ENGAGING DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION IN THE NEOLIBERAL AGE

A bstract For the democratic tradition to return to a vanguard position in education requires a thorough exploration of the problems of democratization in education and an inventory of possible new forms. In this essay, Simon Marginson reviews five books concerned with democracy and education: Michael Apple’s Educating the “Right” Way , Denis Carlson’s Leaving Safe Harbors , A. Belden Fields and Walter Feinberg’s Education and Democratic Theory , Trevor Gale and Kathleen Densmore’s Engaging Teachers , and Klas Roth’s Democracy, Education and Citizenship . While these authors imagine democracy in somewhat different ways, they have a common interest in the role of public schooling in the formation of democratic agents and practices. The books do not offer a definitive account of the problems of democratization, nor do they embody a major breakthrough in democratic educational thinking, but they all provide helpful explorations of these issues. Marginson concludes with some thoughts on commodification and neoliberal economism in education, a contemporary focus of discussion in democratic educational circles.