This article argues that curriculum work can benefit from signifiers of Bildung to promote democracy in public education. The argument is built on the premise that cultural and intellectual traditions that value Bildung presume a link between the inner cultivation of the individual and the development of better societies (Horlacher 2017). I start…

A disquieting aspect of some contemporary public discourse is its seeming indifference to or abandonment of any pretense to truth. Among other things, unsubstantiated and misleading claims have been made about the efficacy of vaccines and other purported treatments for SARS-COVID, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and the January 6, 2021,…

According to Thomas Falk, an authoritarian insurgency against the institutions of liberal democracy operates along both political-economic and phenomenological axes. By corrupting language and stimulating vigilance, this insurgency endeavors to diminish the perceptual and communicative capacities that allow us to articulate a shared reality and…

Universities play an indispensable role within modern democracies. But this role is often overlooked or too narrowly conceived, even by universities themselves. In "What Universities Owe Democracy," Ronald J. Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, argues that--at a moment when liberal democracy is endangered and more…

The dynamic of how civic education is framed during turbulent periods is illuminated through analysis of three Hong Kong official civic education curriculum guidelines (1985, 1996, 2012). Guidelines are publicly available, officially sanctioned statements of purpose that have particular relevance for education professionals and are used around the…

In response to the contemporary problematic of populism and associated reactionary right-wing politics, this paper argues for a greater analytic focus on the role of schools and teacher expertise in understanding the social relations of populism. This conceptual paper builds a conjunctural conceptualisation of populism that understands it as an…

This article utilizes feminist and postcolonial scholarship to shed light on the affective governmentality that takes place in the context of both liberal democracy and right-wing populism. In particular, it articulates a political grammar of feelings that makes visible in democratic education how affective modes of governing operate and what…

I argue that Rawlsian liberals should consider cardinal virtue habituation as a legitimate form of moral education and citizenship education in publicly funded schools. In "Political Liberalism," Rawls acknowledges that a liberal government can and should promote certain virtues or traits of moral character in citizens, but only those…

This essay examines conservative Christian schools through the lens of democratic education theory in order to understand how these educational institutions might or might not be consistent with the principles of a liberal democracy. I identify four key characteristics of conservative Christian schools, including the way they attempt to withdraw…

Our democracy is in crisis. Both political trust and a shared standard of truth are broken. In this book, Walter Parker shows why and how civic education can help. Offering a centrist approach suitable for a polarized society, Parker focuses on two linked curriculum objectives: disciplinary knowledge and voice. He illustrates how classroom…

In the context of global debates regarding the purpose of higher education, many national governments have adopted 'cost-sharing' mechanisms. Yet in 2017 the Philippines introduced legislation to provide 'Universal Access' to higher education by subsidizing tuition fees for all Filipino students in public institutions, partial fee subsidies…

In this article, Bianca Thoilliez draws on pragmatist notions of fallibilism and pluralism to develop proposals for possible educational interventions to address the problem of "post-truth" conditions. Post-truth, she contends, is not only a political danger for liberal democracies, but it also poses a serious threat of extinction for…

This paper mobilises the psychoanalytic concepts of desire and enjoyment to better understand how processes of education aimed at extending and defending democratic life might respond to and engage with populist politics. I approach this task by engaging with a particular vector of Mouffe and Laclau's political philosophy, moving from a critique…

In recent years, there has been a marked shift in concern among some philosophers of education from political transformation to personal transformation. In the past, critics of liberalism, both egalitarian and communitarian, promoted political, social, economic and educational reform--but always subscribed to the freedom of the individual, the…

Laclau and Mouffe have long argued the democratic possibilities of 'left populism' underpinned by their agonistic critique of liberal democracy. We are currently witnessing the attempted application of their theories by European political parties. However, there remains very little international scholarship taking up the challenge of situating…