Longitudinal development of educational theory: democracy and the classroom

Abstract

Presented are six generally accepted attributes of democracy (equality, important knowledge, nature of authority, inclusiveness, participatory decision-making and rights, and a seventh? not normally considered, but one that has been the essence of the democratic dream? an optimum environment for everyone). Students learn to be responsible citizens in situations where they are able to exercise ever increasing power, and in situations where they have very little power, and use both to learn democratic responsibility. Theory was developed over three decades from work in grounded theory. Students and teachers were encouraged to become researchers to generate theory from data. Characteristic of this work has been the application of democratic principles to action research. The ‘subjects’ have been involved in designing programmes and evaluating results and the distinction between subject and researcher, teacher and student, have been deliberately blurred.