Education is commonly considered to be a transformational practice that contributes both to forging the personality of individuals and to promoting social entanglements. For this reason, education always has a normative character that rests on a particular concept of what humanity and society should be. However, educational policies and practices…

Dissent is vital to the intellectual life of a classroom, just as it is to the health of a school, a school system, or a democracy, explains high school teacher Mike Miller. Rather than being silenced, healthy dissidence should be taught. Miller draws from his classroom experience to illustrate how educators can cultivate a climate that welcomes…

This paper reflects on a recent participatory installation by the artists' collective @.ac, entitled Messy Democracy, as a case study to raise questions concerning the 'distribution of the sensible' within the neoliberal art school. The project set up a quasi-autonomous artists' space within Hanover Project gallery 9 April-3 May, 2018 at…

There was a lot of talk about both the fate of American democracy and American higher education in 2021, but not much consideration about how the two were deeply intertwined. The 1947 report "Higher Education for American Democracy" showed awareness of how race, sex, class, and religious discrimination thwarted the talents and ambitions…

Political dissent has played an important role in giving U.S. citizens a voice and promoting justice for all. But too often, Sarah Stitzlein argues, dissent is underappreciated, especially in schools. Stitzlein discusses the obstacles to teaching dissent, particularly political movements seeking to suppress curricula and ideas that are considered…

Teaching democratic citizenship has never been more vital, particularly given the dismissive attitude and direct attempts to undermine democratic institutions exemplified by the Trump administration. In addition, traditional approaches to teaching citizenship foreground the underlying values of self-governance, knowledge of the different branches…

The global Occupy! actions gave some pause for thought. At first, some thought that this was a global movement that could change the way politics was conducted and maybe see the end of capitalism as we knew it. The hopes for Occupy! were high, but the highest hopes for the movement were short lived. This paper examines Occupy!'s legacy; what…

This paper reviews the work of four early radical educators: the cultural nationalist Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Asia's first Nobel Laureate; Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Cambridge mathematician and philosopher; the Irish educationalist and insurgent Patrick Pearse (1879-1916) and Leonard Elmhirst (1893-1975), co-founder of Dartington Hall…

In this essay, Sarah Stitzlein and Amy Rector-Aranda, drawing on John Dewey's theoretical suggestions regarding how to best form publics capable of bringing about change through deliberation and action, offer teachers guidance on how to form and navigate spaces of political protest and become more effective advocates for school reform. Using Aaron…

The nascent democracy in Nigeria is plagued with myriad of intrigues, discordant opinions of the political class. The reason is not farfetched. Every political party sees its manifesto and plans of action as the best for the citizenry. They elbow each other in the process of garnering political recognition and vibrancy. Their unhealthy rivalry…

This issue of the "Bank Street Occasional Paper Series" seeks to grapple with the complexity of patriotism, particularly in relation to its workings in the lives of teachers and students in schools. Like it or not, schools teach (about) patriotism implicitly if not explicitly. Therefore, much consideration needs to go into what schools…

This response to Peterson's (2014) "Nonviolent Action as a Necessary Component in Educating for Democracy" enlarges the discussion of the role of the teacher/educator in deciding whether or when it is responsible to facilitate the engagement of students in acts of nonviolent dissent. Ultimately it would seem that the most important of…

There are perennial debates in civic education regarding the definition, rights and responsibilities of citizenship while failing to address the issue of civic dispositions. Underpinning the discourse is a consensus that a democracy can only function when citizens are knowledgeable of and adept at exercising their rights (Weissberg, 2001). Yet the…

Educating for democracy, seen within a liberal democratic framework, requires that students develop the requisite knowledge and skills to recognize injustice and work effectively to oppose it. Stitzlein's notion of dissent is examined in conjunction with Kahne and Westheimer's argument for teaching democratic capacities by actively…

We are still coming to terms with the legacy of Randolph Bourne. Although he died at the age of 32 just as the United States was cheerfully entering the First World War under the banner of "democracy," the words he penned in an unfinished essay still resonate in the American social conscience: "War is the Health of the State." This maxim, once…