Education And The Struggle For Democracy

Education And The Struggle For Democracy
Author: Carr, Wilfred
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 249
Release: 1996-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0335195202

During the past decade there has been a series of radical changes to the educational system of England and Wales. This book argues that any serious study of these changes has to engage with complex questions about the role of education in a modern liberal democracy. Were these educational changes informed by the needs and aspirations of a democratic society? To what extent will they promote democratic values and ideals? These questions can only be adequately addressed by making explicit the political ideas and the underlying philosophical principles that have together shaped the English educational system. To this end, the book provides a selective history of English education which exposes the connections between decisive periods of educational change and the intellectual and political climate in which it occurred. It also connects the educational policies of the 1980s and 90s to the political ideas of the New Right in order to show how they are part of a broader political strategy aimed at reversing the democratic advances achieved through the intellectual and political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book proposes that a democratic educational vision can only effectively be advanced by renewing the 'struggle for democracy' - the historical struggle to create forms of education which will empower all citizens to participate in an open, pluralistic and democratic society.

Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life

Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life
Author: Henry A. Giroux
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2015-12-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317252489

This book examines the relationship between democracy and schooling and argues that schools are one of the few spheres left where youth can learn the knowledge and skills necessary to become engaged, critical citizens. Not only is the legacy of democracy addressed through the work of John Dewey and others, but the democratic possibilities of schooling are analyzed through a range of issues extending from the politics of teacher authority to the importance of student voices. These issues have only become more vital in an era of neoliberalism and "smaller government," as Giroux discusses at length in this new updated edition.

Education, Justice & Democracy

Education, Justice & Democracy
Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2013-03-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 022601293X

Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

Official Knowledge

Official Knowledge
Author: Michael W. Apple
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2000
Genre: Critical pedagogy
ISBN: 0415926149

Annotation A powerful examination of the rightist resurgence in education and the challenges it presents to concerned educators, "Official Knowledge" analyzes the effects of conservative beliefs and strategies on educational policy and practice. Now revised and updated to reflect the very latest developments in the realm of education and policy, Apple looks specifically at the conservative agenda's incursion into education through curriculum, textbook adoption policies and the efforts of the private and business sectors to centralize their interests within schools. At the same time, however, he points out areas of hope for the future, showing how students and teachers have continued the struggle and are now successfully engaged in building more democratic education policies and practices. Finally, Apple writes in personal terms about his own teaching techniques and work with students both of which challenge some of the ideological and educational policies and practices of the Right.

Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education
Author: John Dewey
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 456
Release: 1916
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN:

. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

Not for Profit

Not for Profit
Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2024-12-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0691264392

A passionate defense of the humanities from one of today's foremost public intellectuals In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. Translated into twenty-five languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.

The Democratic Class Struggle

The Democratic Class Struggle
Author: Walter Korpi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2018-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429806876

First published in 1983. This book combines a case study of class relations, politics and voting in Sweden with a comparative analysis of distributive conflicts and politics in eighteen OECD countries. Its underlying theoretical theme is the development of class relations in free-enterprise or capitalise democracies. This title will be of interest to students of history and politics.

School Reform Critics

School Reform Critics
Author: Joseph L. DeVitis
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014
Genre: Democracy and education
ISBN: 9781433120398

Although the authors of School Reform Critics do not abandon their own ideas about the need for progressive changes in K-12 schooling, they critique in specific ways the current so-called school reform movement, focusing on education in a democracy, context and policy implications, teachers and teacher education, and diversity and social justice.

Advancing Democracy

Advancing Democracy
Author: Amilcar Shabazz
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2005-11-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807875988

As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it is important to consider the historical struggles that led to this groundbreaking decision. Four years earlier in Texas, the Sweatt v. Painter decision allowed blacks access to the University of Texas's law school for the first time. Amilcar Shabazz shows that the development of black higher education in Texas--which has historically had one of the largest state college and university systems in the South--played a pivotal role in the challenge to Jim Crow education. Shabazz begins with the creation of the Texas University Movement in the 1880s to lobby for equal access to the full range of graduate and professional education through a first-class university for African Americans. He traces the philosophical, legal, and grassroots components of the later campaign to open all Texas colleges and universities to black students, showing the complex range of strategies and the diversity of ideology and methodology on the part of black activists and intellectuals working to promote educational equality. Shabazz credits the efforts of blacks who fought for change by demanding better resources for segregated black colleges in the years before Brown, showing how crucial groundwork for nationwide desegregation was laid in the state of Texas.

Democratic Socialism and Education: New Perspectives on Policy and Practice

Democratic Socialism and Education: New Perspectives on Policy and Practice
Author: Neil Hopkins
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2019-05-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030189376

This book engages with the political, philosophical and policy debates around contemporary democratic socialism and state education. It examines contemporary education and education systems, as well as democratic socialism in the context of the complex political world we live in currently. It takes the reader towards a democratic socialist curriculum and pedagogy, and concludes by investigating democratic socialism and governance in education. Discussing the work of Axel Honneth, Chantal Mouffe and Norberto Bobbio, the book argues that contemporary democratic socialism gives a philosophical and political grounding to the notion of education being more than simply preparation for work or a series of qualifications. It makes the case for education as an exercise in democratic community, and learning as collective citizenship. Taking the curriculum, classroom pedagogy, and educational governance in turn, it offers a series of practical ways in which state education can be re-interpreted and re-applied to emphasise the democratic, collective and creative aspects of learning. "Hopkins contends, firstly, that twenty-first-century democratic socialism must reinvigorate itself by responding to the challenges of liberalism; and, secondly, that a socially just education system must be willing to learn from such a reinvigorated socialism. These twinned theses are clearly and concisely thought through in relation to urgent educational, and more broadly socio-political, issues: contemporary democratic-socialist thought; educational systems (and possibilities for reform); curriculum design; pedagogy; systems and mechanisms of governance. In just a few thousand words, Hopkins’s Democratic Socialism and Education manages to be that rare thing: a book that is both lucid introduction and original contribution. It will surely appeal equally to teachers, philosophers of education, and those engaged in educational action research." Dr. Oliver Belas, Lecturer in Education, School of Education and English Language, University of Bedfordshire, UK