This article explores interreligious education from the perspective of John Dewey's educational philosophy. Keenly aware that twentieth-century individuals and societies would have an expanding plurality of experiences, Dewey proposed a democratic educational philosophy able to account for life in a pluralistic world. Three interconnected themes…

The authors consider Ladson-Billings' (2006) charge to reframe the way the "achievement gap" is viewed, and put forth the metaphor of "bankruptcy" as a way to acknowledge the educational debt and educational inequity and move towards debt forgiveness in public education. Specifically, the bankruptcy metaphor is used to examine…

A Beijing-based non-governmental organization (NGO) strives to empower rural Chinese women and migrant girls by increasing their awareness of constitutional rights and promoting their capacities to exercise their civil and political rights. This article reports the NGO leaders' perceptions of the goals, strategies, and challenges in their…

As liberal democracies include increasingly diverse and multifaceted populations, the longstanding debate about the role of the state in religious education and the place of religion in public life seems imperative now more than ever. The maintenance of religious schools and the planning of religious education curricula raise a profound challenge.…

This article outlines how providing accessible transparency to information controlled by institutions of power and suppressed from public view is both similar in purpose to, as well as an essential component of, the pedagogical processes promoted by Paulo Freire, which are necessary for the establishment of a truly just and non-oppressive society.…

Interest in post-crisis education and concomitantly in education for democracy and citizenship, manifest in a large number of recent initiatives and publications, provides an opportunity to revisit the period of occupation in Germany after the Second World War, when there was concern--at least in the Western Zones--to create an awareness of the…

Established in 2011, the Online School of Civic Education (the Online School) is intended to give Iranian teachers and educators the opportunity to reflect, experiment, and create classroom experiences aimed at teaching their students how to think, rather than what to think. The Online School was developed to provide teachers and educators inside…

This dissertation explores unexamined assumptions linking the context of small learning communities to the outcome of quality civic education. Civic education scholars and advocates for small learning communities espouse similar visions of education based on democratic ideals; the purpose of this study was to explore whether and in what ways small…

In this article, the author begins by describing an important present moment in curriculum studies. He then rethinks this moment and briefly explores the implications of this new line of thought for leadership development. At the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies' (AAACS) business meeting, Pinar (2007a) presented…

Although it is common to hear people espouse the importance of education to ensuring a strong and vibrant democracy, the assumptions underlying such statements are rarely unpacked. Two of the most widespread, though not necessarily complimentary, assumptions include: (1) to truly participate in a democracy, citizens must be well educated; and (2)…

Democratic education, the idea that all members of a school community play meaningful roles in determining what is learned and how, has occupied a stable if marginal place in American educational discourse over the last century. Despite a continued interest in democracy as both a means and ends of schooling, schools of education have struggled to…

The best intentioned efforts of adults are often sabotaged by coercive climates of bullying among peers and conflict with adults. The solution is to create cultures where youth cooperate with authority and treat one another with respect. In this article, the authors stress the task of the staff to create a condition in which students see more…

Children in South Africa are educated to identify with democratic values and democracy in post-apartheid society. As yet, we have no empirical evidence on their views on and identification with the new South African democracy. When given an opportunity to express their life experiences, the 9-year-old child citizens of this case study revealed…

Founded in the 1850s to promote an informed citizenry, public libraries advanced both adult learning and citizenship education in the first half of the 20th century, thus becoming cornerstones of democracy. But with a more recent decline in public engagement in libraries and beyond, librarians question whether democracy requires more than an…

America's civic community from the end of the Great Depression through the post World War II years was hardly rational or racially neutral in its uneven and unequal treatment of African Americans and other underrepresented groups. Conventional civic scholarship of the era has ignored the complexities of a racially segregated society that in theory…