Education-related responses to our current democratic crisis have largely been focused on schooling children and youth. This narrow focus has foreclosed or diverted our attention from other possibilities for democratic education, especially as it relates to adult citizens and the ways in which such education can -- and must -- extend beyond…

The American democracy is experiencing strain from the erosion of democratic norms and its political, judicial, social, and economic institutions. In short, the American democracy shows signs of democratic deconsolidation. Community colleges are higher education institutions that help consolidate the U.S. democracy by representing democratic…

The process of education is an important phenomenon that affects both individuals and the society as a whole. As a result, there is a dialectic of unity and interdependence between individuals and the society. Thus, individuals with high social qualities are part of a developed democratic society. In this sense, strengthening the educational…

The paradigm for formulating educational policy adopted by Bischoff and Shores, which appears to be the prevailing one, appears to offer no role to the citizen, rendering the paradigm suspect. The authors' honest admission of the limitations of social science knowledge undercuts the argument for the usefulness of research in this area.

Patricia White ("Stud Philos Educ" 18:43-52, 1999) argues that the virtue gratitude is essential to a flourishing democracy because it helps foster universal and reciprocal amity between citizens. Citizens who participate in this reciprocal relationship ought to be encouraged to recognize that "much that people do does in fact help to make…

Educational standards, assessments, and accountability systems are of immense political moment around the world. But there is no developed theory exploring the role that these systems should play within a democratic polity in particular. On the one hand, well-designed standards are public goods, supported by assessment and accountability…

The U. S. was founded on the principle that ordinary citizens would rule, but most students are not taught to be rulers. Colonists in New England worked together on issues for the common good, and children learned the skills of associating from their parents. Today, however, many citizens feel they cannot make a difference, and civic participation…

The similarities between the conditions that brought on the American Revolution and our present social conditions need to be stressed in textbooks and classrooms.

The historic events of 1989 changed the political map of the world. Students and workers in China rose up to demand democracy. Democracy bloomed in Chile, Brazil, and other Latin American countries where freely elected governments replaced repressive rulers. Communist dictatorships in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Rumania were…

The author argues that decision making is a critical skill for citizens in a democracy and considers strategies, particularly values clarification and cognitive moral development, which may be used to incorporate decision making into the citizenship curriculum. (SJL)

This paper is a chronologically-organized narrative history of law-related education (LRE) in the United States. The paper begins by delineating the differences between LRE and citizenship education and describing the motivations for the creation of LRE programs in the early 1960s. Turning to the analysis of LRE, the paper argues that there have…

The Foxfire approach may be an example of how elementary and secondary students can be prepared by their education to live in a democracy. Core practices of the Foxfire approach include: work initiated by student interest and desire; active involvement in planning, implementing, and evaluating all learning activities; peer teaching and…

This paper, the fourth in a series of five on the current state of citizen education, examines citizen participation in contemporary democracy. The content is presented in four parts. The first covers the areas of citizen participation and levels of analysis and includes the domains of citizenship, citizenship as behavior, and micro and macro…

Current deep dissatisfaction with the American business system provides the opportunity for reform in the direction of employee control of businesses.