In Defense of a Deliberative Democratic Civics Education
Jarrod Hanson
About the research
Award
NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship
Award Year
2012
Institution
University of Colorado Boulder
Primary Discipline
Foundations/Philosophy
Democracy appears to be in crisis as political divides are ever widening. There is hope in deliberative democratic civics education. Civics education traditionally has been tied to aggregative theories of democracy. My dissertation defends grounding civics education in deliberative democracy. It illustrates what deliberative democratic civics education would look like in the classroom and addresses the perils of its classroom use. Grounding civics education in deliberative democracy provides students not only with the means to participate in democracy as citizens, but to influence the shape of that democracy going forward. Deliberative democratic theory also focuses current scholarship in civics education by providing a framework within which practices such as classroom discussion can be better understood. It also gives shape to the civic mission of schools and as such has the potential to influence education policies such as school integration, school choice and online schooling.
About Jarrod Hanson
N/A