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Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 2008

In this chapter Lars Løvlie develops a view of the kind of public conversations that Callan and Benhabib lament as missing from existing democracies in the United States and France. Løvlie contends that civic education requires that we pay more attention to teaching people how they might talk with one another and to deciding what to talk about. Democratic practice involves many problem-solving methods, especially discussion or deliberation. Løvlie distinguishes between moderate deliberation, which is embedded within existing practices and assumptions, and strong deliberation, which directly challenges both. In deciding what is good and true, the former works within a local framework and the latter aims at a broader, more universal horizon. Both are required for full democratic citizenship. While much citizenship education deals with topics like law and government, ordinary political discourse actually focuses on common concerns or topoi that all humans must confront, including freedom and justice, love and friendship, tolerance and solidarity. These existential topics examine situations inherent to the human condition and require the kind of special attention that Løvlie recommends in describing strong deliberation. Absent considerations of democratic topoi, Løvlie argues, education for democratic citizenship can be formal and empty.

Studies in Philosophy and Education, 2017

In the educational sphere, the concept of democracy is used in many and varied ways, though the hegemonic school culture often starts from a concept of democracy that is taken for granted, and it is understood that the entire educational community shares a similar concept. As a result of the research project "Democracy, participation and inclusive education in schools" we have realized that the above-mentioned concept is used without defining exactly what we are referring to, in the school setting and in many other contexts. This observation is what has prompted us to write this article, basically structured in two parts. In the first part, based on the theoretical debate occurring in the field of social sciences, we delimit the concept of democracy and structure it in four basic dimensions: governance, inhabitance, otherness and ethos. In the second part, we specify and examine in depth these four dimensions in the school setting in order to construct a broad and transversal, yet specific, definition, with which to be able to develop ambitious democratic projects and, in turn, contribute to scientific debate.

An argument that concerns about free speech issues on campus and elsewhere will not be solved by more "civic education," but only by practicing democracy in the classroom

International Journal of Educational Research Review, 2020

Political and Social scientists, since the end of the 20th century, have been concerned about youth’s “withdrawal” from participating in public life. This paper addresses the issue of teaching Civic Education and presents new didactic and interactive tools that can be used in the educational process. Introducing the meaning of Democracy to students takes place in compulsory education but during Secondary Education is taught extensively with the aim of creating responsible and interactive citizens. Therefore, students are exercised in democratic procedures during courses, interactive learning and by electing students’ board into school premises in order to motivate political participation and political understanding. However, an individual is not considered as a citizen only on the election day. To this end, thematic workshops were designed and implemented by using the principle of deliberation in schools in the area of Thessaloniki (Greece), in the context of the course "Contem...

Contemporary Politics

A growing body of research and data suggests the existence of a disconnection between citizens, politicians and representative politics in advanced industrial democracies. This has led to a literature on the emergence of post-democratic or post-representative politics that connects to a parallel seam of scholarship on the capacity of deliberative democratic innovations to 'close the gap'. This latter body of work has delivered major insights in terms of democratic design in ways that traverse 'politics as theory' and 'politics as practice'. And yet the main argument of this article is that this seam of scholarship has generally failed to emphasise or explore the nature of learning, or comprehend the existence of numerous pedagogical relationships that exist within the very fibre of deliberative processes. As such, the core contribution of this article focuses around the explication and application of a 'pedagogical pyramid' that applies a micro-political lens to deliberative processes. This theoretical contribution is empirically dissected and assessed with reference to a recent project in the United Kingdom that sought to test different citizen assembly designs in the context of plans for English regional devolution. The proposition being tested is that a better understanding of relational pedagogy within innovations is vital for democratic reconnection, not just to increase levels of knowledge and mutual understanding, but also to build the capacity, confidence and contribution of democratically active citizens.

JSSE - Journal of Social Science Education, 2012

This article presents one way of changing the participatory culture of training teachers-the Critical Integrative Teacher Education (CITE) 1 programme now being implemented at Jyväskylä University. For the last ten years the Finnish school system has been the centre of considerable international attention because of its success in PISA. The Finnish school, however, has two faces. In the shadow of those good learning outcomes there lurks a democratic deficit in school and a lack of school wellbeing amongst children. This article examines the nature of the Finnish school and teacher education from the perspective of democracy. If participatory culture in Finnish schools is restricted, then the same also applies to teacher education. The long tradition of education as well as the radical school democracy experiment in the early 1970s resulted in the neutralization of teacher education and the removal of politics and politicality. This led to a teacher education with the emphasis on didactics and psychology but with a social viewpoint conspicuous by its absence. Even though the system offers opportunities to implement even radically different training methods, there is little that is done differently.

Assumptions based on deliberative democratic theory have dominated scholarship of democratic citizenship within political science and educational research. However, both fields have produced scholarship that raises questions regarding the efficacy of the deliberative model of democratic education. This article presents a critical synthesis that highlights the major trends of deliberative democratic theory from the field of political science, while making connections to education specific literature. The shift, away from idealistic notions toward a model of deliberative democracy that considers identity, group interests, and power differences within society, supports similar efforts to revisit democratic theory within civic education. The article concludes with recommendations for a revised, more realistic, conceptualization of civic education.

Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2000

Neo-pragmatism focuses on communication as a democratic form of life. It therefore creates new visions for the relationship between democracy and education. Models for deliberative democracy inspired by neo-pragmatism are explicitly based on the need for education of citizens in deliberative capabilities and attitudes. T he idea of deliberative democracy as an educational process is one where individuals bring di erent perspectives to on-going communication, which is here presented as an important way to interpret John Dewey, speci® cally his Democracy and Education. T his approach to reading his work is compared initially with other and earlier ways of reading his work, i.e., the educational philosophies and movements of progressivism and reconstructionism. . His research interests centre on curriculum theory and didactics, curriculum history, political socialization and citizenship education, and the philosophical aspects of education. He directs a research programme on the content of socialization and the dimensions of citizenship Journal of Curriculum S tudies ISSN 0022± 0272 print/IS SN 1366± 5839 online # 2000 T aylor & Francis Ltd

This chapter offers a critique of current definitions of active citizenship and argues that children and young people need to be seen as citizens within their school communities and not just citizens of the Developing active citizenship in schools future. Pedagogy and school decision-making should reflect the aims of active citizenship and thus engage children and young people as active participants within their school communities. This requires a radical change to the way in which many schools are currently structured and organised. A case study of a small democratic school is used as an illustration of an exemplary model of education for active citizenship. This school does not offer citizenship as a curriculum subject nor explicitly aim for active citizenship – and yet active citizenship is integral to its ethos, values, structures, processes and pedagogy. Throughout the chapter, it is suggested that democratic schooling is not just one way – but the best way – of providing education for active citizenship. Keywords Democratic education * active citizenship * experiential learning * critical thinking * citizenship schools

2017