Educating for Democratic Consciousness

This book has received the AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award 2013. There is a widespread, but mainly untenable, assumption that education in Western societies (and elsewhere) intuitively and horizontally aids the democratic development of people. An argument could be made that in contemporary liberal democracies, education was never designed for the well-being of societies. Instead of the full inclusion of everyone in educational development, it becomes dominated by those with a vested interest in the role of the liberal state as a mediating agent that, ultimately, assures the supremacy of the capitalism and neoliberalism. This book extends beyond a theoretical analysis of democratic education, seeking to tap into the substantial experiences, perspectives and research of a wide range of leading scholars from diverse vantage points, who bring themselves and their work into the debate connecting democracy and education, which elucidates the reference to counter-hegemonic possibilities in the title.

Ali A. Abdi is Professor of Development Education and Co-Director, Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER) in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Alberta. Paul R. Carr is Associate Professor of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Lakehead University (Orillia), and Co-Director of the Global Doing Democracy Research Project.