The strength of democracy lies in its ability to self-correct, to solve problems and adapt to new challenges. However, increased volatility, resulting from multiple crises on multiple fronts - humanitarian, financial, and environmental - is testing this ability. By offering a new framework for democratic education, Teaching Democracy in an Age of Uncertainty begins a dialogue with education professionals towards the reconstruction of education and by extension our social, cultural and political institutions.
This book is the first monograph on philosophy with children to focus on democratic education. The book examines the ways in which education can either perpetuate or disrupt harmful social and political practices and narratives at the classroom level. It is a rethinking of civics and citizenship education as place-responsive learning aimed at understanding and improving human-environment relations to not only face an uncertain world, but also to face the inevitable challenges of democratic disagreement beyond merely promoting pluralism, tolerance and agreement.
When viewed as a way of life democracy becomes both a goal and a teaching method for developing civic literacy to enable students to articulate and apprehend more than just the predominant political narrative, but to reshape it. This book will be of interest to scholars of philosophy, political science, education, democratic theory, civics and citizenship studies, and peace education research.
About the Author: Gilbert Burgh is an Honorary Associate Professor in Philosophy in the Philosophy in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland, Australia. He has published widely on democratic education, civics and citizenship education, dialogic pedagogy, and the development of the community of inquiry in educational discourse.
Simone Thornton is a Lecturer in Philosophy in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland, Australia. Simone's research interests and publications intersect environmental philosophy, philosophy and education, and social and political philosophy, including environmental education, decolonisation, philosophy in schools, and the philosophy of Camus and Plumwood.
