A Democratic Education

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the applicability of the concept of democracy to education. More specifically I am concerned with the role of democracy in education, as distinct from questions about the kind of education appropriate in a democratic society. My discussion is based on a conventional distinction between two kinds of democracy, democracy as a form of government, and democracy as an attitude to life. My main concern is the former. I take A. S. Neill as an example of someone who professes a belief in this kind of democracy in an educational context. I seek to show that the kind of educational government which might seem implicit in a commitment to ‘educational democracy’ does not take place at Summerhill and that in any case Neill's writings show him to be opposed to this kind of government. Democratic government in education, I suggest, is in fact sufficiently radical as to be incompatible with compulsory schooling. The second kind of democracy is briefly discussed and it is maintained that this notion can be fully understood only when the basic questions of educational debate have been answered, and thus that it is a mistake to believe that any appeal to it can help answer these questions.