Parental rights are the subject of heated deliberation and policy-making in local, state, and national governing bodies. These debates are characterized by powerful disagreements regarding the role of parents, schools, and the interests of children and adolescents. Parents’ rights conflicts, contributing to the polarization and mistrust of public schools more broadly, demand a more nuanced and complex rendering of parenting, particularly as it functions as an ethical domain. In this article, we seek to complicate understandings of parental rights by defining parenting as a practice – a socially recognized activity with normative standards and often associated with moral traditions. We describe parenting as a practice using the example of the education of LGBTQ+ students to explore justifications for, and limitations to parental rights claims. The practice of parenting establishes, and helps safeguard, the parental right to invite their children into their own cultural and religious ways of life. We argue that, while public schools in a liberal democracy should be largely neutral in regards to the varied parenting practices seen in US society, and honor the parental right to invite, these schools must simultaneously be preparing students with an education that enables them to exercise their rights to accept or decline their parents’ cultural norms and roles. Public schools thus should prepare students with an education that enables them, if needed, to exercise a corresponding right to decline the ways of life on offer by parents. While parents are key partners in the process, student’s educational interests are the ultimate focus of a public educational institution.

Local school governance in the U.S. has evolved in structure and influence over the last century. Today, school governance as an accessible, responsive, and effective democratic institution providing high quality educational outcomes relies on specific political and civic conditions in the broader society that are, at present, deteriorating. This multidisciplinary, descriptive-interpretive interview study centers the perspectives of diverse school board members across a range of Ohio districts regarding how they navigated conditions of political and cultural conflict during the 2019–2023 term. Board members’ perspectives reveal strengths of the institution, including the communal stewardship of shared resources and values in raising and educating healthy children. Their experiences of school board service also reveal vulnerabilities of local control governance, including the multiple barriers to board service and functioning in the present political and cultural environment.

In many nations around the globe, including Pakistan, education is losing ground as a public good to become another market-based commodity as the state shrinks its responsibility to schooling. This presents challenges to democratic futures, and particularly for young democratic states such as Pakistan. The government of Pakistan is pouring a significant amount of money into the private provision of education, encouraged by the policies and investments of international donor-partners such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. These changes in educational provision represent the impacts of neoliberalism and globalisation on Pakistani policymaking and the growing influence of the conceptualisation of education as a private commodity. To address these trends, we offer a normative philosophical framework for a conception of education as a critical public good in Pakistan, drawing on Islamic tradition, public good theory, human rights, and common good global education theories.

This chapter provides a rationale for, and outlines of, a democratic ethical framework for defining the moral responsibilities of school leaders working within political conditions of growing inequality, authoritarian state governments, and populist parental-rights movements. Facing these conditions, many leaders are tempted toward a position of liberal neutrality, a (false) removal of politics designed to minimize anger or retribution by parents and legislatures. A democratic, communal ethic orients the responsibilities of the school leader around democratic values, and the educational interests of the students. Moral responsibility requires leaders to embrace liberalism's pluralism but also its strong egalitarianism, by educating students in both the hopeful and the tragic forms of knowledge and shared social existence that constitute the national democratic project.

En este artículo, analizo una muestra de las prácticas educativas actuales en los movimientos populistas educativos de Brasil, Estados Unidos e Israel. Tras un breve examen de estas formas de populismo, que revela tendencias políticas de nacionalismo étnico, ortodoxia religiosa, antisecularismo y autoritarismo, reviso la teoría democrática para interpretar el populismo desde una posición teórica democrática dual: pragmatismo, y teoría democrática crítica o radical. Utilizo reflexiones pragmáticas en la esfera pública (Dewey, 1927; Frega, 2010, 2019), para explicar cómo y por qué emergen colectivos en la dinámica de las instituciones estatales democráticas de educación. Y posteriormente, paso a la teoría democrática radical para analizar la idea de la expresión populista y su función en la política democrática (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2018). En términos pragmáticos, los movimientos populistas son colectivos en potencia, basados en una idea experimentalista de la vida política que incluye asociaciones de grupos en la sociedad civil que generan opinión, acción y desacuerdo en intentos de conformar decisiones en las instituciones estatales. Pero muchos movimientos populistas no llegan a ser colectivos democráticos en la medida en que se caracterizan por reducidos intereses privados, hábitos irreflexivos y prácticas que son antagónicas a la interpelación, la capacidad de respuesta y la deliberación. Como tales, los movimientos populistas amenazan la legitimidad normativa y la estabilidad de las instituciones estatales democráticas liberales de enseñanza. Aunque las versiones minimalistas o menos militantes de populismo son compatibles con, y vehículos importantes para la política educativa, las versiones maximalistas actualmente dominantes perfiladas en este artículo amenazan el proyecto de estado liberal-democrático (Sant, 2020). Las teorías pragmáticas de política democrática y acciones colectivas (Frega, 2019) ofrecen vías para conocer el momento populista, pero contienen significativas implicaciones de rediseño y reforma institucional para su materialización.

In this article, I explore a selection of current scholarship on educational populist movements in Brazil, the U.S., and Israel. After a brief examination of these populist forms, which reveal political trends of ethno-nationalism, religious orthodoxy, anti-secularism, and authoritarianism, I examine democratic theory to understand populism from a dual democratic theoretical positions: pragmatism, and radical or critical democratic theory. I use pragmatist insights into the public sphere (Dewey, 1927; Frega, 2010, 2019), to explain how and why publics emerge in the dynamic of democratic state institutions of schooling. I then turn to radical democratic theory to explain the idea of populist expression and its role in democratic politics (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2018). In pragmatist terms, populist movements are potential publics, relying on an experimentalist idea of political life which includes group associations in civil society which generate feedback, action, and dissent in attempts to shape decisions in state institutions. Yet too many populist movements fail to become democratic publics insofar as they are characterized by narrowed, private interests, unreflective habits, and practices which are antagonistic to inquiry, responsiveness, and deliberation. As such, populist movements threaten the normative legitimacy and stability of liberal democratic state institutions of schooling. While minimalist, or thin versions of popu-lism are compatible with, and important vehicles for educational politics, the presently dominating maximalist versions profiled in this article threaten the liberal-democratic state project (Sant, 2021). Pragmatist theories of democratic politics and publics (Frega, 2019) offer ways to meet the populist moment, but contain significant implications of institutional re-design and reform for their realization.

We examine school governance in populist era, using contemporary readings of pragmatist philosophy. We are in a “populist moment,” a time of uprisings and movements of the demos making political claims (Mouffe, 2018). School officials in the U.S. are subject to an array of political demands in the form of protests and campaigns. We focus on the struggles around critical race theory in K– 12 schools. Glaude (2017) has advocated pragmatism’s use in light of racial revaluing and democratic struggle. Rogers’ work (2009) has highlighted inquiry, founded on contingency, in the face of disagreement and power struggles. These scholars show us educational governance’s dual task in this moment: a revaluing of racialized Others in educational institutions done while simultaneously crafting conditions for deliberative judgment and meaningful policymaking in the face of political contingency. In light of this racial reckoning, we argue that populism presents a democratic irony for educational governance. Racial justice cannot be achieved without populist expression, taking the form of campaigns and persistent nonviolent signals that institutional racism is unacceptable. Yet our populist moment also contributes to the increasing political polarization that makes the conditions for democratic deliberative policymaking more elusive. Deliberative conditions for policymaking and curriculum development in schools are critically necessary for reinventing and reimagining our shared society.

This chapter sets out how the spread of different forms of populist ideas challenges democratic politics when wider engagement in public issues calls for much more informed participation. It points to constructive responses based on Freirean arguments for replacing banking education by problem-posing education, and the application of the organisational power theories of Mary Parker Follett to structure control and authority through cooperation rather than subordination. These are illustrated with practical examples of pedagogy that shares authority, including public sensemaking in high school mathematics that cultivates respect and acknowledgement of one another’s perspectives; expressing civic agency through science education collaboration; and the use of controversial issues discussions designed to give students practice in inclusive deliberation, critical reasoning and explorations of and tolerance for political and other forms of difference

In this study, we employ discourse analysis of US gubernatorial political advertisements to analyze the discursive struggles over the purposes of public schools. The advertisements are analyzed to demonstrate how rhetoric works to shape consent for dominant, human capital views regarding schooling's purposes, as well as to communicate alternative articulations of schooling's purposes which can disrupt that consent. In the latter exploration, we draw upon the approach of public persuasion, where the public is persuaded to deem something other than dominant economic values as relevant for making education decisions. We analyze alternative contextual cues that can shift citizens’ impressions, leading them to weigh conflicting values toward schools differently. We offer narratives that change the meaning citizens make of schools with the aim of building public support for public schools.

What is the role of the public school principal in the contemporary era? As conceived by many in educational policy-making and research today, the duty of the US school leader is to ensure that the district is, above all else, improving student achievement, defined by standards measured by high-stakes test results. Here, I examine and critique this contemporary conventional response to this question, as exemplified by the Wallace Foundation’s work, and sketch an alternative vision based on the principles and practices of democratic leadership traditions. While rarely writing directly about school leadership or the school administrator’s role, John Dewey’s linked notions of democracy, community and citizen participation are, with some updating, sorely needed as a counter to the narrowed conception of the principal role today. School leaders are community leaders, with important inward-facing and outward-facing responsibilities for communicating and building visions for good education with their constituencies inside and outside the school building.

The pandemic resurrected gender as a central categorization of citizenship. COVID-19 reminds us that gender oppression continues in its traditional, materialist formulations to structure our economic, civic, and political lives. Postfeminism has diversified feminist discourses, and at times been used as a temporal claim - the "post" signifying the diminishing need for feminist theory or activism in light of advancements in gender equality. We use postfeminism in a genealogical and critical sense which encompasses the changes in feminisms and enunciates various contradictions that apply to generations of people. The conditions of COVID-1 9 prompt us to analyze what Stephanie Gent aptly names boom and bust postfeminism. This analysis generates two implications for philosophers of education working in areas of gender and political identity.

An article of empirically informed philosophical analysis of charter schooling that features local histories, voices of stakeholders, and an optimistic view on the democratic potential of charter school policies, the original piece presents a compelling, if extreme, case of charter school formation. In this response, I offer an alternative theoretical framing to the case. I argue that the scholarship of constitutional scholars is much less relevant as an interpretive lens on the case than more critical, contemporary pragmatist thinkers. I hope to show in this response how Deweyan political philosophy might have been used throughout the argument to produce a more nuanced and less naïve reading of charter schooling as a venue for creating new public spheres in education beyond traditional public schools. The qualitative study featured in this paper produces a detailed reading of a local charter schooling initiative that is worthy of serious analysis. My response suggests new, more plausible ways to theoretically interpret the rich case offered here. This article is in response to Pendola, A., Mann, B., Marshall, D. T., Bryant, J. (2021). Community Insurgency: Constituency, School Choice, and the Common Good. Democracy & Education, 29(2), Article 1. Available at: http://democracyeducationjournal .org/ home/ vol29/ iss2/ 1. It is refreshing to read empirically informed philosophical analysis of charter schooling that features local histories and voices of stakeholders, as well as an optimistic view on the democratic potential of charter school policies. After a brief overview of the argument, case methods, and analysis used in the piece, I offer an alternative theoretical framing. I will argue that concepts in the work of constitutional scholar Bruce Ackerman and political theorist Carl Schmitt are much less useful and relevant as an interpretive lens on the case than more critical, contemporary pragmatist thinkers. Authors Pendola, Mann, Marshall, and Bryant (2021) end this informative piece with what could be read as a proforma use of a John Dewey quote in the conclusion. I hope to show in this response how Deweyan political philosophy might have been used throughout the argument to produce a more nuanced reading of charter schooling as a venue for creating new public spheres in education beyond traditional public schools. The qualitative study featured in this paper produces a detailed reading of a local charter schooling initiative that is worthy of serious analysis. My response suggests new, more plausible ways to theoretically interpret the rich case offered here. Kathleen Knight Abowitz, a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University, is a scholar of social and philosophical foundations of education. Working with democratic theories of educational aims, governance, and political education, her most recent research appears in Educational Theory, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, and Education and Culture.

This article explores the potential of digital technology to advance democratic citizenship. Drawing on critical theory and following a critical, comparative qualitative study which examined the relationships among digital technology, education, and democracy in the US and Israel, the authors explore epistemological assumptions of teaching and learning with digital tools. The article examines the tension between the promise of digital technology to transform education, and the instrumental hegemony of the neoliberal imperative. At the heart of this article, the authors contend that current teachers’ understanding of using digital technology, and the practices used in classrooms constrain the promotion of digital citizenship. The authors argue that transforming education through digital technology and advancing civic aims require epistemological transformation which will move beyond instrumental understanding of digital tools. They conclude with a recommendation of a theoretical framework for digital citizenship.

In this essay, Kathleen Knight Abowitz and Dan Mamlok consider the arguments for agonist political education in light of a case study based in the events of the 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the subsequent activism of its survivors. We use this case to examine agonist expressions of citizenship, and to present an argument for framing agonist politics through the lens of Deweyan transactional communication combined with the critical concept of articulation. A major lesson in this case is the significance of citizenship learning that prioritizes challenging the political status quo along with working to reestablish new political relations on grounds that are more just. The authors argue that the endgame of agonist-informed political education should be that which helps students, as present and future citizens, reconstruct existing political conditions. Knight Abowitz and Mamlok conclude with suggestions for four domains of knowledge and capacities that can productively shape agonist citizenship education efforts: political education, lived citizenship, critical political literacies, and critical digital literacies.

In this essay, Kip Kline and Kathleen Knight Abowitz use Walker Percy's novel The Moviegoer to examine the existential plight of young Americans today who, as they turn the broad and long corner from youth to adulthood, are engaged in a search for self-knowledge and identity construction. They are particularly interested in the young adult as "college student," engaged in the work of postsecondary education, autonomous from but often still very closely connected to their family of origin in a culture saturated by late-capitalist consumerism and commercial media. Kline and Knight Abowitz interpret this novel in order to examine a malaise specific to our current historical moment that may characterize how young people experience institutions such as U.S. colleges and universities as well as the institution of the contemporary American family. They also wish to show that particular themes in existentialism, which can be teased out in novels such as The Moviegoer, can assist our analysis of the contemporary malaise of the college student and provide theorists, educators, and advocates with possible ways of responding to it.