Widespread global interest and adoption of deliberative democracy approaches to reinvigorate citizenship and policymaking in an era of democratic crisis/decline has been mirrored by increasing interest in deliberation in schools, both as an approach to pedagogy and student empowerment and as a training ground for deliberative citizenship. In…

In this paper, we draw on policy sociology and democratic theory to illustrate how evidence-based practice not only limits teachers' capacities to exercise professional discretion and authority, but also jeopardises the democratic project of schooling more broadly. Using theoretical concepts from Foucault's discipline with Connolly's…

This paper is one of two that bring together a range of education scholars to consider how education might be for democracy in a time of complex challenges facing twenty-first century societies. In this paper, scholars from Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom consider how sites of formal and informal education can respond to multiple unfolding…

A recent report from the Democracy Project found that "confidence in our governing institutions has been weakening over many years, and key pillars of our democracy, including the rule of law and freedom of the press, are under strain." In the recently published book "The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to…

In the following interview, Meira Levinson (Harvard Graduate School) discusses the field of educational ethics and how it can enhance justifiable youth activism to enact citizenship education and recover democracy. She introduces readers to her philosophical approach for developing normative case studies that aim to be inclusive of divergent views…

Educating for active and informed citizenship represents a core goal of Australian education and schooling. Owing to a range of factors -- including the contested conceptual nature of citizenship and democracy -- there is reason to question the extent to which this goal is being translated into practice. Similarly, while the Australian Curriculum…

Background/Context: In this article, we draw on Villegas's explanations of beliefs as precursors to social justice dispositions and Mills et al.'s Australian research about social justice dispositions as either affirmative or transformative. These conceptual positions assist us in understanding the beliefs that are derived from applicants'…

Cultural hegemony permeates society and is spread through social institutions. These institutions socialize people into the norms, values and beliefs of the dominant social groups. Moreover, cultural hegemony is spread and perpetuated through education in the form of compulsory education, a national curriculum, national assessments, as well as the…

This paper analyses pre-service education student perceptions and perspectives related to education for democracy in Australia. Using a critical pedagogical framework datum from an online survey, it presents both quantitative and qualitative responses of contrasting understandings of democracy. It begins by outlining the concepts of thick and thin…

In this reflective piece, I consider how the pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of Australian universities. I argue that government and university management have been careless of international students and academics and their health and wellbeing, with significant equity and long-term effects as to the role of the university in a democracy.

This paper compares and contrasts pre-service teachers' (PSTs) beliefs about democracy in Argentina and Australia. While there are many important studies of how school students understand democracy and democratic participation, few have studied what teachers, and especially pre-service teachers, think about democracy. This paper uses a mixed…

One of the most significant obstacles to inquiry and deliberation is citizenship education. There are few mechanisms for the development of citizens' democratic character within most societies, and greater opportunities need to be made to ensure our democracies are epistemically justifiable. The character and quality of citizens' interactions are…

While current debates on education for children from migrant background often focus on the prevailing problems of self-segregation and racialisation in Australian education, I take my point of departure from such perspectives to ask how the evolution of a burgeoning mobile teacher, who operates on a global scale, can matter to the distribution of…

In the entrepreneurial university, epistemic governance is exerted through external pressures of market competition, funding, university rankings and research assessment and internal processes of organisational restructuring and mechanisms of corporate governance to re/produce epistemic injustices. Data from a study of three Australian…

In education systems around the globe influenced by neoliberalism, teachers commonly experience reforms which emphasise local responsibility and accountability. Teachers additionally work within what has been described as an era of social acceleration and associated "fast policy", with a perceived increase in the pace of reform. In this…