The book Education for Democracy was written by two of my professors, one of whom (Ryan Knowles) is my dissertation adviser. Here are my notes for the book.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JV5YisKWiaWxM3–w4nX6bWHNfItwIqhfZDAYFGyHec/edit?usp=sharing
Too often civic education encourages simplistic deliberation over pros and cons from a stance of objectivity – if the issues of our time are this simply and political decisions are governed by impartial reason based on a common good. (viii) Book is based on works of Iris Young.
Book moves away from idealistic notions deliberative democracy. (1) Democracy word became antonym to aristocracy in England in 131 Aristocracy feared Democracy. Movement continues today in Saudi Arabia allowing limited voting right for women in municipal elections in 2015. (2) Gender equality remains a project… Victories in expanding suffrare were, and continue to be, mitigated because of the challenges within what bell hooks called an imperialist, capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal polity. Democracy and elections are conflated, the core idea of democracy is expansion of political, economic, and social rights and privileges. Modern examples include the #MeToo movement’s efforts to bring attention to, and end, sexual assault, and the disproportionate judicial and police violence inflicted on African American communities protested by the Black Lives Matter movement…. People had thought voting would bring about greater economic equity and social justice. (3) Public preferences were found to have no discernible effect on government policy.
Policy issues are driven by neoliberal special interests – Chomsky (2013) highlights that government officials, business leaders, and media promote an “illusion of democracy in lieu of recognizing the dominance of current wealthy elite.
(8)
If public schools are interested in encouraging democracy, they should also support anti-racism, feminism, decolonization, and LGBTQ+ rights. (10) Camicia’s and Knowles’ positionalities (11-14) Camicia began to question what perspectives were missing from social studies curriculum. (13) social media has lowered threshold for engagement (14)
Works cited for ch. 1
Ch. 2 Education for Democracy
(21)
Democracy has waxed and waned as revolutionary project.
(22)
Modernist conceptions of democracy place locus of power with individuals and groups who use governmental structures and civil society to express their will. Appeals to universal reason and metanarratives of progress are modernist discourses that can interact with conceptions of democracy to communicate a stability that doesn’t exist. Weedon {1999} writes, “Liberal humanism is a metanarrative that proposes universal human rights and assumes Western societies are the most developed and humane societies. This isn’t a condemnation of human rights because human rights have been and remain central to liberation struggles throughout the world. (23) The location of power is central to democratic governance because governance is an expression of where power resides in communities. Inquiries in social justice require students and communities to identify situations where inequitable power relations reduce the ways that individuals and groups are able to express their will… social justice and legitimacy of a democracy relies upon the degree to which the decision-making process includes the voices of all who will be affected by decisions. (23?)
We place an analysis of power as central to our analysis of democracy and education for democracy. Where is power located? Who has it? Who should have it? Modernist conceptions of democracy place locus of power with individuals and groups who use governmental structures and civil to society to express their will… Appeals to universal reason and metanarratives of progress are modernist discourses that can interact with conceptions of democracy to communicate a stability that doesn’t exist. (examples) (24) postmodern conceptions of democracy place the locus of power within individuals and groups but are critical of the degree to which government and civil society equally distribute this power among members of society. The stability of the meta-narrative of democracy is challenged in order to increase inclusion… This involves students from young ages examining the historical and contemporary inequalities that are embedded in metanarratives. (25) Media literacy is an important component of education for democracy. It is increasingly apparent that the media plays a role in furthering reactionary and oppressive forces. Many different definitions for concept of democracy. (26) Habermas {1994} wrote about republican, liberal, and proceduralist normative models of democracy. – liberal = negative rights = citizens protected from interference from the state to pursue private interests… Power in this sense is is conceptualized as residing in the choice of community members, but the underlying structures of power that guide available choices are relatively hidden. The republican model emphasizes the positive rights of citizens to participate in dialogue to express political opinions. (27)
Republican model presupposes that communities and their members have similar conceptions of common good. This assumption is responsible for inequalities. Deliberation under republican model limits perspectives… It involves deliberation between various values and was of knowing. Habermas’s procudralist model is closer to our model of education for democracy. (28) Sant {2019} did a theoretical review of democratic education literature – elitist democratic education, liberal democratic education, neoliberal democratic education, deliberative democratic education, multicultural democratic education, participatory democratic education, critical democratic education, and agnostic democratic education… In Europe liberalism is often associated with a market-orientation or classical liberalism. (29) Rawls extended the argument and claimed that certain liberal values and individual rights are universally applicable and should provide a common standard for judging all societies. This view of citizenship embraces the US as multicultural community. Liberal citizenship generally avoids the explicit teaching of controversial content. Similar to Dewey’s ideas on not having political bias… any imposition on political bias may unknowingly restrict a student’s freedom to exercise their conceptualization of the good life. (30)
Inherent emphasis on individual liberty contributes to an apolitical classroom climate where students are not taught what to think but how to think. This can lead students to avoid an analysis of power in classroom discussion of controversial issues. This contrasts with models of education for democracy we draw from such as multicultural, decolonizing, and critical models… Conservative notions of democracy represent a mixture of historical wisdom, customary knowledge, nationalism and political pragmatism. This tradition stresses connections between the present and aspects of past that once flourished… To conservatives, liberals and progressives want to supplant living, evolving traditions with abstractly formulated ideologies. Conservative democracy emphasizes reproduction of existing societal patterns and promotes sense of nationalism and aligns free-market economic as a way to maintain status quo. (31) To maintain sense of social order and national identity, education encouraged national pride and national exceptionalism.- commitments to core democratic values, such as freedom of speech and liberty. Neoliberal democracy is extension of free-market liberalism… government should promote individual human freedom by focusing on free market to aggregate preferences and organize society – Hayek advocated for universal basic income to allow everyone to participate in economic market, which would manipulate society with preferences and values of all people… neoliberal perspective argues that free market’s potential to incorporate complex individual preferences represents a more equitable way to organize society. – advocate family in need gets money instead of free school lunches or help from a govt. agency – parents could further education or buy raw materials to produce a good they could sell for profit. – highly influential within public education(32)
The shift toward a more corporate business model of education at all levels through standardized testing, school vouchers, and for-profit curriculum publishers has hindered efforts towards civic and democratic education. These efforts have privileged quantifiable outcomes with a single correct answer while limiting more complex curriculum necessary for critical dissent… notion that schools are spaces to prepare students for employment within the free market has alienated social studies education. Fitchett and Heafner {2012} emphasis on testing has dramatically reduced the amount of social studies content at the elementary level… dominant discourses in education emphasize global competition in markets- when framed in neolib stance, student discussions ignore inequalities that foreshadow markets and market rationality.
Authoritarian Democracy – paradox of democracy – widespread support for democracy doesn’t undermine autocratic regimes. – In contrast, authoritarian regimes of democracy become defined as obedience to the guardianship of wise rulers whose authority defies constitutional checks, public criticism, and electoral contestation. … Norris {2011} found support for democracy as governing ideas as widespread as 80 to 90% globally, even in countries lacking popular governance such as Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan, and Morocco. (33)
Democratic governance was supported by backing for emancipative values which were measured by support for sexual self determination with respect to abortion, divorce, homosexuality, support for gender equality. Research demonstrates that schools have authoritarian tendencies that can limit the freedom – schools have many characteristics of public spaces; however they are largely controlled and regulated by administrators and, increasingly, by corporations and other external entities. – Schmidt’s studies study found that students employed tactics such as avoidance, dissent, and incivility as acts of resistance. Domination of adults, teachers, and administrators reinforce passive and subjective tendencies towards authority. In authoritarian democratic education environments… Multicultural Democracy – multicultural democracy emphasizes pluralistic importance of diverse people and perspectives in democratic communities. Closely related (34)
Knowledge construction helps students understand how perspectives on individuals, groups, and issues are socially constructed within systems of inequalities… Language and knowledge must be examined. Prejudice reduction in multicultural and democratic education serves to dismantle prejudices that divide individuals and groups… 4th equity pedagogy – connects with principles of democracy… democratic education is committed not to tolerating but to opposing educational programs that perpetuate civic inequality or intolerance. In order to build truly inclusive citizenship, – fictitious cultural neutrality of liberal democracy must be challenged? (35)
Much of the conflict that exists between individuals and groups is downplayed by an appeal to process and reason.
Chapter 3 The Public is Private in (Non)Controversial Issues
Analysis of power is central. What is controversial to one person might not be controversial to another person due to differing positionalities. (49) A weakness of many models of education for democracy is lack of attention to power inequalities during democratic inquiry and discussions. Counter-narratives and discourses are central to this analysis… The meta-narratives that support many of the modernist discourses function to shut out competing counter-narratives. Democratic discussion require a framework of recognition which is accomplished through an agreement to include multiple perspectives in discussion, inclusion of counter-narratives, and understanding how these narratives and counter-narratives influence what can and cannot be said through discourses (rhetoric.) . One of the largest barriers to education for democracy is the narrowing of inquiry, discussion and deliberation by dominant discourses. (50)
Ideas – enter ethical discussion that places recognition of diverse people and perspectives as central, identify dominant and marginalized discourses that limit choices (rhetoric), express and examine counter-narratives
How does my family’s story compare to dominant stories?
Whose racial interests (class interests) does U.S. government serve?
Are transnational agreements good?
What roles do corporations play in local, national, and global communities?
What role do corporations play in public education?
Why do our textbooks present inaccurate portrayals of history? (51)
Some views are marginalized in the official curriculum as biased, subjective, private and not worthy of inquiry or discussion. 
Questions of inclusion and exclusion are central to student inquiry toward challenging power structure. (53) 
(57) binary presents reality as having two choices. – reductionist and over-simplified – gender those who don’t fit into man or women category are dehumanized. – deconstruction of binaries is important with issues related to gender binary in school curriculum, instruction, and policies. – common to hear false equivalencies in classrooms (58) Often false equivalency is bolstered by discourse of neutrality. .. Students can benefit by analyzing borders. (59) We each interpret community issues differently depending upon our positionality and lived experiences… When students examine discourses underlying history, geography, civics, and economics they can see public issues as a network of power relations. (60) 
Chapter 4: Deliberation and Critical Education for Democracy
(67) Without extending traditional models toward more critical and postmodern approaches, inequitable power relations remain hidden and preserved.
Chapter 5 Education for Democracy in the Social Media Century
Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough. – Zuckerberg (87) Power relations can distort inquiries, discussions, and deliberations to reflect biases in areas such as race and gender… Social media platforms can manipulate decisions of generating, interacting, and selecting political content more than ever before. – (example of i voted sticker in 2010 and 2012 elections) (88) Critical media literacy as another component of critical education for democracy.
Challenges
Schradie’s study titled, The Revolution that wasn’t: How digital Activism Favors the Conservatives, demonstrated how conservative alt-right groups effectively used digital activism to create a vast news media and institutional ecosystem to promote evangelicals, increasingly radical republican candidates, and right-wing attacks on unions.(89)
Social media become a powerful new tool for ideological groups that found themselves outside of most popular media. Alex Jones’ Infowars gave voice to a host of white nationalist, conspiracy theories, health supplements, and pseudo-political commentary that had a YouTube channel that had roughly 500k views per day at its height. In contrast, CNN averages around 1.2 million cable viewers of their evening programming… Platforms have individuals intent on inherently anti-democratic practices. Prager U – has videos arguing Pres. Kennedy would have been a Republican in the modern era, how the Democratic Party supported the confederacy, the KKK fought against civil rights, while the Republican party freed slaves. These arguments were intended to draw historical comparisons, ignoring partisan ideological realignments that have taken place over a hundred years. As previous chapters have examined, arguments and narratives in democratic communities are embedded in discursive fields of historical and contemporary power relations. Something that the makers of these videos, we assume, are quite aware of, but generate this content to confuse voters about the actual history of these events for contemporary political gain… The point of this channel is to promote partisan loyalty toward the Republican party through misinformation. Student inquiries for social justice require that content be examined within a context. Because reasons are embedded in fields of power relations, their meanings can only be examined accurately when the discourses that produce the reasons are understood. The results of google are not intended to be objective sources of information. Instead, the algorithms are based around generating ad revenue. Umoja’s (2018) Algorithms of Oppression, demonstrates how this process can reinforce problematic narratives of racism that exist within the larger society. (90)
FB and YT utilize problematic algorithms to expose users to an ideological echo chamber. Sunstein’s (2017) #Reoublic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media – FB categorizes its users as very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, and very liberal… Study found that exposure to particular media sources led respondents to incorrectly assume that their political rivals are more radical then their rivals actually were. This wasn’t the case for every news source, but individuals who consume sources such as Breitbart, Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Slate, Huffington Post, New York Times, Washington Post, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or Fox News had statistically higher inaccuracy scores within their perception gap compared to people who do not consume these forms of media… Mainstream media creates fake news by two corrupting norms – First journalists maintain a stance of objectivity and neutrality. (91) Secondly, issues events and debates are framed as both sides by presenting a dualistic perspective on issues. Funk, Kellner, and Share (2016) posit the manner in which popular media presents information services to reinforce dominant groups and ideologies. Having two individuals arguing about existence of climate change, ignores an ample body of research. As mentioned in ch. 3, there is room for varying perspectives that are not recognized when discussion is reduced two perspectives. (ban all guns vs. consumer can purchase any weapon they desire without background check.) Presentation of dualistic and seemingly neutral positions limits perspectives by marginalizing people and perspectives that are not represented in construction. (92)
Unpacking Fake News: An Educator’s Guide to Navigating the Media with Students (Journell, 2019) and (Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America (Goering & Thomas 2018) Students should understand that social media companies are designed to get financial gain.
Having students evaluate the evidence from memes, videos, articles, and other sources can create a tangible activity to begin conversations. However, the next step should be a conversation on the common pitfalls of each type of evidence… Gathering counterevidence to claims while acknowledging limitations of each source – mindful acronym… Important component of ethical engagement is understanding inherent bias of media platforms themselves… Help students see which perspectives are marginalized. – Students should ask how does commercial intent of these platforms exclude counternarratives? (94) Lived experiences can occur through counternarratives that challenge inaccurate and unjust arguments.
Chapter 6: Conclusion
“Political polarization, notions of neutrality, the common good, objectiveness, false equivalencies, and fake news have bolstered civic inequalities in schools and society…. We have proposed a model of education for democracy that emphasizes contemporary inequalities around diverse reasoning and perspectives” (103) “Discussion and deliberation are essential to any model of education for democracy. However, classroom discussion and civic education rarely acknowledged underlying assumptions.. Through deliberation, participants can build mutual understanding, identify shared interest, and encourage compromise moving forward. This idea stems from a model of deliberative democracy based on assumption of unitary public reason, that is, the common good, typically associated with Kant… Deliberation has assumption that individuals and communities are interested in the same common good. This assumption provided justification for unequal distributions in political capital, as educated elite were deemed (by themselves) to be best stewards of public welfare. … Gulf between perspectives of democracy calls into question the grand narratives of progress, universal citizenship, and unitary public reason. As a result, we advocate for a model of education for democracy that acknowledges: cultural pluralism’s challenges to the common good and unitary public reason; ; social inequalities exclude minoritized communities from public deliberation.” In Ch. 3 we discussed, how inequality throughout society prevents recognition of individuals and perspectives. (104)
Schools and curriculum reflect power relations and some perspectives are dominant while others remain silenced. (Brown and Brown 2010) found social studies textbooks don’t portray violence against African Americans as part of structural racism, but tie it to isolated acts…Gates foundation textbook shows the portrayal of Eurocentric views and excludes non-european perspectives. (105) Teachers are not required vis a vis state standards to provide multiple perspectives on immigration.- list of examples of how social studies standards and instructional materials present a narrow range of historical and contemporary perspectives. (106) Greeting described by Young (2002) provide an organizing principle – greeting emphasizes need for students to recognize differences in people and perspectives. Without this, students often fall into binary opposition that is counter productive. High school classrooms reflected heteronormativity. Without understanding how dominant discourses manipulate the recognition of individuals, groups, and perspectives, students are left with the false impression that discussions are neutral. False equivalencies about as students communicate discriminatory perspectives and discourse… In Ch. 4, we expanded Young’s model of inclusion by placing situated knowledge as central to student civic inquiries for social justice(107)
As noted in ch. 2, rather than one discourse of democracy, there are in fact multiple discourses of democracy, each attached to an ideology and vision of community. In exchange of reasons, participants in deliberation can sometimes justify stances by appealing to democratic principles, but we know that these principles mean different things to different people. In other words, the reason exchanged in duscssions are embedded in different notions of democracy.
Post-modernist perspectives of democracy instead emphasize the ways that discussion models and media literacy can produce sites for student inquiries that situate knowledge within different contexts. This provides more legitimate education for democracy and civic inquiries for social justice because students can better understand democracy as a revolutionary social process and movement… Any education for democracy model that doesn’t include social media is outdated. (108)
Reactionary notions of democratic communities reinforce social inequities…. Grand narratives, such as those of progress, have served to privilege some perspectives while marginalizing others.
Future of Education for Democracy
In intro, we contended that any form of education for democracy should support an intersectional and anti-oppressive stance and should therefore be anti-racist, pro LGBTQ, feminist, and decolonizing. (109) Educators interested in democracy must overtly confront limitations of their own thinking and bias while constantly working to grow their understandings. Teachers and schools working towards democracy should work in solidarity.
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