Democratic education
Encyclopedia
Democratic education is a theory of learning and school governance in which students and staff participate freely and equally in a school democracy. In a democratic school, there is typically shared decision-making among students and staff on matters concerning living, working, and learning together.
who operated his own democratic school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia in the late 19th century.
The primary theorist, however, of what developed into democratic education is John Dewey
. His works on the relationship between democracy
and education
became foundational literature for the broader progressive education movement.
The oldest existing democratic school is the Summerhill School
, currently based in Suffolk, England but founded in Germany in 1921. A.S. Neill, its Scottish founder, wrote a number of books that now define much of contemporary democratic education theory. Following a critical government inspection in 1999 the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett
issued the school with a 'notice of complaint' over its policy of non-compulsory lessons, a procedure which would usually have led to closure; Summerhill chose to contest the notice which went before a special educational tribunal in the Royal Courts of Justice
in London with the school being represented by a noted human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson
QC
. The government's case soon collapsed and a settlement was offered. This offer was discussed and agreed at a formal school meeting which had been hastily convened in the courtroom from a quorum of pupils and teachers who were present in court. The settlement was much broader than could have been decided on the judge's authority alone as it made provision for Summerhill to be inspected using unique criteria in future which would take account of its special educational philosophy.
Sudbury Valley School
, a democratic school founded in Framingham, Massachusetts
, United States
in 1968, continues to be the model practiced by dozens of Sudbury schools around the world. Certain facets of the Sudbury model separate it from other schools that refer to themselves as "democratic schools" or "free schools." The following features apply to the Sudbury Valley School, see: de-emphasis of class
es, age mixing, autonomous democracy, order and discipline, values education, evaluation, the role of adults, diplomas, pluralism and political neutrality, the existence of rules of order, the rule of law
, universal suffrage
, protecting the rights of individuals
.
The Albany Free School
was established in Albany, NY in 1969 and still operates today. The Albany Free School's founder, Mary Leue, corresponded with Summerhill founder A.S. Neill about her plan to take his experiment of radical freedoms to a different demographic: the inner city. Leue went on to create The Free School in Albany's urban south end with the idea of making these freedoms and democratic principles accessible to children of the poor.
The SchuelerInnenschule, a democratic middle school serving children between the ages of 9 and 19, in Vienna, Austria was founded in 1979 by a small group of parents wanting something different for their children and wanting to follow in the footsteps of the Glockseeschule in Hannover, Germany. At about the same time two ground schools, the Free School of Hofmuehlgasse and the Schulkollektive in WUK, were founded also using the same basic education models. All three of these school are the oldest democratic schools still in existence in Austria.
Since 1993 there has been an International Democratic Education Conference
(IDEC) which is held in a different country each year. In 2008, the first EUDEC (European Democratic Education Conference
) was held in Leipzig
, Germany
.
In democratic schools, students are given responsibility for their own education. There is no pressure, implicitly nor explicitly, on students by staff to learn anything in particular. Students are given the right and responsibility to choose what to do with their time and attention.
Because the curricula are different for each student, democratic schools do not compare or rank students. There are no compulsory tests aside from those that individual governments require and those that colleges require for admission.
Some schools — mostly in the United States — offer a graduation procedure for those who wish to receive a high school diploma. Students who choose to use this option often must present a thesis on how they have prepared themselves for adulthood.
A striking feature of democratic schools is the ubiquity of play
. Students of all ages — but especially the younger ones — often spend most of their time either in free play, or playing game
s (electronic or otherwise). All attempts to limit, control or direct play must be democratically approved before being implemented . Play is seen as activity every bit as worthy as academic pursuits, often even more valuable. Play is considered essential for learning, particularly in fostering creativity. The pervasiveness of play has led to a recurring observation by first-time visitors to a democratic school that the students appear to be in perpetual "recess".
similar to the New England town meeting
. Often, all aspects of governing a democratic school are determined in school meetings. School meetings pass, amend, and repeal school rules, manage the school's budget, and decide on hiring and firing of staff. Each individual present — whether student or staff — has one vote and most decisions are made by simple majority.
Oftentimes, various aspects of school administration are delegated to parties selected during school meetings. These may include elected administrative clerks (who may be elected from staff or students) and committees of volunteers.
School rules are normally compiled in a law book, updated repeatedly over time, which forms the school's code of law
. If a school member commits an infraction, for example by harassing or hurting another member, or by mismanaging a delegated responsibility, the problem is dealt with through the school's judicial system organized by school members. Usually, there is a set procedure to handle complaints, and most of the schools follow guidelines that respect the idea of due process
of law. There are usually rules requiring an investigation, a hearing
, a trial
, a sentence
, and allowing for an appeal
.
. It "is a process where teachers and students work collaboratively to reconstruct curriculum to include everyone." In at least one conception, democratic education teaches students "to participate in consciously reproducing their society, and conscious social reproduction." This role necessitates democratic education happening in a variety of settings and being taught by a variety of people, including "parents, teachers, public officials, and ordinary citizens." Because of this "democratic education begins not only with children who are to be taught but also with citizens who are to be their teachers." Another definition is noted for its controversy because it views democractic education as "an education that democratizes learning itself."
There are a variety of components involved in democratic education. One author identifies those elements as being a problem-solving curriculum, inclusivity and rights, equal participation in decision-making, and equal encouragement for success. The Institute for Democratic Education identifies the principles of democratic education as,
The "strongest, political rationale" for democratic education is that it teaches "the virtues of democratic deliberation for the sake of future citizenship." This type of education is often alluded to in the deliberative democracy literature as fulfilling the necessary and fundamental social and institutional changes necessary to develop a democracy that involves intensive participation in group decision making, negotiation, and social life of consequence.
The type of political socialization that takes place in democratic schools is strongly related to deliberative democracy
theory. Claus Offe and Ulrich Preuss, two theorists of the political culture of deliberative democracies argue that in its cultural production deliberative democracy requires “an open-ended and continuous learning process in which the roles of both ‘teacher’ and ‘curriculum’ are missing. In other words, what is to be learned is a matter that we must settle in the process of learning itself."
The political culture of a deliberative democracy and its institutions, they argue, would facilitate more “dialogical forms of making one’s voice heard” which would “be achieved within a framework of liberty, within which paternalism is replaced by autonomously adopted self-paternalism, and technocratic elitism by the competent and self-conscious judgment of citizens."
Edward Portis offers a critique of what he terms ‘democratic education’ but his use of this term can be better understood as civic education. Portis contends, as many democratic education practitioners and theorists would, that a compulsory curriculum that claims to imbue in its students ‘democratic virtues’ actually does exactly the opposite. Portis argues that because politics and popular rule is rooted in the public deliberation of competing ideas and conceptions of social life, to pretend that certain values can be taught in the traditional sense—through mass compulsory education—subverts the democratic nature of the process. There is no such thing as a ‘proper’ education for democracy in this sense.
Democratic education theorists of the sort whose work underpin democratic schools, rather than those who analyze something akin to civic education (see Gutmann
, et al.) would fundamentally agree that democratic values cannot be taught in the traditional sense. If children are to ever learn how to be citizens of a democracy, they must participate in a democracy (see Greenberg 1992). This argument conforms to the cognition-in-context research by Lave
below.
In addition, this argument converges with various literatures concerning student voice
, youth participation
and other elements of youth empowerment
.
who founded a school for peasant children in Russia.
The most prominent theorist to voice what has become a common justification for uniform, mass-education and critiqued Tolstoy’s philosophy, was Émile Durkheim
in his lectures at the Sorbonne in 1902-03. Durkheim was the father of modern sociology
and developed the sociological/anthropological school of Functionalism
. These lectures have since been published under the title Moral Education.
Durkheim argued that the transition from primitive to modern societies occurred in part as ‘elders’ made a conscious decision to transmit what were deemed the most essential elements of their culture to the following generations. In Moral Education, Durkheim makes the case for an education system that preserves social solidarity by instilling three principles of ‘secular morality’ in children: what he terms a spirit of discipline, attachment to social groups, and self-determination. In the process of arguing how to instill these principles, he makes an extended argument on how punishment
should be used in the schools. In this section, Durkheim described Tolstoy’s theory as an example of a philosophy of education that doesn’t seem to use punishment as a mechanism of cultural solidarity formation and transmission:
He then argues that, in fact, punishment is found even in this type of system through subtle mechanisms of social behavior. It should not surprise any students of Durkheim to see how he argues for a social/cultural rather than an individual/rational explanation for punishment and self-regulation:
Durkheim touches on a point later made by democratic education writer George Dennison
in The Lives of Children: much social regulation that exists in free society takes place in the course of maintaining our relationships with each other. Our desire to cultivate friendships, engender respect, and maintain what Dennison terms ‘natural authority’ encourages us to act in socially acceptable ways (i.e. culturally informed practices of fairness, honesty, congeniality, etc.):
Durkheim, however, uses this point in the service of an argument for social fact
s to be communicated through the authority of teachers in traditional formal schools rather than through the ‘natural’ social relations of democratic life. In fact, he continues his argument on the role of punishment, even the history of corporeal punishment, by demonstrating that it is the product of modern mass-education systems.
Punishment has not always been utilized to ‘teach’ the right ways of being a member of society. In fact Durkheim cites a number of ethnographies of various hunter-gatherer groups in demonstrating that ‘primitive’ societies in fact effectively socialized their children without the use of punishment in formal education systems. This evidence has since been confirmed and expanded.
Durkheim’s ultimate point is that modern societies are so complex—so much more complex than primitive hunter-gatherer societies—and the roles individuals must fill in society are so varied that formal mass-education is necessary to instill social solidarity and what he terms ‘secular morality’.
The dawn of civilization coincided with the dawn of a self-conscious reproduction of social values deemed necessary or essential for social solidarity:
Michel Foucault
took up the issue of corporeal punishment in his famous works on ‘total institutions.’ In Discipline and Punish
, focusing primarily on prisons but including modern schools, Foucault described the transformation of violence since the Enlightenment
from a public spectacle to something much more subtle and insidious. Foucault argues that modern schools are used to transmit ideas to the young by claiming a privileged position to declare what is true, normal, and healthy. Rather than resorting to the violence that Durkheim detailed since the dawn of modern mass-education, Foucault argues that corporeal punishment has simply been replaced by forces much more difficult to notice than the force of blows and the whip of belts.
Democratic schools attempt to avoid any form of overt or covert enculturation outside the democratic process. Recognizing that one's 'natural authority' in the eyes of children is ultimately dependent on one's authenticity, teachers at democratic schools avoid tricks and enticements to induce any learning that isn't requested or desired. The only socialization
that takes place explicitly is that recognized by the process of democratic deliberation. The fact that a group of individuals—students and staff—must live, learn, and work together in the same space requires a system of governance. That system, as is the case in most countries and communities that respect principles of human equality, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, is a form of direct democracy
.
, the foundational child psychologist. Although it is adduced that Piaget was mistaken. The experience of Sudbury model schools showing that a great variety can be found in the minds of children, against Piaget's theory of universal steps in comprehension and general patterns in the acquisition of knowledge: "No two kids ever take the same path. Few are remotely similar. Each child is so unique, so exceptional."
Jean Lave
was one of the first and most prominent social anthropologists to discuss cognition within the context of cultural settings presenting a firm argument against the functionalist psychology
that many educationalists refer to implicitly.
For Lave, learning is a process ungone by an actor within a specific context. The skills or knowledge learned in one process are not generalizable nor reliably transferred to other areas of human action. Her primary focus was on mathematics in context and mathematics education.
The broader implications reached by Lave and others who specialize in Situated learning
are that beyond the argument that certain knowledge is necessary to be a member of society (a Durkheimian argument), knowledge learned in the context of a school is not reliably transferable to other contexts of practice.
, social justice
and democracy
included, must be learned through experience
as Aristotle said: "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." They adduce that for this purpose schools must be institutions in which all persons possess, at the point of entry and from the moment they enter, all the individual rights adults have in the country and, encourage ethical behavior and personal responsibility. In order to achieve these goals schools must allow students the three great freedoms—freedom of choice, freedom of action and freedom to bear the results of action—that constitute personal responsibility.
History
The first major writer to discuss a nascent theory of democratic education was Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
who operated his own democratic school for peasant children in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia in the late 19th century.
The primary theorist, however, of what developed into democratic education is John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
. His works on the relationship between democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
became foundational literature for the broader progressive education movement.
The oldest existing democratic school is the Summerhill School
Summerhill School
Summerhill School is an independent British boarding school that was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around...
, currently based in Suffolk, England but founded in Germany in 1921. A.S. Neill, its Scottish founder, wrote a number of books that now define much of contemporary democratic education theory. Following a critical government inspection in 1999 the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, David Blunkett
David Blunkett
David Blunkett is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, having represented Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2010...
issued the school with a 'notice of complaint' over its policy of non-compulsory lessons, a procedure which would usually have led to closure; Summerhill chose to contest the notice which went before a special educational tribunal in the Royal Courts of Justice
Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is the building in London which houses the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the High Court of Justice of England and Wales...
in London with the school being represented by a noted human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson
Geoffrey Robertson
Geoffrey Ronald Robertson QC is an Australian-born human rights lawyer, academic, author and broadcaster. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship....
QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
. The government's case soon collapsed and a settlement was offered. This offer was discussed and agreed at a formal school meeting which had been hastily convened in the courtroom from a quorum of pupils and teachers who were present in court. The settlement was much broader than could have been decided on the judge's authority alone as it made provision for Summerhill to be inspected using unique criteria in future which would take account of its special educational philosophy.
Sudbury Valley School
Sudbury Valley School
The Sudbury Valley School was founded in 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. There are now over 30 schools based on the Sudbury Model in the United States, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The model has two basic tenets: educational freedom and democratic...
, a democratic school founded in Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham, Massachusetts
Framingham is a New England town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 68,318 as of the United States 2010 Census. -History:...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1968, continues to be the model practiced by dozens of Sudbury schools around the world. Certain facets of the Sudbury model separate it from other schools that refer to themselves as "democratic schools" or "free schools." The following features apply to the Sudbury Valley School, see: de-emphasis of class
Class (education)
A class in education has a variety of related meanings.It can be the group of students which attends a specific course or lesson at a university, school or other educational institution, see Form ....
es, age mixing, autonomous democracy, order and discipline, values education, evaluation, the role of adults, diplomas, pluralism and political neutrality, the existence of rules of order, the rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
, universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
, protecting the rights of individuals
Individual rights
Group rights are rights held by a group rather than by its members separately, or rights held only by individuals within the specified group; in contrast, individual rights are rights held by individual people regardless of their group membership or lack thereof...
.
The Albany Free School
Albany Free School
The Free School Professional Memberships & Affiliations:Member School:* Northeast Association of Independent Democratic Schools * Alternative Education Resource Organization * International Democratic Education Network...
was established in Albany, NY in 1969 and still operates today. The Albany Free School's founder, Mary Leue, corresponded with Summerhill founder A.S. Neill about her plan to take his experiment of radical freedoms to a different demographic: the inner city. Leue went on to create The Free School in Albany's urban south end with the idea of making these freedoms and democratic principles accessible to children of the poor.
The SchuelerInnenschule, a democratic middle school serving children between the ages of 9 and 19, in Vienna, Austria was founded in 1979 by a small group of parents wanting something different for their children and wanting to follow in the footsteps of the Glockseeschule in Hannover, Germany. At about the same time two ground schools, the Free School of Hofmuehlgasse and the Schulkollektive in WUK, were founded also using the same basic education models. All three of these school are the oldest democratic schools still in existence in Austria.
Since 1993 there has been an International Democratic Education Conference
International Democratic Education Conference
The International Democratic Education Conference, or IDEC, is an annual academic and youth conference hosted by a variety of schools and organizations in cities around the world.- History :...
(IDEC) which is held in a different country each year. In 2008, the first EUDEC (European Democratic Education Conference
European Democratic Education Conference
The European Democratic Education Conference is a biennial conference of the European Democratic Education Community, a European network of people involved in democratic education. The first conference was held in Leipzig, Germany, from July 25 to August 3, 2008...
) was held in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
Pedagogy
Democratic schools do not have compulsory uniform curricula. Instead, these schools place emphasis on learning as a natural product of all human activity. They assume that the free market of ideas, free conversation, and the interplay of people provide sufficient exposure to any area that may prove relevant and interesting to individual students. Students of all ages learn together; older students learn from younger students as well as vice versa. Students of different ages often mentor each other in social skills.In democratic schools, students are given responsibility for their own education. There is no pressure, implicitly nor explicitly, on students by staff to learn anything in particular. Students are given the right and responsibility to choose what to do with their time and attention.
Because the curricula are different for each student, democratic schools do not compare or rank students. There are no compulsory tests aside from those that individual governments require and those that colleges require for admission.
Some schools — mostly in the United States — offer a graduation procedure for those who wish to receive a high school diploma. Students who choose to use this option often must present a thesis on how they have prepared themselves for adulthood.
A striking feature of democratic schools is the ubiquity of play
Play (activity)
Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...
. Students of all ages — but especially the younger ones — often spend most of their time either in free play, or playing game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s (electronic or otherwise). All attempts to limit, control or direct play must be democratically approved before being implemented . Play is seen as activity every bit as worthy as academic pursuits, often even more valuable. Play is considered essential for learning, particularly in fostering creativity. The pervasiveness of play has led to a recurring observation by first-time visitors to a democratic school that the students appear to be in perpetual "recess".
Governance
The primary system of governance in a democratic school is a form of direct democracyDirect democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
similar to the New England town meeting
Town meeting
A town meeting is a form of direct democratic rule, used primarily in portions of the United States since the 17th century, in which most or all the members of a community come together to legislate policy and budgets for local government....
. Often, all aspects of governing a democratic school are determined in school meetings. School meetings pass, amend, and repeal school rules, manage the school's budget, and decide on hiring and firing of staff. Each individual present — whether student or staff — has one vote and most decisions are made by simple majority.
Oftentimes, various aspects of school administration are delegated to parties selected during school meetings. These may include elected administrative clerks (who may be elected from staff or students) and committees of volunteers.
School rules are normally compiled in a law book, updated repeatedly over time, which forms the school's code of law
Code (law)
A code is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the code was enacted, by a process of codification. Though the process and motivations for codification are similar in common law and civil law...
. If a school member commits an infraction, for example by harassing or hurting another member, or by mismanaging a delegated responsibility, the problem is dealt with through the school's judicial system organized by school members. Usually, there is a set procedure to handle complaints, and most of the schools follow guidelines that respect the idea of due process
Due process
Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...
of law. There are usually rules requiring an investigation, a hearing
Hearing (law)
In law, a hearing is a proceeding before a court or other decision-making body or officer, such as a government agency.A hearing is generally distinguished from a trial in that it is usually shorter and often less formal...
, a trial
Trial (law)
In law, a trial is when parties to a dispute come together to present information in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court...
, a sentence
Sentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
, and allowing for an appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
.
Theory
There is no unified body of literature that spans multiple disciplines in academia on the subject of democratic education. However, there are a variety of spheres of theory that address various elements of democratic education. The goals of democratic education vary according to the participants, the location, and access to resources. Because of this, there is no one widely agreed upon definition.Political
As a curricular, administrative and social operation within schools, democratic education is essentially concerned with equipping people to make "real choices about fundamental aspects of their lives" and happens within and for democracyDemocracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
. It "is a process where teachers and students work collaboratively to reconstruct curriculum to include everyone." In at least one conception, democratic education teaches students "to participate in consciously reproducing their society, and conscious social reproduction." This role necessitates democratic education happening in a variety of settings and being taught by a variety of people, including "parents, teachers, public officials, and ordinary citizens." Because of this "democratic education begins not only with children who are to be taught but also with citizens who are to be their teachers." Another definition is noted for its controversy because it views democractic education as "an education that democratizes learning itself."
There are a variety of components involved in democratic education. One author identifies those elements as being a problem-solving curriculum, inclusivity and rights, equal participation in decision-making, and equal encouragement for success. The Institute for Democratic Education identifies the principles of democratic education as,
- The interaction between democratic philosophy and education,
- Pluralistic education,
- School administration by means of democratic procedures,
- Education based on respect for human rightsHuman rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, - DialogicDialogicThe English terms dialogic and dialogism often refer to the concept used by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin in his work of literary theory, The Dialogic Imagination. Bakhtin contrasts the dialogic and the "monologic" work of literature. The dialogic work carries on a continual dialogue...
evaluation, - Dialogic relationships, and
- Critical social thinkingCritical social thoughtCritical social thought is an interdisciplinary academic major offered at several liberal arts colleges.It addresses the fundamental questions about social life and embraces the contours of modern experience and the historical forces that have helped to shape that experience...
.
The "strongest, political rationale" for democratic education is that it teaches "the virtues of democratic deliberation for the sake of future citizenship." This type of education is often alluded to in the deliberative democracy literature as fulfilling the necessary and fundamental social and institutional changes necessary to develop a democracy that involves intensive participation in group decision making, negotiation, and social life of consequence.
The type of political socialization that takes place in democratic schools is strongly related to deliberative democracy
Deliberative democracy
Deliberative democracy is a form of democracy in which public deliberation is central to legitimate lawmaking. It adopts elements of both consensus decision-making and majority rule. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional democratic theory in that authentic deliberation, not mere...
theory. Claus Offe and Ulrich Preuss, two theorists of the political culture of deliberative democracies argue that in its cultural production deliberative democracy requires “an open-ended and continuous learning process in which the roles of both ‘teacher’ and ‘curriculum’ are missing. In other words, what is to be learned is a matter that we must settle in the process of learning itself."
The political culture of a deliberative democracy and its institutions, they argue, would facilitate more “dialogical forms of making one’s voice heard” which would “be achieved within a framework of liberty, within which paternalism is replaced by autonomously adopted self-paternalism, and technocratic elitism by the competent and self-conscious judgment of citizens."
Edward Portis offers a critique of what he terms ‘democratic education’ but his use of this term can be better understood as civic education. Portis contends, as many democratic education practitioners and theorists would, that a compulsory curriculum that claims to imbue in its students ‘democratic virtues’ actually does exactly the opposite. Portis argues that because politics and popular rule is rooted in the public deliberation of competing ideas and conceptions of social life, to pretend that certain values can be taught in the traditional sense—through mass compulsory education—subverts the democratic nature of the process. There is no such thing as a ‘proper’ education for democracy in this sense.
Democratic education theorists of the sort whose work underpin democratic schools, rather than those who analyze something akin to civic education (see Gutmann
Amy Gutmann
Amy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Communications, and Philosophy...
, et al.) would fundamentally agree that democratic values cannot be taught in the traditional sense. If children are to ever learn how to be citizens of a democracy, they must participate in a democracy (see Greenberg 1992). This argument conforms to the cognition-in-context research by Lave
Jean Lave
Jean Lave, PhD, is a social anthropologist and social learning theorist.She completed her doctorate in Social Anthropology at Harvard University in 1968...
below.
In addition, this argument converges with various literatures concerning student voice
Student voice
Student voice describes the distinct perspectives and actions of young people throughout schools focused on education."Student voice is giving students the ability to influence learning to include policies, programs, contexts and principles."...
, youth participation
Youth participation
Youth participation is the active engagement of young people throughout their communities. It is often used as a short-hand for youth participation in any many forms, including decision-making, sports, schools and any activity where young people are not historically engaged.-Coinage:Youth...
and other elements of youth empowerment
Youth empowerment
Youth empowerment is an attitudinal, structural, and cultural process whereby young people gain the ability, authority, and agency to make decisions and implement change in their own lives and the lives of other people, including youth and adults....
.
Cultural
One of the first theorists and practitioners of democratic education was the novelist Leo TolstoyLeo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
who founded a school for peasant children in Russia.
The most prominent theorist to voice what has become a common justification for uniform, mass-education and critiqued Tolstoy’s philosophy, was Émile Durkheim
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
in his lectures at the Sorbonne in 1902-03. Durkheim was the father of modern sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and developed the sociological/anthropological school of Functionalism
Structural functionalism
Structural functionalism is a broad perspective in sociology and anthropology which sets out to interpret society as a structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions and institutions...
. These lectures have since been published under the title Moral Education.
Durkheim argued that the transition from primitive to modern societies occurred in part as ‘elders’ made a conscious decision to transmit what were deemed the most essential elements of their culture to the following generations. In Moral Education, Durkheim makes the case for an education system that preserves social solidarity by instilling three principles of ‘secular morality’ in children: what he terms a spirit of discipline, attachment to social groups, and self-determination. In the process of arguing how to instill these principles, he makes an extended argument on how punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....
should be used in the schools. In this section, Durkheim described Tolstoy’s theory as an example of a philosophy of education that doesn’t seem to use punishment as a mechanism of cultural solidarity formation and transmission:
- According to Tolstoy, the model of ideal education is that which occurs when people go on their own initiative to discover things in museums, libraries, laboratories, meetings, public lectures, or simply talk with wise men. In all these cases, there is no constraint exercised; yet do we not learn in this way? Why can’t the child enjoy the same liberty? It is then only a matter of putting at his disposal that knowledge deemed useful to him; but we must simply offer it to him without forcing him to absorb it. If such knowledge is truly useful to him, he will feel its necessity and come to seek it himself. This is why punishment is unknown at the school of Iasnaia Poliana. Children come when they wish, learn what they wish, work as they wish.
He then argues that, in fact, punishment is found even in this type of system through subtle mechanisms of social behavior. It should not surprise any students of Durkheim to see how he argues for a social/cultural rather than an individual/rational explanation for punishment and self-regulation:
- If the child misbehaves by destroying his playthings…the misbehavior is not that he has thoughtlessly and rather stupidly denied himself a way of entertaining himself; rather, it consists in his being insensitive to the general rule that prohibits useless destruction… Only disapproval can warn him that not only was the conduct nonsensical but that it was bad conduct violating a rule that should be obeyed. The true sanction, like the true natural consequence, is blame.
Durkheim touches on a point later made by democratic education writer George Dennison
George Dennison
George Dennison was an American novelist and short-story author best known for The Lives of Children, his account of the First Street School. He also wrote fiction, plays, and critical essays, most notably his novel Luisa Domic and a collection of shorter works, Pierrot and Other Stories...
in The Lives of Children: much social regulation that exists in free society takes place in the course of maintaining our relationships with each other. Our desire to cultivate friendships, engender respect, and maintain what Dennison terms ‘natural authority’ encourages us to act in socially acceptable ways (i.e. culturally informed practices of fairness, honesty, congeniality, etc.):
- The children will feel closer to the adults, more secure, more assured of concern and individual care. Too, their self-interest will lead them into positive relations with the natural authority of adults, and this is much to be desired, for natural authority is a far cry from authority that is merely arbitrary. Its attributes are obvious: adults are larger, are experienced, possess more words, have entered into prior agreements among themselves. When all this takes on a positive instead of a merely negative character, the children see the adults as protectors and as sources of certitude, approval, novelty, skills. In the fact that adults have entered into prior agreements, children intuit a seriousness and a web of relations in the life that surrounds them. If it is a bit mysterious, it is also impressive and somewhat attractive; they see it quite correctly as the way of the world, and they are not indifferent to its benefits and demands.
Durkheim, however, uses this point in the service of an argument for social fact
Social fact
In sociology, social facts are the values, cultural norms, and social structures external to the individual and capable of exercising a constraint on that individual....
s to be communicated through the authority of teachers in traditional formal schools rather than through the ‘natural’ social relations of democratic life. In fact, he continues his argument on the role of punishment, even the history of corporeal punishment, by demonstrating that it is the product of modern mass-education systems.
Punishment has not always been utilized to ‘teach’ the right ways of being a member of society. In fact Durkheim cites a number of ethnographies of various hunter-gatherer groups in demonstrating that ‘primitive’ societies in fact effectively socialized their children without the use of punishment in formal education systems. This evidence has since been confirmed and expanded.
Durkheim’s ultimate point is that modern societies are so complex—so much more complex than primitive hunter-gatherer societies—and the roles individuals must fill in society are so varied that formal mass-education is necessary to instill social solidarity and what he terms ‘secular morality’.
- True education begins only when the moral and intellectual culture acquired by man has become complex and plays too important a part in the whole of the common life to leave its transmission from one generation to the next to the hazards of circumstance. Hence, the elders feel the need to intervene, to bring about themselves the transmission of culture by epitomizing their experiences and deliberately passing on ideas, sentiments, and knowledge from their minds to those of the young.
The dawn of civilization coincided with the dawn of a self-conscious reproduction of social values deemed necessary or essential for social solidarity:
- In a word, civilization has necessarily somewhat darkened the child’s life, rather than drawing him spontaneously to instruction as Tolstoy claimed. If, further, one reflects that at this point in history violence was common, that it did not seem to affront anyone’s conscience, and that it alone had the necessary efficacy for influencing rougher natures, then one can easily explain how the beginnings of culture were signaled by the appearance of corporeal punishment.
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
took up the issue of corporeal punishment in his famous works on ‘total institutions.’ In Discipline and Punish
Discipline and Punish
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison is a book by philosopher Michel Foucault. Originally published in 1975 in France under the title Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la Prison, it was translated into English in 1977. It is an interrogation of the social and theoretical mechanisms behind...
, focusing primarily on prisons but including modern schools, Foucault described the transformation of violence since the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
from a public spectacle to something much more subtle and insidious. Foucault argues that modern schools are used to transmit ideas to the young by claiming a privileged position to declare what is true, normal, and healthy. Rather than resorting to the violence that Durkheim detailed since the dawn of modern mass-education, Foucault argues that corporeal punishment has simply been replaced by forces much more difficult to notice than the force of blows and the whip of belts.
Democratic schools attempt to avoid any form of overt or covert enculturation outside the democratic process. Recognizing that one's 'natural authority' in the eyes of children is ultimately dependent on one's authenticity, teachers at democratic schools avoid tricks and enticements to induce any learning that isn't requested or desired. The only socialization
Socialization
Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies...
that takes place explicitly is that recognized by the process of democratic deliberation. The fact that a group of individuals—students and staff—must live, learn, and work together in the same space requires a system of governance. That system, as is the case in most countries and communities that respect principles of human equality, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, is a form of direct democracy
Direct democracy
Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...
.
Cognitive
The 'practice theory' movement came at a time when there was also a renewed interest in child development and a refining of the theories of Jean PiagetJean Piaget
Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
, the foundational child psychologist. Although it is adduced that Piaget was mistaken. The experience of Sudbury model schools showing that a great variety can be found in the minds of children, against Piaget's theory of universal steps in comprehension and general patterns in the acquisition of knowledge: "No two kids ever take the same path. Few are remotely similar. Each child is so unique, so exceptional."
Jean Lave
Jean Lave
Jean Lave, PhD, is a social anthropologist and social learning theorist.She completed her doctorate in Social Anthropology at Harvard University in 1968...
was one of the first and most prominent social anthropologists to discuss cognition within the context of cultural settings presenting a firm argument against the functionalist psychology
Functional psychology
Functional psychology or functionalism refers to a general psychological philosophy that considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment. As such, it provides the general basis for developing psychological theories not readily testable by controlled...
that many educationalists refer to implicitly.
For Lave, learning is a process ungone by an actor within a specific context. The skills or knowledge learned in one process are not generalizable nor reliably transferred to other areas of human action. Her primary focus was on mathematics in context and mathematics education.
The broader implications reached by Lave and others who specialize in Situated learning
Situated learning
Situated learning was first proposed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger as a model of learning in a Community of practice. At its simplest, situated learning is learning that takes place in the same context in which it is applied...
are that beyond the argument that certain knowledge is necessary to be a member of society (a Durkheimian argument), knowledge learned in the context of a school is not reliably transferable to other contexts of practice.
Economic
Beyond the explicitly political implications, economic implications of democratic education converge with the emerging consensus on 21st century business and management priorities including increased collaboration, decentralized organization, and radical creativity.Schools should be democratic, not education
Sudbury schools contend that valuesValue (personal and cultural)
A personal or cultural value is an absolute or relative ethical value, the assumption of which can be the basis for ethical action. A value system is a set of consistent values and measures. A principle value is a foundation upon which other values and measures of integrity are based...
, social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
and democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
included, must be learned through experience
Experiential learning
Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Simply put, Experiential Learning is learning from experience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A...
as Aristotle said: "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." They adduce that for this purpose schools must be institutions in which all persons possess, at the point of entry and from the moment they enter, all the individual rights adults have in the country and, encourage ethical behavior and personal responsibility. In order to achieve these goals schools must allow students the three great freedoms—freedom of choice, freedom of action and freedom to bear the results of action—that constitute personal responsibility.
Scholars
- Amy GutmannAmy GutmannAmy Gutmann is the eighth President of the University of Pennsylvania and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Communications, and Philosophy...
- Political scientist, democratic education scholar, President of the University of Pennsylvania - A.S. Neill - Democratic education pioneer, founder of the Summerhill School
- Claus OffeClaus OffeProfessor Claus Offe is a political sociologist of Marxist orientation. Once a student of Jürgen Habermas, the left-leaning German academic is counted among the second generation Frankfurt School...
- Political Scientist, theorist of deliberative democratic culture, Hertie School of Governance - Émile DurkheimÉmile DurkheimDavid Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
- Sociologist, functionalist education theorist - George DennisonGeorge DennisonGeorge Dennison was an American novelist and short-story author best known for The Lives of Children, his account of the First Street School. He also wrote fiction, plays, and critical essays, most notably his novel Luisa Domic and a collection of shorter works, Pierrot and Other Stories...
- American writer, author - Daniel A. Greenberg - One of the founders of the Sudbury Valley School.
- John DeweyJohn DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
- Social scientist, progressive education theorist, University of Chicago - Peter Gray - Psychologist, democratic education scholar, Boston College
- Pierre BourdieuPierre BourdieuPierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher.Starting from the role of economic capital for social positioning, Bourdieu pioneered investigative frameworks and terminologies such as cultural, social, and symbolic capital, and the concepts of habitus, field or location,...
- Anthropologist, social theorist, College de France - Michael AppleMichael AppleMichael W. Apple is a leading critical educational theorist, recognized for numerous books and scholarly interests, which center on education and power, cultural politics, curriculum theory and research, critical teaching, and the development of democratic schools.He is currently the , at the...
- Social scientist, democratic education scholar, University of Wisconsin–Madison - Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
- Post-modern philosopher, University of California, Berkeley
See also
- List of democratic schools
- List of Sudbury schools
- Constructivism (learning theory)Constructivism (learning theory)Constructivism is a theory of knowledge that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. During infancy, it was an interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns. Piaget called these systems of...
- Center for Dewey StudiesCenter for Dewey StudiesThe Center for John Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale was established as the central home for the works and study of philosopher/educator John Dewey. "By virtue of its publications and research, the Center has become the international focal point for research on Dewey's life...
- European Democratic Education CommunityEuropean Democratic Education CommunityThe European Democratic Education Community is a European organisation which aims to further democratic education in Europe. Founded in February 2008 as a project of the United Kingdom-based Phoenix Education Trust, the organisation has been an independently registered not-for-profit NGO in...
- International Democratic Education ConferenceInternational Democratic Education ConferenceThe International Democratic Education Conference, or IDEC, is an annual academic and youth conference hosted by a variety of schools and organizations in cities around the world.- History :...
- European Democratic Education ConferenceEuropean Democratic Education ConferenceThe European Democratic Education Conference is a biennial conference of the European Democratic Education Community, a European network of people involved in democratic education. The first conference was held in Leipzig, Germany, from July 25 to August 3, 2008...
- John Dewey SocietyJohn Dewey SocietyThe John Dewey Society was founded in 1935, and was the first organization focused on philosophy of education. Its goal is to "keep alive John Dewey's commitment to the use of critical and reflective intelligence in the search for solutions to crucial problems in education and culture." The Society...
- Rouge ForumRouge ForumThe Rouge Forum is an organization of educational activists, which focuses on issues of equality, democracy, and social justice.- Origins :The Rouge Forum emerged from a series of political controversies within the National Council for the Social Studies during the 1990s...
External links
- The Online Directory of Democratic Education
- Democratic Learning: The League of Professional Schools
- Peter Gray @ Psychology Today
- Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO)
- Comprehensive Global List of Democratic Schools (via AERO)
- The Sudbury Model of Education by Jeff Collins
- The Preeminent Intelligence - Social IQ by Raymond H. Hartjen
- European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC)
- Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education (A documentary about the longest running inner-city democratic school)
- Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA)
- Educazione Democratica, Italian magazine.
Further reading
- Apple, M. (1993) Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age. Routledge.
- Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. London: Routledge.
- Bourdieu, Pierre and Jean-Claude Passeron. (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Theory, Culture and Society Series. Sage.
- Carlson, D. and Apple, M.W. (1998) Power, Knowledge, Pedagogy: The Meaning of Democratic Education in Unsettling Times. Westview Press.
- Carr, W. and Hartnett, A. (1996) Education and the Struggle for Democracy: The politics of educational ideas. Open University Press.
- Dennison, George. (1999) The Lives of Children: The Story of the First Street School. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.
- Dewey, John. (1997) Experience and Education. New York: Touchstone.
- Durkheim, Émile. (2002) Moral Education. Mineola, NY: Dover.
- Foucault, Michel. (1991) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Random House.
- Gatto, John Taylor. (1992) Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education. Philadelphia, PA: New Society.
- Giroux, H. A. (1989) Schooling for Democracy: Critical pedagogy in the modern age. Routledge.
- Gutmann, A. (1999) Democratic Education. Princeton University Press.
- Habermas, Jürgen. (1997) "Popular Sovereignty as Procedure’ “Deliberative Democracy". Bohman, James and William Rehg, eds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Held, David. (2006) Models of Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Kahn, Robert L. and Daniel Katz. (1978) The Social Psychology of Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
- Kelly, A. V. (1995) Education and Democracy: Principles and practices. Paul Chapman Publishers.
- Manin, Bernard. "On Legitimacy and Political Deliberation" Elly Stein and Jane Mansbridge, trans. Political Theory. Vol. 15, No. 3, Aug. 1987: 338-368.
- Neill, A. S. (1995) Summerhill School: A New View of Childhood. Ed. Albert Lamb. New York: St. Martin's Griffin.
- Sadofsky, Mimsy and Daniel Greenberg. (1994) Kingdom of Childhood: Growing up at Sudbury Valley School. Hanna Greenberg, interviewer. Framingham, MA: Sudbury Valley School Press.
- Schutz, Aaron. (2010). Social Class, Social Action, and Education: The Failure of Progressive Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. introduction