During the past decade there has been a series of radical changes to the educational system of England and Wales. This book argues that any serious study of these changes has to engage with complex questions about the role of education in a modern liberal democracy. Were these educational changes informed by the needs and aspirations of a democratic society? To what extent will they promote democratic values and ideals? These questions can only be adequately addressed by making explicit the political ideas and the underlying philosophical principles that have together shaped the English educational system. To this end, the book provides a selective history of English education which exposes the connections between decisive periods of educational change and the intellectual and political climate in which it occurred. It also connects the educational policies of the 1980s and 90s to the political ideas of the New Right in order to show how they are part of a broader political strategy aimed at reversing the democratic advances achieved through the intellectual and political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book proposes that a democratic educational vision can only effectively be advanced by renewing the 'struggle for democracy' - the historical struggle to create forms of education which will empower all citizens to participate in an open, pluralistic and democratic society.

This book examines the relationship between democracy and schooling and argues that schools are one of the few spheres left where youth can learn the knowledge and skills necessary to become engaged, critical citizens. Not only is the legacy of democracy addressed through the work of John Dewey and others, but the democratic possibilities of schooling are analyzed through a range of issues extending from the politics of teacher authority to the importance of student voices. These issues have only become more vital in an era of neoliberalism and "smaller government," as Giroux discusses at length in this new updated edition.

Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it is important to consider the historical struggles that led to this groundbreaking decision. Four years earlier in Texas, the Sweatt v. Painter decision allowed blacks access to the University of Texas's law school for the first time. Amilcar Shabazz shows that the development of black higher education in Texas--which has historically had one of the largest state college and university systems in the South--played a pivotal role in the challenge to Jim Crow education. Shabazz begins with the creation of the Texas University Movement in the 1880s to lobby for equal access to the full range of graduate and professional education through a first-class university for African Americans. He traces the philosophical, legal, and grassroots components of the later campaign to open all Texas colleges and universities to black students, showing the complex range of strategies and the diversity of ideology and methodology on the part of black activists and intellectuals working to promote educational equality. Shabazz credits the efforts of blacks who fought for change by demanding better resources for segregated black colleges in the years before Brown, showing how crucial groundwork for nationwide desegregation was laid in the state of Texas.

The first historical account of the free school movement of the 1960s.

During the past decade there has been a series of radical changes to the educational system of England and Wales. This book argues that any serious study of these changes has to engage with complex questions about the role of education in a modern liberal democracy. Were these educational changes informed by the needs and aspirations of a democratic society? To what extent will they promote democratic values and ideals? These questions can only be adequately addressed by making explicit the political ideas and the underlying philosophical principles that have together shaped the English educational system. To this end, the book provides a selective history of English education which exposes the connections between decisive periods of educational change and the intellectual and political climate in which it occurred. It also connects the educational policies of the 1980s and 90s to the political ideas of the New Right in order to show how they are part of a broader political strategy aimed at reversing the democratic advances achieved through the intellectual and political struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book proposes that a democratic educational vision can only effectively be advanced by renewing the 'struggle for democracy' - the historical struggle to create forms of education which will empower all citizens to participate in an open, pluralistic and democratic society.

The struggle to establish more democratic education pedagogies has a long history in the politics of mainstream education. This book argues for the significance of the creative arts in the establishment of social justice in education, using examples drawn from a selection of contemporary case studies including Japanese applied drama, Palestinian teacher education and Room 13 children’s contemporary art. Jeff Adams and Allan Owens use their research in practice to explore creativity conceptually, historically and metaphorically within a variety of UK and international contexts, which are analysed using political and social theories of democratic and relational education. Each chapter discusses the relationship between models of democratic creativity and the cultural conditions in which they are practised, with a focus on new critical pedagogies that have developed in response to neoliberalism and marketization in education. The book is structured throughout by the theories, practices and the ideals that were once considered to be foundational for education: democratic citizenship and a just society. Creativity and Democracy in Education will be of key interest to postgraduate students, researchers, and academics in the field of education, especially those interested in the arts and creativity, democratic learning, teacher education, cultural and organisational studies, and political theories of education.