Democracy and education: Dewey in times of crisis in democratic education

Abstract

The relationship between democracy and education is a classic theme not only in the field of theories of democracy but also in modern educational thinking. This paper follows this tradition of research regarding Democracy and Education, a book by John Dewey, including the study of five works before and five works after 1916, the date of publication of that classic book. Based on a political sociology of education, the author problematizes Dewey’s conceptions of democracy and participation and takes them as a reference for understanding educational policies in times of crisis in democratic education. Under policies based on education, training and learning for economic competitiveness and the global search for talent, according to the values of the new managerialism, the entrepreneurial spirit and meritocracy, the current crisis of democracy in education and the loss of confidence in the state school seem closer to a post-democracy and minimal forms of participation than to the educational ideals of democracy, participation and freedom proposed by Dewey more than a century ago.