Democratic Education: A Deweyan Reminder

Action for Democratic Education

A subtle, yet noticeable, shift is occurring in recent debates over the reform of public schooling. In response to the reform reports of 1983 which stressed the need for schools to prepare workers, more recent reports have instead focused upon the preparation of citizens—in particular, the preparation of democratic citizens.* This new wave of proposals echoes a traditional resistance against th...

The Role of Multicultural Education in Constructing a Democratic-pluralistic Society in Iran

Multicultural education, as an educational reform movement, has been given ample attention since 1960s. It has sought to promote the democratic values and educational equality in culturally and racially diverse communities. One of the most important issues at the forefront of education in multi-ethnic societies is how to bring social cohesion by helping people from different cultural, racial, l...

Reconstructing Dewey: Dialectics and Democratic Education

This essay aims to demonstrate the theoretical purchase offered by linking Dewey’s educational theory with a rigorous account of dialectical development. Drawing on recent literature which emphasizes the continuing influence of Hegel on Dewey’s thought throughout the latter’s career, this essay reconstructs Dewey’s argument regarding the detrimental effects of “external aims” (e.g., grades, sta...

Latinos, Education, and the Church: Toward a Culturally Democratic Future

The Role of Education in a Democratic Society

Social condition is commonly the result of circumstances, sometimes of laws, oftener still of these two causes united; but when once established, it may justly be considered as itself the source of almost all the laws, the usages, and the ideas which regulate the conduct of nations: whatever it does not produce, it modifies. If we would become acquainted with the legislation and the manners of ...