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Political Education in Times of Populism pp 15–35Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Democracy and Political Education

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Abstract

This chapter is centred on examining assumptions underpinning political education practices in democratic countries. Particularly, the chapter maps out prevalent discourses of democracy (i.e. neoliberalism, liberalism, deliberativist democracy, critical theory, participatory democracy, radical democracy and decolonial theory) and the influence these discourses have had on political education. The chapter classifies these discursive alternatives within three distinctive understandings of democracy and education (i.e. pragmatic democracy and narrow education; aspirational democracy and strong education; and open democracy and weak education). It is argued that modern accounts of democracy dominate political education practice through “strong” forms of education. These accounts assume that the pursuit of knowledge, democratic values and freedom are mutually dependent.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Fukuyama (1992).

  2. 2.

    The “Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning” (European Commission , 2006) identified eight competencies in total: communication in the mother tongue; communication in foreign languages; mathematical competence and basic competence in science and technology; digital competence; learning to learn; social and civic competences; sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and cultural awareness and expression.

  3. 3.

    https://www.coe.int/en/web/reference-framework-of-competences-for-democratic-culture/context-concepts-and-model

  4. 4.

    The original review (Sant, 2019) identifies eight different discourses: elitism, neoliberalism, liberal democracy, deliberative democracy, critical theory, multiculturalism (within which there were a liberal-pluralism and a decolonial theory), participatory democracy and agonistic democracy. For my purposes here, I have decided to modify these categories partially. The elitist discourse is not discussed as its current existence in liberal democracies is relatively minimal. The multicultural discourse has been replaced by decolonial theory as their arguments are very relevant for some of the points that will be later argued. I have also decided to name the ‘agonistic’ discourse as ‘radical’ as this later concept more clearly encompasses all authors within this perspective.

  5. 5.

    For a discussion on neoliberal ontology and epistemology see Pennington (2014).

  6. 6.

    See Sung (2010) for a more elaborated discussion on this.

  7. 7.

    See Menashy (2007) for a more developed discussion on the implicit marginalisation of non-quantifiable outcomes.

  8. 8.

    See, for instance, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-citizenship-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-citizenship-programmes-of-study-for-key-stages-3-and-4

  9. 9.

    For a discussion of political education from a liberal perspective see Nussbaum (2006) and Duarte (2016).

  10. 10.

    See Chap. 1 or Hand (2008).

  11. 11.

    See, for instance, Banks et al. (2001).

  12. 12.

    For a more elaborated discussion on deliberation see Lefrançois and Ethier (2010).

  13. 13.

    For this, see Carleheden (2006).

  14. 14.

    For controversial issues, see Hess and McAvoy (2014), Hess (2008), Parker (2010) and Lo (2017). Similar proposals have been developed by those working in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking and German-speaking countries under respective names of questions socialement vives (Tutiaux-Guillon, 2011), problemas sociales relevantes (Pagès, 2011) and Beutelsbacher Konsens (Jahr et al., 2016).

  15. 15.

    For a more extended discussion around critical theory’s ontology and epistemology, read Stevenson (2010) and Hantzopoulos (2015).

  16. 16.

    For a more detailed account of critical political education, see Brent Edwards (2010) and Veugelers (2007).

  17. 17.

    For example Henry Giroux (2003) has argued about the confluence in his work of critical pedagogy and radical democracy. Michael Fielding and Peter Moss (2010) positioned their work—aligned with the principles of participatory discourse—as radical. ‘Radical’ is the umbrella term that, very often, groups those who bring the work of Jacques Rancière to the educational terrain.

  18. 18.

    See also Wildemeersch and Vandenabeele (2010).

  19. 19.

    See also Ruitenberg (2015).

  20. 20.

    See Santos (2014).

  21. 21.

    See, for instance, Parry (1999).

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  1. School of Childhood, Youth & Education Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

    Edda Sant

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Sant, E. (2021). Democracy and Political Education. In: Political Education in Times of Populism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76299-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76299-5_2

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