High school students need to be able to analyze specific social and political events, as well as political institutions within a system. They should analyze the existence of democratic behavior and the level at which the democratic behavior operates. Discussed are six criteria for determining democratic performance within society. (RM)

We are now witnessing what I prefer to call the decline of the democratic dogma in this country; the people seem to be losing their unmitigated faith in the basic and most cherished of American beliefs; their faith in the value of universal public enlightenment. (Author)

Articles in the theme issue, Democracy, are discussed and suggestions for teaching various world forms of democracy are made. (JB)

Suggests that one way to democratize the learning process is to use the Learning Through Discussion (LTD) technique which applies the concepts of group dynamics and group development to the classroom. (DS)

Discusses the need for organization and management studies in secondary schools, as well as in colleges and universities, caused by four main problems: large school size and linked and tiered school systems; pupil diversity; organization and management problems related to physical resources and teaching methods; and increasingly democratic school…

Discusses the reception of John Dewey's ideas in China when he visited that country during the early 1920s. Dewey's specific references to grassroots political development and pragmatic education were well received because they were in harmony with certain basic Chinese values. Dewey's liberalism was rejected because it was not. (RM)

Refutes Myron Lieberman's article in the same issue. Argues that public support for public education is higher in states that have collective bargaining statutes and that democratic practice is more flexible than Lieberman's view of it.

A middle school teacher describes how his class actually practiced democracy by writing a classroom constitution. Students made rules by which they were governed within the classroom. (RM)

This is a discussion of the conflict between egalitarian rhetoric and elitist practices which has always existed in American schools. Also considered is the desire of disenfranchised groups to use the schools not to maintain their differences, but to advance toward a more comfortable life style. (SJL)

Argues that if one follows through the principles of a rational procedural morality one is necessarily committed to a democratic form of society. This in turn means that political education is an essential part of moral education and supplies a necessary content and context to moral education. (Author)