This article examines the relation between education, voting and representation, and, in particular, the argument that more highly educated people should have more votes, as they should be better at judging important political decisions. In the past this issue attracted the attention of great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Newman and Mill. In…

Dialogue, listening, and compromise are essential elements of living in a democracy. In a highly partisan time, is it possible to reestablish common ground when it comes to how best to educate our children in and for democracy? Authors Brendan Sheran, Ashley Carey, Jack Schneider, Rebecca Woodland, and Kathryn McDermott, who are affiliated with…

The 1971 passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution was a significant step in advancing voting rights that offered a new route for young people to participate in public life. While met with enthusiasm in many quarters, the question of where a substantial segment of the youth vote--college students--would cast their ballots was a…

With the world growing in complexity and interconnectedness, the demand for leaders equipped to solve compound problems will only increase. Higher education is called upon to develop leadership in students and needs to engage relevant tools and techniques to prepare students for the tasks ahead. Democratic engagement--from voter education and…

This short report looks more deeply into the question of whether student voters make a difference to UK election results by: (1) taking the 25 constituencies with the highest proportion of full-time students -- those where they are thought to make up more than 17.5 per cent of the electorate; (2) considering the results in these seats for the last…

Background/Context: Robust civic engagement by young adults supports the aims of a democratic society, as well as college- and university-espoused commitments to the public good. Civic engagement also benefits students themselves. Although voting participation among young adults has shown modest increases from 2016 to 2020, work remains to be done…

After analyzing state standards and textbook excerpts, all the fourth graders in Ms. Yoo's classroom convened and discussed why the nonwhite suffragists were missing and what they could do about it. The students agreed that textbooks and standards "can't include everybody," but they also concurred that the stories of Indigenous, Black,…

This paper considers the functions and effects of "representation" in politics and education. The voting age for public elections in Japan has been lowered from 20 or older to 18 or older, calling for a shift in the curriculum to the basics of political participation and competence. In this paper, while focusing on the political issues…

The rapid emergence of the novel coronavirus and its impact on human behavior provoked dramatic increases in human usage of a variety of systems. These increases had the potential to stress the scalability of the systems, testing whether the system owners had designed and built those systems to cope with sudden changes in demand. This case invites…

In this response to Martin's "Should Deliberate Democratic Inclusion Extend to Children?" I examine Martin's comments against the "argument from circumspection," which is dubious regarding the claims children make to change democratic policies and procedures. I explain there are good reasons for being circumspect. One of these…

Over the past decade, the students of North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, the largest historically Black public university in the country, were forced into the spotlight of a national fight over voting rights that has been profoundly reshaping our democracy. During the 2018 midterm elections,…

Elections in fledgling democracies are punctuated by perceived and observed cases of vote buying otherwise also called electoral clientelism -- regarded as a major threat to democratic consolidation. Notions of vote buying are variously captured in the burgeoning literature on democracy, but the ongoing scholarly discussions have failed to engage…

In November 2020, Californians will vote on Proposition 20 ("Prop 20"), a ballot initiative that would roll back key elements of the state's recent justice reforms, including Public Safety Realignment, Proposition 47, and Proposition 57 (AB 109, 2011; Prop 47, 2014; Prop 57; 2016; SOS, 2018). In recent years, the Center on Juvenile and…

Since March of 2020, two pandemics have hit the United States of America like a bag of bricks. The health pandemic as a result of COVID-19 that has killed over 180,000 Americans and the racially-charged genocides that continues to murder our Black brothers and sisters. As a result of constant disregard for Black lives, in part 1, we analyze the…

Australia achieved marriage equality in 2017, following a controversial and divisive postal survey which invited all Australians to 'vote' on whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. The 'No' campaign focused on the alleged negative impact of marriage equality on children's education. Scare-mongering television clips claimed that boys…