This article argues that high-stakes educational testing, along with the attendant questions of power, education access, education management and social selection, cannot be considered in isolation from society at large. Thus, high-stakes testing practices bear numerous implications for democratic conditions in society. For decades, advocates of…

In the 1980s, in Quebec history textbooks, authors presented history through linear, monocausal designs and attributed most social, political or economic changes favourable to democracy to unstable external causes or to stable external causes. They seldom attributed the evolution of democracy to "unstable internal causes". These…

Based on recent ethnographic research, this article explores young people's opportunities of formal and informal democracy learning and expressions of such learning in the highly market-influenced Swedish upper secondary education. With its ambitious democracy-fostering goals and far-reaching marketisation, Swedish education constitutes an…

Borrowing insights from the Ancient Greek ideal conceptions of a democratic civic space (demos), this article examines the applicability of this framework to four teacher educators' journey to implement social justice in their programs. It is proposed that the three constitutive dimensions of demos (freedom of speech, equality to vote and…

Finnish youth are found to be, despite their broad knowledge, uninterested in politics and in societal participation. As a remedy, international studies suggest enabling democratic experiences in schools. This article discusses an action research project aimed at developing deliberation-based democratic practice in an elementary classroom. Results…

This article provides a critical examination of a common form of adult attempts to promote civic engagement among young people, namely, youth advisory councils. While youth councils have been widely celebrated as an effective way to integrate young people into political processes, little research has explored why some politically active youth…

In recent years, citizenship education has been the subject of much international attention, including two major cross-national studies. However, few reviews of civic education scholarship include research from post-conflict societies. This omission is notable because post-conflict situations offer distinct challenges to instilling both democratic…

Liberal democratic education, as advocated in recent accounts of citizenship education or civic education, is often seen as incompatible with moral education or character education rooted in specific views regarding the virtues. This contrast relies on well established philosophical differences between liberal views of justice and democracy, on…

With current manifestations of globalization creating local problems, including widening equity gaps, increased environmental destruction and burgeoning poverty, many policymakers, civil society, organizations and educators are seeking models of education that promise social justice and a democratic public sphere that reflects more than democracy…

This article addresses the challenges and pathways of Holocaust education in post-communist countries through two case studies. I first examine historiographical, institutional and cultural obstacles to deep and meaningful treatments of the Holocaust within Latvian and Romanian schools. Drawing upon the unique experiences both countries had with…

This article uses as a point of departure for its analysis a recent educational policy initiative to promote peaceful coexistence in the context of ongoing ethnic division in Cyprus. It is argued that, although it seems as if the teaching of peaceful coexistence is a laudable initiative that can contribute toward unity and democratic…

Across and within democratic societies, youth experiences of education for citizenship vary widely. A growing body of research suggests that students' experiences of democratic citizenship education will differ according to how academic programmes, community culture, socio-economic status and gender intersect with prevailing conceptions of…

The purpose of this article is to examine the authors' experiences while trying to enter and engage local communities in bottom-up literacies through participatory action research (PAR) toward the community's own collective self-development. In trying to enter five different communities, I have found several challenges and roadblocks such as…

Recent moves towards greater pupil participation in school decision-making have in part been based on instrumental rationales, such as increases in test scores and improvements in behaviour. This article assesses a different approach--that of the "prefigurative"--through which the school embodies the democratic society it aims to create. Two…

In this article we present insights from research which has sought to deepen understanding of the ways in which young people (aged 13-21) learn democratic citizenship through their participation in a range of different formal and informal practices and communities. Based on the research, we suggest that such understanding should focus on the…