Engaging in the Struggle of Educating for a Democracy

This article, based on an interpretive study, examines what happens when a team of teaching fellows and their supervisor attempt to address what they have identified as a “pedagogical crisis” in a social foundations of education course. Student proclivities had resulted in extreme polarization regarding contested social issues. By using a pedagogical trope and electronic discussion boards to invite students to imagine what educating for a democracy might look like in the academy, encouraging yet disturbing engagements among students and teachers ensued. A repertoire of various texts were collected systematically during the semester, which allowed the authors to create a portrayal of the experience of reconceptualizing their pedagogy to reflect principles of deliberative and cultural democracy.