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ERIC Number: EJ1470217
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1757-7438
Available Date: 0000-00-00
'But We Didn't Put It to a Vote!': A Case Study of Direct-Democratic Decision-Making in Formal Education
Power and Education, v17 n1 p81-95 2025
The current study examined the unofficial implementation of direct-democratic decision-making assemblies in three typical public (state) schools of consecutive educational levels (kindergarten, primary and middle school) in a village in Greece. The study drew on Michel Foucault's analysis of "power technologies" and "power relations" in "disciplinary dispositives" like Education. The main aim of the study was to investigate the ways in which both pupils and teachers engaged with the "disciplinary technology" inherent in the educational dispositive and to document their conceptualization and attitudes towards these direct-democratic assemblies. The research methodology utilized participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated that the disciplinary technology continued to function as per the dominant dispositive, despite the implementation of direct-democratic decision-making assemblies, while pupils generally exhibited a sense of empowerment, displaying support and being influenced in their daily lives by the assemblies' governmentality. Minor challenges concerning the implementation of such assemblies are addressed and further possibilities of such implementations are discussed.
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Elementary Education; Kindergarten; Primary Education; Junior High Schools; Middle Schools; Secondary Education; Preschool Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Greece
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Educational Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece