Democratic Education in an Age of Compliance

Abstract

This chapter explores the tension between the current push for compliance and approaches to education and inclusion that seek to legitimately enfranchise young people. We examine the impact of compliance and audit on educational systems and institutions, and highlight the ways in which these can be counterproductive to the kinds of democratic or transformative educational practices we advocate. The chapter begins with an examination of the compliance agenda in education, looking specifically at the technicisation of teaching and teacher professional learning through regimes of standards and accountability; the standardised testing agenda; and the ‘harmonisation’ of curricular and pedagogical practice that is underway in some jurisdictions.Next, we explore the very concept of ‘democratic education’, asking what this concept means given the constraints of our time and the context of compliance, linking explicitly to student agency and education for active citizenship, and suggesting implications for teaching practices. Finally, we examine how far notions of democratic and transformative education constitute ‘uncomfortable bedfellows’ with compliance and audit agendas, suggesting spaces where effective ‘pushback’ might take place, particularly in relation to teacher education (both pre-service and in-service) and classroom practice. We argue that it is possible for the project of democratic and transformative education to succeed despite the tyranny of compliance that characterises contemporary education.