B Is For Burqa,C Is For Censorship: The Miseducative Effects of Censoring Muslim Girls and Women's Sartorial Discourse

In this article, I add a discursive analysis to the discussion about Muslim girls and women's dress in non-Muslim educational contexts. I argue that a law or policy that prohibits the wearing of khimar, burqa, chador, niqab, hijab, or jilbab in the context of public schools is a form of censorship in educational contexts. This sartorial censorship is miseducative in the sense that it impedes the achievement of important educational goals, especially in public education. I consider the public nature of public education and discuss three sets of miseducative effects: First, the examination of discursive processes, including the production of social norms, is limited. Second, the critical uptake of the banned discourse by female Muslim students themselves is foreclosed, and their agency hindered. Third, a metadiscourse arises that translates individual sartorial discursive acts into generalized terms (such as “veils” and “headscarves”) without noticing what is lost in translation.     

Critical Democratic Teacher Preparation and the Practice of Council

“If democracy is to become a way of life in contemporary North American life, we certainly need to have schools with strong democratic commitments... if we are going to have democratic schools, we need teachers with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for developing sustained democratic ways of educating... if we are going to seek and sustain democratic teachers, we will also need... democratic teacher educators...” (Novak, 1994, p. ix)     

Opting Out or Opting In? Test Boycott and Parental Engagement in American Public Education

This article provides a “thick” understanding of how public school parents understand their decision to opt their children out of standardized tests. In it, Amy Shuffelton draws from qualitative research interviews with Chicago parents to explore how three mothers connected opting out of standardized testing to their broader commitments to public schools. In probing the democratic potential of their logic, Shuffelton points to avenues of hope for democratic and equitable public schooling. As scholars have argued on multiple grounds, public schools have generally preserved inequitable power relations and resource allocations rather than changed them, and this happens in part because of parental resistance to reforms they believe to be detrimental to the interests of their children. Precisely because privileged parents have and implement the power to use schooling to pass advantages to their own children, however, it is important to consider when and why some of these parents instead see reason to build a public school system that shares those advantages widely. Putting these parents' explanations for opting out of testing into conversation with ideas about the democratic public in texts by John Dewey and Bonnie Honig, Shuffelton finds potential pathways, as well as hurdles, to reviving commitment to public schooling.     

The Missing Element to Achieving a Citizenship-as-Practice: Balancing Freedom and Responsibility in Schools Today

The new Social Studies curriculum recently introduced in Alberta proposes to encourage students to affirm their place as citizens in a democratic society. Grounded in Biesta’s (2007) argument that regardless of a Program of Studies’ best stated goals and intentions, if a school is not structured democratically the chances of the program being successful are limited. In this article, I question what makes a school democratic as opposed to undemocratic by proposing that the new curriculum is grounded in a representational view of knowledge which leads to a document that is overly conceptualized and presents a view of citizenship as one that can be achieved rather than one that is practiced (Biesta & Lawy, 2006). I argue that it is the representational curriculum and the public school’s organizational structure with its emphasis on duties and responsibilities and the virtual absence of freedom and rights that make these schools fundamentally undemocratic places. In order to pursue this line of inquiry, I juxtapose schools in the public system with a private school which claims to be a participative democracy. This juxtaposition revealed that a school that gives students freedom first and trusts that they will act responsibly with it, is more likely to lead to a citizenship that is practiced rather than one that is simply achieved. While it is not the intention of this paper, to recommend that all schools adopt the model of the private school in this study, it does help us understand why Biesta (2007) is not overly optimistic regarding schools being able to achieve a citizenship that is practiced as opposed to one that is achieved.     

Refracting schoolgirls: pedagogical intra-actions producing shame

This article contributes to the discussion of gender inequality in schools with the central theme tracing ways that pedagogical affect im/mobilises agency. I argue that what I call ‘the schoolgirl affect’, as distinctly gendered pedagogical practices in schools, constitute a schoolgirl body that refracts capacity for action in particular ways. Karen Barad's theorising of performativity allows me to move away from a definition of what schoolgirl success is and rather discuss ways successful schoolgirls are co-constructed. Using filmed testimonial accounts of former Australian schoolgirls, I attempt to understand how practices of shaming inhibit interest and in fact stultify these students in a myriad of ways. I consider if shame when recognised as materially discursive results in a complex affirmative repositioning that is productive of agency. I interrogate ways that the shame/interest pendulum may affectively constitute schoolgirls, influence ethical educational practices and impact the life trajectories of these particular schoolgirls.     

Democratic Communities and Business/Education “Partnerships” in Secondary Education

Democratic ideals of equality, freedom, and common problem-solving help ensure that schools are governed as communities, in Dewey's sense of the term, wherein all members share in defining the purposes and processes of the group. In this paper, qualitative case study data of a business–public school partnership is examined in order to describe, analyze, and evaluate this partnership based upon democratic criteria established by Deweyan pragmatism. The analysis of the business/education partnership enables educators to better understand the potential for, and inhibitors of, the kind of genuine social growth among school and corporate partners that can serve public agendas rather than private profits.     

POWER AND TRUST IN THE PUBLIC REALM: JOHN DEWEY,SAUL ALINSKY,AND THE LIMITS OF PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION

Throughout the twentieth century, middle‐class progressives embraced visions of democracy rooted in their relatively privileged life experiences. Progressive educators developed pedagogies designed to nurture the individual voice within egalitarian classrooms, assuming that collective action in the public realm could be modeled on the relatively safe small‐group interactions they were familiar with in their families, schools, and associations. Partly as a result, they remained blind to (and often denigrated) the democratic aspects of working‐class organizations, such as unions and community action groups, which found strength in solidarity. In this article Aaron Schutz argues that progressives must integrate into their models the often brutal lessons about power learned by those with less privilege. Until they do so, their approaches to democratic education will continue to have limited capacity to support social transformation and empowerment in the world as it is.     

The processual life of neoliberalisation: permutations of value systems and normative commitments in a co-operative trust setting

ABSTRACT

Since 2010 the government in England has committed to accelerating the expansion of academies (‘state-funded independent schools’) through displacing the role of local government as principal manager and overseer of schools. In response increasing numbers of schools are embracing the co-operative trust model to improve economies of scale, facilitate stakeholding and community resilience and resist capture from the monopolising tendencies of some large multi-academy trusts seeking wholesale takeover of certain underperforming schools. Yet there are concerns that co-operative schools do not represent a radical departure from routines of neoliberalism – defined by managerial deference, technocratic efficiency, upward accountability and performativity – despite clear signs that co-operative schools promote themselves as jointly-owned, democratically-controlled enterprises. In this paper, I adopt a ‘processual view of neoliberalisation’ [Peck, J., and A. Tickell. 2002. “Neoliberalizing Space.” Antipode 34 (3): 380–404] to complicate the idea that co-operative schools can be judged in binary terms of ‘either/or’ – neoliberal or democratic, exclusionary or participatory – and instead point to the variegated organisational life of co-operative schools and their messy actualities as they straddle competing and sometimes conflicting sets of interests, motives and demands in their practice of school governance.     

Developing Democratic Dispositions and Enabling Crap Detection: Claims for classroom philosophy with special reference to Western Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

The prominence given in national or state-wide curriculum policy to thinking, the development of democratic dispositions and preparation for the ‘good life’, usually articulated in terms of lifelong learning and fulfilment of personal life goals, gives rise to the current spate of interest in the role that could be played by philosophy in schools. Theorists and practitioners working in the area of philosophy for schools advocate the inclusion of philosophy in school curricula to meet these policy objectives. This article tests claims that philosophy can aid in the acquisition of democratic dispositions and develop critical thinking and considers to the extent to which these aims are compatible with each other. These considerations are located in the context of certain policy statements relating to the curricula of Western Australia and New Zealand.     

Beneath the Surface: Teacher Subjectivities and the Appropriation of Critical Pedagogies

Little has been written about the complexity of educators' appropriation of critical pedagogies in the context of everyday life in schools. In this article, based on analyses of two teachers' practice drawn from a larger ethnographic study of an urban public middle school, I explore the emergence of classroom practice that on the surface seemed to reflect critical educational theory. Two social justice projects are introduced, and teacher networks are explored as discursive resources for these projects. In this discussion I focus on how the teachers' subjectivities provided important contexts for the appropriation of critical educational discourses. Following Gore (1998) Gore, J. M. 1998. “On the limits to empowerment through critical and feminist pedagogies.”. In Power/ knowledge/ pedagogy: The meaning of democratic education in unsettling times, Edited by: Carlson, D. and Apple, M. W. pp. 271–288. Boulder, CO: Westview.  [Google Scholar], I argue that although classroom practice may resemble critical pedagogy, the extent to which it is accompanied by practitioners' social critique is another empirical question altogether.     

The ‘Civic-minded’ Professional? An exploration through Hannah Arendt’s ‘vita activa’

Recent reform initiatives calling for ‘civic’ (‘public-good’ or ‘democratic’) professionalism can be seen as a response to the widely reported decline in public trust in the professions and an attempt to partially remedy this problem through a more publically engaged professionalism. The author draws on the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt, identifying the strong, albeit in the professionalism literature rarely acknowledged, affinities between civic professionalism and her concept of action as (collective) freedom through public deliberation. Using the three modalities of the active life that Arendt discusses in The Human Condition (labour, work and action) as analytical tools, the author suggests that changing conditions in the public sector have led to professional life increasingly taking on the forms of labour and work, at the expense of action. The implications of these developments are highlighted before the author proceeds to show that a professional life oriented strongly towards action is consistent with ‘civic’ professionalism based on community engagement. Some of the main approaches traditionally taken to promote a civic orientation among university students are noted; the article concludes with a discussion of how the specific concepts underlying Arendtian action can be put to work in university pedagogies to intentionally promote the public ‘civic-minded professional’.     

Privatization and Commercialization of Public Education: Consequences for Citizenship and Citizenship Education

My purpose is to examine and evaluate the implementation of market ideology and practices in education through the prism of both modern democratic theory and the discourse of rights. I examine the essence and defining characteristics of public schooling in modern democratic theory, explore the democratic purposes of education, and the unique mission of public schools. I also analyze the vision of public schooling that surfaces from the discourse of human rights and children’s rights, examining relevant UN declarations and conventions. I then proceed to discuss some major manifestations of markets in education, question their congruence with the democratic vision of public schooling, and examine their consequences for both citizenship and citizenship education. My conclusion is that markets in education, and the formulation of education policies and practices through decision-making processes dominated by business and parents, are not necessarily fashioned in the best interest of a democratic society.     

Democratic Education versus Smithian Efficiency: Prospects for a Deweyan Ideal in the “Neoliberal Age”

In this essay, David Meens examines the viability of John Dewey's democratic educational project, as presented in Democracy and Education, under present economic and political conditions. He begins by considering Democracy and Education's central themes in historical context, arguing that Dewey's proposal for democratic education grew out of his recognition of a conflict between how political institutions had traditionally been understood and organized on the one hand, and, on the other, emerging requirements for personal and social development in the increasingly interconnected world of the early twentieth century. Meens next considers Dewey's ideas in our contemporary context, which is dominated by a neoliberal ideology that extends the economic logic of Smithian efficiency to all domains of modern social and political life. He argues that the prevalence of neoliberalism poses two challenges to Deweyan democratic education: first, Dewey's emphasis on general education and a resistance to specialization is economically inefficient; and second, Dewey's strong, democratic conception of the “the public” is anathema to the neoliberal vision of the public as a conglomeration of individual agents. These challenges, he concludes, significantly stack the deck against Deweyan education by ensuring that the latter will be neither economically practicable nor widely understood.     

Plural public schooling: religion,worldviews and moral education

Educators seek to nurture in the hearts and minds of students a sense of moral thinking, action and behaviour. What these constitute is dependent on one’s perspective, or worldview. Moral thinking and action emerge from worldviews or visions of life—religious or secular. In the history of common or public schools educators have linked moral education to traditional religion, severed those ties in favour of secular perspectives, and of late have shifted focus to educating for citizenship. In each case concern regarding whose values, morals and perspectives dominate surfaces. In a society with plural perspectives, no one worldview should dominate public schools that should be ‘open to all’. A plural public school grounds moral decision‐making in worldviews, and encourages students to increase their understanding of worldviews in general, while deepening their own in particular. Hence, perspectives that ground moral convictions come to attain particular importance and significance, and it behooves us to explore rather than ignore them.     

Moving beyond Mozert: Toward a democratic theory of education

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 suggests that this misguided focus is, in part, a consequence of a focus, by liberal political theorists of education, upon the 1987 Mozert v. Hawkins court case. Mozert raised serious questions about the nature of toleration in liberal society, but from an educational standpoint, the Mozert case led political theorists to consider what curricular content is appropriate for liberal political education, rather than on the practices that democratic citizens must cultivate. I turn to Hannah Arendt to offer a critical account of the liberal responses to Mozert and then call for a theory of democratic education that fosters practices of democratic decision-making and has, as its aim, not merely to foster respect for diversity, but to allow future citizens to practice critical engagement with diversity.     

“Spitting in the wind?”: the demise of a school–business partnership

This paper begins from the premise that school–business partnerships are part of marketization and privatization trends within education and the broader public sphere in several western industrialized countries. In contrast to a dominant construction of partnerships as necessary, benevolent, and unproblematic, I consider the idea that they represent a potential threat to democratic participation. I do this through a case analysis of a partnership between a high school and corporation in Alberta, Canada that was dissolved in 1996. Through interviews, I reconstruct some of the events leading to the dissolution and provide insights into the social processes that are revealed in the case. I conclude by arguing that while the case highlights the problematic aspects of this particular partnership, it also raises more general questions about the goal congruence of private and public institutions and about the implications of such generally lop-sided relationships for schools as public institutions.     

Religious Tolerance and Understanding in the French Education System

This research is based on an interview and survey-based case study of an Islamic lycée, a Catholic lycée, and two public lycées in the Ile-de-France region of France. The study investigated whether students in private schools receiving some form of education about religion tend to be more tolerant and demonstrate more religious understanding than students in public schools receiving little to none. The results showed that tolerance and understanding were not necessarily codependent and that a number of other factors seem to have a similarly significant impact on student religious tolerance and understanding as receiving education about religion.     

“To veil the threat of terror”: Afghan women and the ⟨clash of civilizations⟩ in the imagery of the U.S. war on terrorism

This article explores the role of widely circulated images of Afghan people in building public support for the 2001–2002 U.S. war with Afghanistan. Emphasizing images of women, I argue that these representations participate in the more general category of “the clash of civilizations,” which constitutes a verbal and a visual ideograph linked to the idea of the “white man's burden.” Through the construction of binary oppositions of self and Other, the evocation of a paternalistic stance toward the women of Afghanistan, and the figuration of modernity as liberation, these images participate in a set of justifications for war that contradicts the actual motives for the war. These contradictions have a number of implications for democratic deliberation and public life during wartime.     

People’s high schools in Scandinavia: a contribution to democracy?

In times of global influence, compulsory education in the Nordic countries has promoted democracy as choice since the 1990s, as enhancing an individual good. Supporting education for democracy is a matter that concerns the world and society on the topic of ‘what shall he do? Shall he act for this or that end?’. This indicates that democratic education is not only a matter of individual good, but a public, regarding who I want to be, how I would like to respond towards both the world and society. As for public good, who I want to be involves having the freedom to act in the world that lies between us. The article explores Nordic tradition of people’s high school, which is known to enhance the enlightenment of the people and to support democracy as a public good. Focus group interviews with folk high school students in Norway were carried out. To theoretically interpret the findings, theories on freedom and action were used. Arendt’s theories contribute to the results by offering ways to theoretically comprehend students’ experiences of being seen and heard during their school years. The study asks to what extent, if any, people’s high schools in Norway contribute to and/or challenge education and democracy in today’s society.     

DEWEY'S THEORY OF THE DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC AND THE PUBLIC CHARACTER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS

In this essay, Leonard Waks reconsiders the issue of the public character of charter schools, that is, schools funded through public taxation but operated by non‐state organizations such as nonprofit and for‐profit educational corporations and nongovernmental public interest organizations. Using John Dewey's conception of a democratic public as a framework, Waks examines the following questions: (1) Are schools chartered and funded by government, but operated by nonprofit nongovernmental organizations, ever appropriate instruments of a democratic public? (2) If so, what criteria might distinguish those that are appropriate from those that are not? (3) How might public education be re‐institutionalized so as to include the charter schools that are appropriate? Waks concludes that Dewey's theory of democratic publics can play a useful role in thinking about how to balance the democratic benefits of charter schools for the various subcommunities of our society with the democratic requirement of broad public discourse and intergroup education.