Reflections on how education can be for democracy in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT

This paper is one of two that bring together a range of education scholars to consider how education might be for democracy in a time of complex challenges facing twenty-first century societies. In this paper, scholars from Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom consider how sites of formal and informal education can respond to multiple unfolding crises, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, catastrophic climate change and ecological collapse, political upheaval, and growing social and economic inequality. What emerges is a wide-ranging set of reflections that engage with these complexities and challenges in a considered and hopeful way.

KEYWORDS:

• Education for democracy
• democratic institutions
• social inequality
• public education

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Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Notes on contributors

Anne Aly

Anne Aly is the Federal Member for Cowan in the Australian Parliament. She has worked as a professor, academic and practitioner in counter terrorism and countering violent extremism. The founder of People against Violent Extremism, Anne was the only Australian representative to speak at President Obama’s 2015 White House summit on countering violent extremism. Anne is a 2011 inductee into the Western Australian Women’s Hall of Fame, a 2016 nominee for Australian of the Year and a 2016 recipient of the prestigious Australian Security Medal. In 2021, she was awarded the McKinnon Prize for Emerging Political Leader of the Year, in recognition of her Parliamentary work against both right-wing extremism and family & domestic violence.

Jill Blackmore

Jill Blackmore AM is Alfred Deakin Professor in Education at Deakin University Faculty of Arts and Education, Melbourne, Australia. She adopts a feminist critical analysis of relations between the state, education and society within shifting geopolitics with a focus on the equity effects of educational restructuring, organisational change and leadership practice in universities and schools. Her latest text is Disrupting Leadership in Entrepreneurial Universities: Disengagement and diversity. Bloomsbury. She was former President of AARE, Director of Centre for Research in Educational Futures and currently is Vice-President of the Australian Association of University Professors.

David Bright

David Bright is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His research investigates how educational practices are mediated by perceptions of social, cultural and linguistic difference, and explores how difference can be re-imagined to create new possibilities for democratic education. David has a particular interest in the cultural politics of English language teaching, international schooling, and international student programmes.

Debra Hayes

Debra Hayes is Professor of Education and Equity, and Head of School at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney. Her research explores pedagogical, leadership and schooling practices that contribute to young people’s outcomes, and experiences of schooling.

Amanda McKay

Amanda McKay is a Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Her research explores the contemporary challenges of principals’ work and how we can better attract, support, and keep school leaders within the profession.

Bob Lingard

Bob Lingard is a Professorial Fellow in the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education at Australian Catholic University and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Queensland. His latest books include Global-National Networks in Education: Primary Education, Social Enterprises and ‘Teach for Bangladesh’ (Bloomsbury, 2022), Reimagining Globalization and Education (Routledge, 2022), Globalisation and Education (Routledge, 2021), Digital Disruption in Teaching and Testing (Routledge, 2021), and Globalizing Educational Accountabilities (Routledge, 2016).

Stewart Riddle

Stewart Riddle is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Southern Queensland. His research examines the democratisation of schooling systems, increasing access and equity in education and how schooling can respond to critical social issues in complex contemporary times.

Keita Takayama

Keita Takayama is Professor/Director for the Global Education Office within the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Japan. His research focuses on globalisation of education policy and educational research. He currently co-edits Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education and Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics in Education. He is a former recipient of Fulbright Fellowship from Japan-US Educational Commission and George Bereday Award from Comparative & International Education Society.

Deborah Youdell

Deborah Youdell is Head of the School of Education and Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Birmingham. She is a member of the Centre for Research in Race and Education. Her work is at the forefront of the developing field of biosocial education, which brings emerging knowledge in the new biological sciences together with social science accounts of education to generate new insights into learning and the learner.