Reflections on contemporary challenges and possibilities for democracy and education

This paper is one of two which bring together leading educational researchers to consider some of the key challenges facing democracy and education during the twenty-first century, including rising social and economic inequality, political instability, and the existential threats of global pandemics and climate change. In this paper, key educational scholar–activists respond to the challenges and possibilities for democracy and education, with consideration of the importance of reimagining education as being for democracy. The questions asked in this paper have particular salience for educational leaders, who must be at the centre of any commitment to democratic education. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Educational Administration & History is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Education, Politics, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Age of Pandemics

In a time when truth has become malleable and people are being told that the only obligation of citizenship is to consume, language has become thinner, more individualistic, detached from history, and more self-oriented, all the while undermining viable democratic social spheres as spaces where politics brings people together as collective agents willing to push at the frontiers of the political and moral imagination. Too many people across the globe have forgotten their civic lessons, and in doing so cede the ground of history to the purveyors of lies, militarism, and white supremacy. As educators and intellectuals, it is crucial to remember that there is no genuine democracy without the presence of citizens willing to hold power accountable, engage in forms of moral witnessing, break the continuity of common sense, and challenge the normalization of antidemocratic institutions, policies, ideas, and social relations. 

Rethinking Neoliberal Fascism, Racist Violence, and the Plague of Inequality

After decades of a savage global capitalist nightmare both in the United States and around the globe, the mobilizing passions of fascism have been unleashed unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. The denial of the most basic elements of neoliberal fascism appears more difficult in the age of mass pandemics. Neoliberal violence now takes place under the assumption that it has escaped all control. How else to explain the collapse of public health systems underfunded for years as a result of neoliberal rule;the language of hate and violence aimed at people of color, especially under the former Trump administration;and the staggering increase in inequality in American society and its shameless counterpoint in massive increases in wealth among the ruling financial elite in an era of growing unemployment, and humans suffering in the age of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Immediate solutions such as defunding the police and improving community services are important, but they do not deal with the larger issue of eliminating a market-driven economic system structured in massive racial and economic inequalities. The renowned educator David Harvey is right in arguing that the "immediate task is nothing more nor less than the self-conscious construction of a new political framework for approaching the question of inequality [and racism], through a deep and profound critique of our economic and social system" (Harvey, 2020). This is a crisis in which different threads of oppression must be understood as part of the general crisis of capitalism. The various protests now evolving internationally at the popular level offer the promise of new global movements for the struggle for popular sovereignty and economic, racial, and social justice. Central to this struggle is the challenge of destroying the neoliberal global order. In the current moment, democracy may be under severe threat and appear frighteningly vulnerable, but with young people and others engaged in uprisings across the globe--inspired, energized, and marching in the streets--the future of a radical democracy is waiting to breathe again.