paradigm of the "commons" as an alternative value and action system in the field of education, and it critically draws out the implications of the commons for refiguring education and its potential contribution to democratic transformation. The paper delves into an independent pedagogical community, Little Tree, which is active in early childhood education and care, aiming to explore the ways in which children conduct themselves in accordance with the ethics and the logics of the commons and to show how they thereby unsettle the conventional meaning of citizenship. Proceeding from an enlarged notion of the …


Negating Amy Gutmann: Deliberative Democracy, Business Influence, And Segmentation Strategies In Education, Brian Ford May 2020

Negating Amy Gutmann: Deliberative Democracy, Business Influence, And Segmentation Strategies In Education, Brian Ford

Democracy and Education

The task of creating a public will is daunting in any political system, but a democracy dedicated to the principles of participation and public deliberation faces specific challenges, including overcoming organized opposition that may not accept democratic tenets. In the sphere of education (and social reproduction more generally), business-influenced movements to reform public education question many of the established goals and norms of democratic education and thus may be the vanguard of such opposition. In order to interpret and explore these movements, this article enlists Amy Gutmann's work as a heuristic device. In so doing, it looks at the task …


A Democratic Critique Of The Common Core English Language Arts (Ela) Standards, Nicholas Tampio Apr 2018

A Democratic Critique Of The Common Core English Language Arts (Ela) Standards, Nicholas Tampio

Democracy and Education

Parents, educators, and students have criticized the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects for expecting students to regurgitate evidence from assigned texts rather than think for themselves. This article argues that this popular critique is accurate and that the Common Core, regardless of its advocates’ intentions, has undemocratic consequences. Initially, the essay considers a democratic argument for the Common Core. Then, I show that the standards themselves, faithfully implemented, lead to assignments and assessments that give students few opportunities to articulate their own thoughts or responses. I argue that …


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 …


Media Literacy For The 21st Century. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Peter Levine Apr 2015

Media Literacy For The 21st Century. A Response To "The Need For Media Education In Democratic Education", Peter Levine

Democracy and Education

We cannot pretend to educate young people for citizenship and political participation without teaching them to understand and use the new media, which are essential means of expressing ideas, forming public opinions, and building institutions and movements. But the challenge of media literacy education is serious. Students need advanced and constantly changing skills to be effective online. They must understand the relationship between the new media and social and political institutions, a topic that is little understood by even the most advanced social theorists. And they must develop motivations to use digital media for civic purposes, when no major institutions …


Beyond The Schoolhouse Door: Educating The Political Animal In Jefferson’S Little Republics, Brian W. Dotts Apr 2015

Beyond The Schoolhouse Door: Educating The Political Animal In Jefferson’S Little Republics, Brian W. Dotts

Democracy and Education

Jefferson believed that citizenship must exhibit republican virtue. While education was necessary in a republican polity, it alone was insufficient in sustaining a revolutionary civic spirit. This paper examines Jefferson's expectations for citizen virtue, specifically related to militia and jury service in his 'little republics.' Citizens required not only knowledge of history and republican principles, but also public spaces where they could personify what they learned. Jefferson often analogized the nation as a ship at sea, and while navigational instruments are necessary in charting an accurate course, i.e., republican theories, they become inconsequential without the decisive action required for their …


Civic Meanings: Understanding The Constellations Of Democratic And Civic Beliefs Of Educators, Elizabeth A. Lowham, James R. Lowham Apr 2015

Civic Meanings: Understanding The Constellations Of Democratic And Civic Beliefs Of Educators, Elizabeth A. Lowham, James R. Lowham

Democracy and Education

There is little doubt of public school’s role in the enculturation of youth into American democracy. There are several aspects about which little is known that should be addressed prior to seeking options to understand and address civic education for the 21st century: first, the desired civic knowledge, skills, and predispositions are not clearly identified; and second, little is known about the knowledge, skills, and beliefs of the faculty, administration, staff and board of education members about democracy or the patterns of congruence among adults connected to K–12 education. In this pilot study, we investigate the patterns of beliefs through …