Democratic Education Stretched Thin

Is a democratic education promoting the ideals of human equality and individual liberty still tenable in a postmodern world of increasingly diverse and competing interests? Drawing on contemporary political theorists, including Michael Walzer and John Rawls, and also on philosophers such as Descartes and Hume, David J. Blacker addresses this question, outlining the dispute between orthodoxy and proceduralism, and proposing a new approach of liberal contextualism to resolve the impasse and enrich our conception of democratic education. He discusses a wide range of controversies surrounding students' constitutional rights, religion in public schools, special education, civic and moral education, sex education, students' citizenship status, and educational accountability, and argues for change at both the institutional and personal levels. He concludes that democratic education must be allowed to connect with how individuals understand the ultimate aims and purposes of their lives.