The Struggle for Democracy in Education ─ Lessons from Social Realities

The Struggle for Democracy in Education extends the insightful arguments Michael Apple provided in Can Education Change Society? It provides detailed examinations of both local and system-wide struggles around conflicting versions of democracy. Grounded in a key set of ethical and political responsibilities for those who care deeply about education, Apple and his co-authors interrogate conflicting models of democratic education, one interested in the common good and the creation of critical citizens, the other market-oriented and meant to meet a set of more conservative economic needs. Through a series of powerful national and international case studies, this volume explores the contested terrain, combining powerful theory with the "stuff" of schools, political and pedagogical actions, and the lives of individuals. These detailed examinations provide the reader with a more nuanced understanding of how policy, history, and varied actors with varied agendas come together, and the very real people and systems that are impacted by these conflicts. The Struggle for Democracy in Education asks us to face and understand these myriad forces and actors—both progressive and retrogressive—and to ask what we can do to ensure that the education that is created is worthy of its name. In the process, the book gives us real examples of critically democratic education and what we can learn from these struggles.

Michael W. Apple is John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has written extensively on the relationship between culture and power in education and on the limits and possibilities of a socially transformative education. He has been named one of the fifty most significant writers in education in the Twentieth Century.