In this paper an unusual informant is asked about the relationship between public education and democracy. Discussed also are the differences between schooling as preparation for employment vs. schooling for democratic living. The latter requires a curriculum different from that often found in America's public schools. An example of what one such…

A democratic government, whose power belongs to the people, serves all its citizens equally and protects their natural rights. Its highest priority is to treat and serve its citizens properly and fulfill their interests. In democratic regimes, conflicts and other social issues can be resolved through dialogue, compromise, and consensus between the…

Examining the entanglement of democracy and social justice in education and the relationship to social mobility, this paper critiques the individualising nature of social mobility in policy discourse as inimical to human flourishing and education as a public good. The rhetoric of social mobility which responsibilises individuals for their success,…

Since Plato and Aristotle, political theorists have discussed the important role of education in forming democratic citizens. They disagree, however, over whether public or private schools are more effective at nurturing citizenship. We conduct a statistical meta-analysis to identify the average association between private schooling and measures…

The main purpose of this research is to comparatively examine the views of social studies teacher candidates in Turkey and the USA towards war and peace, and to reveal the similarities and differences. In parallel with the increasing violence and wars in the world, literacy of peace has become a concept that attracts more and more attention. Each…

The demand for solidarity is made today by different social actors, e.g., from politics, religion or philosophy. Especially in the context of climate change and its social and ecological consequences, the demand for solidarity plays a major role. It is often referred to as the climate justice crisis. Therefore, solidarity can also be understood as…

This article presents a memorable method to introduce new students to the concept of political needs. Using an adaptation of Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" to one of "Hierarchy of Political Needs" the instructor presents how needs for "physiological survival," safety, belonging, "recognition," and…

Background: We build on participatory and critical understandings of democracy to analyze a two-and-a-half-year collaborative redesign of our teacher education program. Purpose: To theorize and design for the seemingly everyday, ordinary, and unremarkable work it takes for teacher education programs to embody democratic principles and…

A socially engaged art project conducted in Malta in 2021 brought together a group of participants from different sub-Saharan African countries with artists and researchers to promote civic engagement and cultural inclusion and understand how participants' ideas could be promoted and discussed beyond the workshop. This article addresses one of the…

This study describes a key feature of modern, democratic policy making, namely the relation between stakeholder input and policy output. In the Nordic countries, there are long traditions for and democratic values attached to the dialogue between the government and civil society when developing policies for the educational sector. The case…

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of self-efficacy and educational beliefs in relation to democratic values, while focusing on Turkish pre-service teachers. 382 pre-service teachers from a public university in Turkey have voluntarily participated in this study and responded to a series of research instruments provided by the…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and describe the perceptions of participants of PeaceJam towards personal and collective power, service learning, social justice and democratic education as examined through participant observations, interviews, focus groups, artifacts, and documents of individuals engaging with the non-profit…

Civics courses have a great significance -- they are supposed to train new cohorts of citizens to engage in multiple public roles in (democratic) society. How it is done depends on a multitude of factors, and teachers' performance and program contents are among the most important. In post-authoritarian order like Poland, civic contents of…

A multi-national company is transforming into a learning organization. An experiment was launched to include Virtual Action Learning in the process of transformation. For that, a team will work together as Action Learning Set in order to define how Virtual Action Learning can be successfully and sustainably implemented, and furthermore, how…

Schools carry the important task of fostering democratic values like equality and tolerance among students. This study examined to what extent a valid and reliable measurement instrument can be developed to gain insight into students' attitudes towards democratic values and what can be concluded based on this measurement. We constructed the…