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This action research uses grounded theory and constant comparative analysis of electronic portfolios to explore how prospective secondary social studies teachers connect theories and practices of democratic education to give meaning to the complexity of learning how to teach in more democratic ways. I use contrasting case studies to focus on the relative value of theoretical/experiential ways of knowing. I conclude that students need to move more fluidly between theoretical and experiential or narrative thinking to galvanize their wills to teach more democratically. Because teaching democratically implies that teachers have a democratic world view, documenting how one learns to become a teacher cannot be adequately accomplished with only lesson plans, unit plans, or K-12 student work. Instead, those who wish to construct identities as democratic educators need to articulate their struggles through theoretically positioned stories about day-to-day classroom interactions in which they acknowledge the central role of beliefs, values, and epistemic orientations.

There is a dearth of literature dealing with Islamic education that embeds the notion of democratic citizenship education for at least two reasons: firstly, democratic citizenship education is not always considered as commensurable with Islamic education and secondly, Islamic education is aimed at producing just persons, whereas democratic citizenship education aims to engender responsible citizens.

My approach is philosophical/analytical and argumentative.

I argue that the two concepts do not have to be considered as mutually exclusive and that cultivating just persons invariably involves producing responsible persons. Hence, as my first argument I show that through the practices of Islamic education, which is just action (ijtihād), deliberative engagement (shūrā) and recognition of the other (ta`āruf), democratic citizenship education has the potential to enhance the pursuit of a doctorate on the basis that the latter connects with multiple forms of enactment. My second argument relates to offering some sceptical encounters with a doctoral candidate, in particular showing how just action (ijtihād), deliberative engagement (shūrā) and recognition of the other (ta`āruf) were manifested in our encounters. Drawing on the seminal thoughts of Stanley Cavell (1997), particularly his ideas on ‘living with scepticism’, I argue that doctoral supervision in the knowledge fields of democratic citizenship education and Islamic education ought to be an encounter framed by scepticism.

Although I combine philosophical and narrative inquiry, I do not consistently accentuate various dimensions of the latter – that is, narrative inquiry, as well as drawing on other cases of my supervision.

I envisage that the commensurability argued for between democratic citizenship education and Islamic education can impact the supervision of doctoral candidates.

I point out that supervising students sceptically might engender moments of acknowledging humanity within the Other (autonomous action or ijtihād), experiencing attachment to the Other’s points of view with a readiness for departure (deliberative engagement or shūrā) and showing responsibility to the Other (recognition of the other or ta`āruf). In turn, I show how sceptical encounters along the lines of autonomous action, deliberative engagement and responsibility towards the other connect, firstly, with liberal education and secondly, the possibilities of such encounters for Muslims involved in advocating for just and/or responsible action.

This chapter reports on a qualitative study that investigated the functioning of school governing bodies as a tool for promoting democracy in two schools. Data was gathered through interviews, observations and document reviews. Findings revealed that democracy was in existence and practiced at both schools and that it was characterized by shared decision-making and acknowledged rights of individuals, representation, participation and equality. Two structures for promoting democracy were found to be in existence in both schools, and these are school governing bodies and representative councils for learners. Such structures were found to be functioning effectively and contributing to the democracy in schools. However, although the learner voice was represented at both schools, learner participation in crucial issues in both the schools was limited. The study recommends that all teachers, learners and parent representatives on the SGBs be trained in skills such as deliberation, debate, dialogue and managing differences. Furthermore, training or capacity building related to advocacy skills and leadership development should be provided for all members of the SGB including teachers. The more learners, parents and staff are involved in school policy and decision-making, the more there is a genuine community involvement in schools, and the more effective a school becomes. Also, schools need to move towards learner-initiated decision-making where learners initiate the process and invite adults to join them in decision-making. Also, there is need for teachers to be trained in democratic ways of operating in the school and classroom, which will possibly help them learn ways of working democratically in both the whole school and the classroom.

The book has generated a passionate dialogue-disagreement (mostly but not entirely) with the book. Dialogue-disagreement is based on challenges, disagreements and rebuttals between opponents, often belonging to different, even irreconcilable, paradigms. The goal of dialogue-disagreement is not so much to convince the opponent to change their mind but rather to critically examine and problematize the two involved paradigms: the authors’ and the reviewer’s. By taking the generated challenges and disagreements seriously, both irreconcilable paradigms can grow through their replies. Dialogue-disagreement gives the participants–opponents the gift of revealing their own paradigmatic blind spots, which are often invisible from within their paradigms. Dialogue-disagreement is exploratory and based on an agnostic relationship between frenemies, i.e. “friendly enemies.”

This is a critical book review essay of Self Managed Learning and the New Educational Paradigm (Cunningham, 2021).

The reviewer views Ian Cunningham’s Self Managed Learning educational paradigm as a hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education, while the reviewer sees his/her Self-Education paradigm as entirely Democratic (and Dialogic). Elsewhere, the reviewer discussed and critically analyzed the Progressive Education paradigm, which generally involves channeling the student’s learning activism and subjectivity toward learning outcomes desired by an educator. It uses the educator’s manipulation of the student’s subjectivity to make them study what the educator wants them to study. In contrast, the paradigm of Democratic Education assumes that the educatee is the final authority of their own education. The educatee decides whether to study, when to study, what to study, how to study, with whom to study, where to study, for what purpose to study and so on. The educatee makes these decisions by themselves or with the help of other people at the educatee’s discretion and conditions. The reviewer charges that Ian’s Self Managed Learning paradigm is a hybrid of both paradigms, with the Progressive Education paradigm taking the lead and exploiting the Democratic Education paradigm.

The book presented a unique, innovative practice worth a critical analysis. The reviewer’s dialogue-disagreement with the book reveals a particular hybrid of Progressive and Democratic Education which is common to some innovative self-directed learning.

Botswana enjoys the celebratory status of a shining example of a successful democracy in Africa. As such, one expects democracy to underpin policy formulation and the running of the education system. This chapter problematizes the relationship between democracy and education in Botswana. It focuses on the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2010 Examinations. The conduct of the examinations marked a crisis which resulted in a deadlock between the Botswana’s Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD), Botswana Examination’s Council (BEC) on the one hand and teachers’ unions-Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) and Botswana Teacher’s Union (BTU) on the other hand. Teachers’ unions complained about poor conditions of service and remunerations associated with the administration of national examinations. This action triggered a national strike in the public service in general and consequently revealed Botswana Government’s undemocratic response to what was a sensitive issue of national interest. When the examinations results were released, it became evident that students performed horribly BEC was persecuted for the poor performance. This chapter therefore registers that the 2010 Examinations crisis in Botswana is a classic indication that democracy and education are two worlds apart in Botswana’s education system.

This qualitative inquiry reports the ways in which three graduate-level preservice elementary teachers conceived of the relationship between diversity and democracy, and explores how their understandings of this relationship informed their planning for democratic citizenship education with young learners. Findings indicate while the participants exhibited a certain measure of variance in their thinking about diversity and democracy, all of them planned their lessons at a lower level of multicultural support than their views suggested they would. This primarily highlights the ongoing lack of understanding regarding what it might mean to teach democratic citizenship through its practice as well as its study.

The study seeks to understand the experiences and perceptions of the university youth regarding the democratic atmosphere of a public university located in Turkey. To this end, the objective of this research is twofold: (1) to investigate university students’ level of civic engagement regarding student activism, exercising rights, and interest in politics; and (2) to explore students’ perception of their university environment regarding the promotion of tolerance, respect for ideas, and participation in decision-making. This study was carried out at a public university located in the middle of Turkey. A mixed-method approach was employed, including both qualitative and quantitative data. A total of 332 undergraduate students participated in the quantitative part while 14 undergraduate students were interviewed in the qualitative part of the study. In quantitative data collection, two self-developed scales were used: Civic Engagement Scale and Perceptions of Democratic University Environment Scale. The results of the data analysis indicated that students’ overall civic engagement level was below the average level. In particular, the level of students’ activism was significantly lower than that of students’ interest in politics and exercising rights, respectively. In addition, the level of students’ interest in politics was significantly lower than that of students’ exercising rights. With respect to the students’ perception of democratic university environment, the data revealed that students’ overall perception of the university environment was slightly above average level. Specifically, the students’ perception of university environment regarding respect for ideas was significantly higher than that of university environment regarding participation in decision-making.

This chapter focuses on a conceptual understanding of democracy and values education in teacher education, taking the perspective that education, of necessity, must encompass broader purposes of qualification, socialization and subjectification and that the relationship between them is characterized by interdependence. This chapter analyzes two aspects of teacher quality: first, the importance of values and the understanding of and approaches to values and democracy; second, variations in conceptual understandings within a particular educational field (teacher education). The study maps what teacher educators and institutional leaders for teacher education programs have to say about democracy and values education in relation to teacher preparation given the context of democratic education reforms in the postwar period. This chapter addresses issues such as the readiness among teachers to teach democracy and values as an overarching and qualitative aspect of the teaching profession. This study finds that, on the one hand, there is strong curricular support for democracy and related values education in schools and, on the other hand, a mixed landscape in teacher education. The situation within teacher education suggests an embracement of these issues but with a high degree of conceptual ambiguity and vagueness.

The chapter presents a novel account of a key concept in John Dewey’s reconstructionist theory specifically related to the nucleus underlying his idea of democracy: intersubjective communication, what Dewey called the ‘democratic criterion’. Many theorists relate democracy to a form of rule. Consequently, discussions of democracy tend to be limited to functionalist theories. Dewey’s idea of democracy establishes an important distinction from conventional theories by developing its radical, critical, evolutionary, and intersubjective potential. I argue that Dewey anticipated Jürgen Habermas’s Paradigm of Communication in his reconstructionist social theory with potential to de-reify institutions and to empower human beings democratically.

The many discourses surrounding 9/11 place existing civic education in a tenuous space within the current political climate. The challenges of producing a universally acceptable interpretation and approach to democratic education have been compounded in the aftermath of 9/11. Due to a heightened sense of fear and an increased level of blind nationalism, many of the basic concepts in the Constitution, like equality, justice, and reciprocity have been temporarily de-emphasized for a more compartmentalized way of “American” living, based on concepts such as patriotism, loyalty, and safety. Given the current political climate, the time to revisit the goals of civic education as a conduit of a globalized deliberative democracy is now. The author argues that civic education programming would be better served if more emphasis were placed on the philosophical foundations of the subject.