This phenomenological research examines democracy education and the conditions contributing to young students' democratic agency. The dataset includes interview and observation data from a school and educational decision-makers. The findings from the iterative analysis highlight the contradictions between democracy education as an ideal and…

In this theoretical and explorative essay, two issues are discussed, which are based on personal experiences of teaching ethics. The first is what educational purpose does it serve to challenge students as ethical subjects while teaching a class? This issue is mainly discussed through an analysis of Gert Biesta's works. He argues that an essential…

This paper rethinks the fostering task of the teacher in a time when it, paradoxically, has tended to become marginalized and privatized despite its public urgency. Following post-holocaust thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Zygmunt Bauman, the position explored here is radical in the sense that it takes 'the crisis of traditions' and the erosion…

In addition to the longstanding threat posed by narrow economism, faith in the possibility of peace and progress through democratic politics -- central to the humanistic vision of the 1972 Faure report -- today faces additional challenges. These challenges include the ascendancy of neurocentrism in the global policyscape. Whereas the effects of…

Most liberal political theorists of education argue that it is better to teach students to tolerate diversity, than to protect the potentially illiberal commitments of some members of the political communities. In fact, neither approach is wholly satisfying, yet they remain the focus of much political theorizing about education. This article…

The American public can count on a few things during the presidential election season. First, candidates will take a moral high ground and forswear mudslinging. Before long however, they will proceed to engage in nasty accusations against their opponents. A vibrant democracy ought to welcome carefully thought-out views that, when intentionally…

Real democracy is a style of living and thinking, in which every step refers to the principle of equality among people. This guide seeks to show models that can help people, especially young people, learn to live democratically. The guide notes that young people cannot learn democracy without continually, from the earliest years, living in…

Recent efforts to improve schools through community democratic school decision making and practices conflict with ideas of some of the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution. There are several differences between the ideas of some contemporary democratic education reformers and those of Publius (the pen name of the authors of the Federalist…

This text examines some of the basic processes of American Society, particularly the way it perceives values and makes decisions concerning values. Occasionally the text relates lessons to health-care problems and situations. Lessons consist of readings, projects, and question-answer exercises. (RE)

Research examining students' moral attitudes toward Watergate is described. Three hundred and seventy-eight junior high and high school students from both metropolitan public and private schools in a mid-Southern state participated in the survey. Students judged the degree of rightness and wrongness of six motivations for the break-in. The results…

This guide presents lesson plans to accompany the student text. The lessons in this unit present 3 concepts: (1) allocation of responsibility; (2) decision-making; and (3) valuing. The concepts are illustrated in simulations, in situations related to governmental functioning in the U.S. and in health care delivery situations. Each lesson includes:…

The inherent political conflict between the professional decision-maker and citizen participation in those decisions is explored in the perceptions of city managers, planning directors, and school superintendents responding to a national mail poll. From the sample of 750 administrators, there were 406 (54 percent) returns, distributed almost…

Distinctions between political socialization as beliefs about ideals, beliefs about the realities of governmental structure, as attempts at cognitive consistency, and as affective orientations toward the system, map out most children's political orientations. The objects of these orientations are: 1) America as a nation and patriotic attachment;…

This report describes a 21-month research project, the overall goal of which was to develop behavioral objectives and guidelines for a civics curriculum for the 1970's. The project staff first set out to learn whether secondary school students were concerned with greater participation in institutional decision making, and to consider the…

The paper analyzes the multifaceted nature of current citizenship education programs and suggests a model which would reconcile the differences between conflicting program approaches. One problem of citizenship education is lack of consensus on its goals and content. Some programs emphasize socialization to established rules of social and…