The essays in this edited collection open up a hopeful dialogue about the existing state of democratic education and the ways in which it could be re-imagined as an inclusive, democratized space of possibility and engagement. Proceeding from a critique that questions the dominance of Western liberal understandings of democratic education as a series of rational, culturally neutral acts undertaken by individuals who conceive of democracy and ‘the common good’ in universalist and fundamentally exclusionary terms, the contributors give voice to those whose ideas, histories, cultures and current understanding of the world is not highlighted in the dominant relationships of schooling.
From a variety of theoretical and pragmatic approaches, the chapters in this collection engage the dialectics of history, power, colonization and decolonization, identity, memory, citizenship, Aboriginal rights, development and globalization, all in the context of providing a critique of educational systems, relations, structures and curricula that seem badly in need of reform. While the contributors who have diverse scholarly interests are not in a direct dialogue with one another, their different foci should, nevertheless, inter-topically inform each other. The book should interest students and researchers in the general foundations of education, democracy and education, citizenship education, comparative and international education, postcolonial studies in education, and cultural studies in education.