One of the key challenges for educators is how to ensure inclusion of all learners in diverse classrooms. One effective way of providing an inclusive environment is by using Cooperative learning. When teachers use Cooperative learning a democracy stance (Vinterek 2010) emerges (Ferguson-Patrick 2014). Such classrooms use inclusive pedagogies that…

This article investigates the work of Henry Morris (1889-1961), in particular his ideas on the Cambridgeshire village colleges. It is now 90 years since the first of these was founded in Sawston in 1930, and the article aims to address the issue of whether Morris's views on education and democracy encapsulated in the village colleges still have…

From the first co-operative trust school at Reddish Vale in Manchester in 2006, the following decade would witness a remarkable growth of 'co-operative schools' in England, which at one point numbered over 850. This paper outlines the key development of democratic education by the co-operative schools network. It explains the approach to democracy…

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…

This article examines documentation from a previously unpublished architectural survey of English comprehensive secondary school music classrooms, conducted between 1976 and 1978 by a team of Department of Education and Science architects led by David and Mary Medd on behalf of a Schools Council music curriculum research project directed by John…

Politicians and policy-makers in education routinely proclaim the centrality of schools and teachers in sustaining and consolidating democracy and democratic society. This article offers an account of teachers engaged in research in their schools and classrooms, with peers and students, so as to highlight the democratic potential of this…

"Education for Democracy in England in World War II" examines the educational discourse and involvement in wartime educational reforms of five important figures: Fred Clarke, R. H. Tawney, Shena Simon, H. C. Dent and Ernest Simon. These figures campaigned for educational reforms through their books, publishing articles in newspapers,…

This study explores how globalization, migration, and citizenship education intersect in four northwest European democracies. In this study of secondary schools serving students from immigrant backgrounds in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (England and Scotland), I interviewed teachers and students and observed…

We are living and learning in a time of multiple crises with profound implications for every aspect of our lives. Hankering for what we have 'lost' is understandable, but we need to take the opportunity to build something better. This means being wide awake to the realities of crisis and combining a sense of urgency with radical optimism and hope.…

As a postsecondary educator with most of my experience teaching in colleges, but with some also in undergraduate and postgraduate studies both in Canada and the United States, I have been teaching politics and government for close to fifty years. That time has been spent not only undertaking empirical analyses of political behaviour and the…

In Anglophone countries, narratives of public schooling tend to emphasise generic hopes about schooling as central to the idea of a public good, including fostering community, delivering equality and protecting broad notions of democracy. However, as public systems become more open to privatised logics, these hopes sit alongside fears for the…

R.H. Tawney (1880-1962), a leading English economic historian and prominent socialist, was vigorously involved in educational reconstruction during the Second World War. For Tawney, the war was a war for social democracy. His ideals of social democracy formed a basis for his case for Public (independent) School reform and free secondary education…

Examining the entanglement of democracy and social justice in education and the relationship to social mobility, this paper critiques the individualising nature of social mobility in policy discourse as inimical to human flourishing and education as a public good. The rhetoric of social mobility which responsibilises individuals for their success,…

In this polemical piece, we begin by arguing that the Schools White Paper (2022) is framed within, and seeks to promulgate, a right-wing 'regime of truth'. We interrogate the vocabulary of the Paper to reveal and challenge its 'truths' -- about the curriculum and its 'delivery'; the testing and examination regime; behaviour; and initial teacher…

Government policies for teachers and schools in England promote values including tolerance of faiths and beliefs alongside law keeping, democracy, and respect. Tolerance of faiths has been highlighted as a key value but complexities around tolerance make interpretations and applications of the policy difficult. Policy documents in this area are…