Democratic Education

Catalog description

Americans have long considered their public schools to be central in the cultivation of democracy. As such, public school teachers in the United States-at all levels and of all subjects-play a key role in perpetuating democracy. Despite teachers' critical role, formal preparation for this task via professional development of teacher education is questionable at best. Little scholarly attention is paid to what teachers need to know or be able to do pedagogically to help cultivate democratic thinking in students and rarely is the responsibility extended to teachers outside of the social studies field. This course takes seriously the role of democratic practice in education writ large, asking students to consider the purposes, theories, practices, and possibility of democratic education across a variety of contexts: adult education, K-12 education, alternative education, and teacher education. In this course we will consider the purposes of democratic education in the current U.S. context, examine theories of democratic education for democracy, and explore models of democratic education in practice.