This paper reports on the role of the narrative arts in young people's political subjectivity and democratic learning. Drawing on theoretical insights into the process of subjectification and the relationship between politics and aesthetics, the paper discusses a number of findings from an empirical research project carried out with young people…

The purpose of this paper is to explore how civic organizations in Egypt after the revolution prepare students to be active citizens with a solid understanding of what their roles and duties are in an emergent democratic system. Through examining the curriculum of the summer school of one of the civic organizations in Cairo, I first look at the…

Classical ballet technique is commonly taught through the use of authoritarian practices and normalizing aesthetic values, but the construction of the ballet dancer as a docile subject in opposition to an all-knowing instructor might impede ballet's progression. In this article I explore my development of a feminist or democratic ballet…

In a September 2013 interview, Thomas Ehrlich and Ernestine Fu--whose passion for public service is manifested in differing ways and from two dramatically different generational standpoints--discussed insights from their co-authored book, "Civic Work, Civic Lessons: Two Generations Reflect on Public Service (2013)." Septuagenarian Tom…

Background: In anthropology and related disciplines, the term "assessment" refers to the everyday activities of ordinary people as they figure out what to do next given what others have just done. The assessments, in turn, constitute what is happening, whether in encounters between policeman and person in the street, or classroom lesson,…

One of the most notable aspects of democracy in schooling lies in the challenge of schools to prepare individuals with the skills to participate and deliberate with others who have varying beliefs and worldviews. Deliberation and dialogue are seen as core components for academic achievement and cross-cultural connections between English language…

"Learner-centred" and "teacher as facilitator," among the most influential concepts (re)shaping education over the past decades, are often represented as bringing democratic participation, equality, and empowerment to learners and helping transform and liberate societies. At the same time, these concepts are constructed in…

With the premise that investigation into impact of reforms on the educational outcomes like democratic citizenship is at best inconsistent, this study reports the findings of analyses of how secondary school pass-outs in Kerala from different streams of schools commit to democratic values. In order to judge the impact of post NCF (2005) school…

In 2010, Principal Kirk introduced Small Group Meeting (SGM) at Hillcrest Elementary. SGMs are multiage student groupings who meet with school faculty once a month to work on community building, service-learning projects, and advising. Many teachers liked the SGMs, some felt they needed more time to prepare, and others felt it was a waste of time.…

The neoliberal agenda promotes education as a route toward success in university and career. However, a neoliberal economy requires large numbers of workers willing to accept low-paying, dead-end jobs. The students most likely to take these jobs are those who have struggled with literacy and so schools must, in Bourdieu's terms, re/produce,…

The purpose of this paper is to exemplify a "grass-roots" change based on Dewey's experimental progressive education model employed in the "Bridge over the Valley" bilingual school, a Palestinian-Arab and Jewish school in Israel. In order to identify the progressive "approach" underlying this change, the…

Death is often a time of reappraisal for those left behind: of gifts a person may have given, and of lessons that might be learned from their struggles. A number of distinguished adult educators, whose lives were shaped by twentieth-century wars and fragilities, have recently died. They include Roy Shaw, one-time Director of Adult Education at the…

Adult education programs should turn to the deliberative democracy movement in order to help their communities better address the "wicked problems" they face. The authors contend that due to the "wicked" nature of problems in the diverse democracies, communities must develop and sustain their capacity for deliberative democracy and collaborative…

The epistemic interview is a conversational practice, which aims to generate knowledge by subjecting respondents' beliefs to dialectical tests of reasons. Developed by Svend Brinkmann, this model draws inspiration from Socratic dialogues where the interviewer asks confronting questions to press respondents to articulate the normative bases of…

It has been argued that Paulo Freire's concept of conscientization, where critical awareness and engagement are central to a problem-posing pedagogy, provides the philosophical principles to underpin Problem Based Learning (PBL). By using dialogue groups and a combination of learning strategies to discover the nature of a problem, understand its…