Democracy, education and the challenge of inclusion

Revising the theory of democratic education from the perspective of structural injustice

Authors

• Anniina Leiviskä Helsingin yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33350/ka.107684

Keywords:

inlcusion, political liberalism, deliberative democracy, democratic education, structural injustice

Abstract

This article examines democratic inclusion, the normative preconditions of democracy, and the aims of democratic education from the perspectives of John Rawls’ and Jürgen Habermas’ theories of democracy and the related theories of liberal democratic education. The article defends the idea of democracy as a normative political order involving reciprocity and publicity as its central preconditions, and the idea of democratic education as aiming to foster autonomy and abilities of democratic deliberation. The article particularly focuses on the recent critiques of liberal democracy and democratic education and aims to demonstrate that the normative principles and educational aims presented in these theories are not liable to problematic forms of social and political inequality and exclusion as suggested by the critiques. However, the article highlights the pressing need of theories of democratic education to acknowledge the structural injustices that are manifesting in the school system as well as on the level of social interaction at schools.