This article explores the legacy of John Dewey, reconsidered and reconstructed within the challenging context of neo-liberal globalization. A free-market approach to the delivery of public education and other social services has come to dominate public policy, with increasingly well-documented and potentially devastating consequences. As prospects…

From a Deweyan perspective, the capacity to learn is enabled or restricted by the clutch of one's habits, which are established and maintained by the mutual eliciting of action and reaction between an organism and its environment. Relationships that constrict the capacity for organisms to interact and learn from each other are undemocratic so…

This article outlines the features and application of a set of model curriculum materials that utilize eco-democratic principles and humanities-based content to cultivate critical analysis of the cultural foundations of socio-environmental problems. We first describe the goals and components of the materials, then discuss results of their use in…

Within the state selected for this study, teacher preparation programs and state certification criterion require that educators examine the relationship between school and society within social foundations of education (SFE) coursework. Using observations and interviews, this study examines to what extent four experienced, urban classroom teachers…

Using a critical postmodern framework, this article analyzes the relationship of the decision-making processes of anarchism and neoliberalism to that of deep democracy. Anarchist processes are found to share common core principals with deep democracy; but neoliberal processes are found to be antithetical to deep democracy. To increase the joy in…

In 1933, Ethel Thompson Overby became the first African American female principal in Richmond, Virginia. Her motto was "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness" (Overby 1975, 1). Before becoming principal, Overby had been a teacher in the southern urban "de jure" segregated schools of the city. How did the racially segregated…

The article examines the negative impact of neoliberal policies upon the work of border intellectuals within the university, whose scholarship seeks to explicitly challenge longstanding structural inequalities and social exclusions. More specifically, the notion of neoliberal multiculturalism is defined and discussed with respect to the phenomenon…

In his proposal for a social studies both more critical and more participatory, Neumann's (2008) politically adaptive strategy of invoking standards for critical thinking poses troubling concerns for democratic-minded educators familiar with the trajectory of reforms. Neumann's outright dismissal of critical pedagogy ironically underscores how the…

The purpose of this article is to revisit "Brown" as a paradigmatic understanding of social justice and its barriers, by reconsidering "Brown" in light of the three moral pillars of democracy identified by Cornel West (2004). West maintains that authentic deep democracy is grounded in three fundamental capacities and dispositions, or pillars: (a)…

This paper discusses the work of Noam Chomsky in the context of democracy, the media, and education. Through the analysis of selected works, a critical perspective emerges. This view demands that educators at all levels understand and confront the often deleterious effects the media can have on students' social and political views and further how…

Many have suggested that issues of democracy are fundamentally related to school curricula and contexts (Conant, 1948; Dewey, 1944; Dimitriadis and Carlson, 2003; West, 2004). Current social theorists have suggested that a globalized social, economic, and cultural structure has necessitated a rethinking of the relationships between individuals,…

America's sense of community is broken down; its sense of connectedness and the collective is "collapsing." That these senses ever existed is a matter for considerable debate. But, as the new millennium gains momentum and neoliberalism seeks expansion, the author argues that a focus on rekindling these concepts of community, connectedness, and the…

This article discusses what David Berliner (2005) has called the perverse "spectacle of fear" (208) surrounding issues of teacher quality and accountability in contemporary school reform. Drawing principally on the critical semiotics of Roland Barthes' essay, "The World of Wrestling" (1957), it examines the way that this spectacle works to…

This article puts forth 2 competing notions of the American Dream, 1 radical and 1 conservative (both put forth by Thomas Jefferson), as the basis for 2 competing public philosophies of American democracy and education. This article traces out the ecology of inequality that has determined the context of these 2 competing public philosophies,…

This article aims to enlarge the conversation about religion and public education by inviting readers to think about the benefits to be gained in society by providing a comprehensive religious studies curriculum in our public schools. In such a program, students will develop knowledge and understanding about various religious traditions, forge…