It's Not Education that Scares Me, It's the Educators...: Is there Still Hope for Democracy in Education, and Education for Democracy? - Hardcover

Carr, Paul R.; Thésée, Gina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 197550142X ISBN 13: 9781975501426

Publisher: Myers Education Press, 2019

Synopsis

Many people believe that “education” has a disproportionately negative effect on them and those close to them. With so much wealth, technological prowess, innovation, and economic development, why do we still have marginalization, social inequalities, conflict, mass incarceration and generational poverty?

The connection to democracy, Education for Democracy (EfD) and social justice is, for Carr and Thésée, clear, and this volume interweaves a narrative within these themes based on a Freirian theoretical backdrop. This book presents a vision for transformative education and EfD, seeking to cultivate, stimulate and support political and media literacy, critical engagement and a re-conceptualization of what education is, and, importantly, how it can address entrenched, systemic and institutional problems that plague society. Based on over a decade of empirical research in a range of contexts and jurisdictions, the authors strive to link teaching and learning with agency, solidarity, action and transformative change within the conceptual framework of a critically-engaged EfD.

About this title

About the Author:

Paul R. Carr is a Full Professor in the Department of Education at the Université du Québec en Outaouais and the Chair-holder of the UNESCO Chair in Democracy, Global Citizenship and Transformative Education (DCMÉT). He studied for two years in France in the early 1980s, and then undertook the rest of his university studies in Canada in the areas of political science, sociology and education. Professor Carr completed his doctorate in the sociology of education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto in 1996, with his thesis examining anti-racism and institutional culture in education. He is also the co-founder and co-director (along with David Zyngier of Monash University in Australia) of the Global Doing Democracy Research Project (GDDRP), which aims to produce a range of studies on the international level on how democracy and education can be more effectively connected. His current research is broadly concerned with social justice, with specific threads related to democracy, media literacy, peace studies, intercultural relations, the environment and transformational change. He is the co-editor of seventeen books, the author of the Does Your Vote Count?: Democracy and Critical Pedagogy (New York: Peter Lang), published in 2011, and a number of articles, book chapters and other publications in English, French and Spanish. For a number of years, before entering academia, he worked as a Senior Policy Advisor on educational policy in the Ontario Government related to anti-racism, linguistic minority rights, Aboriginal education, special education and other diversity-related matters. Professor Carr is also the author and editor of several books of poetry, including with Cuban poets in bilingual projects.

Review:

Democracy and education are commonly used in public discourse. Yet these two grand words are often regrettably misunderstood. Paul and Gina’s timely book offers fresh and critical perspectives on democracy and education and what they can become, particularly for those who have been historically oppressed. Educators, policymakers, researchers, and avid readers genuinely interested in knowing or at least imagining what education for all might look like in a democratic society should not miss this amazing empirical work! (Pierre W. Orelus, Fairfield University)

“Generation after generation has amassed piles of knowledge and written piles of books,” cries a teacher in Bertolt Brecht’s play The Mother (1931). “And never have we seen such confusion,” he continues. How apt are these words, written almost a century ago, and how timely the topic of Professor Paul R. Carr and Professor Gina Thésée’s book on democracy and its links to education. We desperately need to find the roots for democracy and democratic education anew, and that’s exactly what the authors are looking for. (Juha Suoranta, Tampere University)

Carr and Thésée’s combined talents and life forces pierce our consciousness and awaken our democratic barometers with provocative questions and evoke an urgency to conduct a democratic audit and action plan. During these troubled times, as democracy seemingly (read more) (Suzanne SooHoo, Chapman University)

In their book “It’s not Education that Scares me, it’s the Educators...”: Is There Still Hope for Democracy in Education, and Education for Democracy?, Paul R. Carr & Gina Thésée investigate and analyze the possibilities and hopes for a global transformative and democratic education. Any important transformative education must (read more) (William M. Reynolds, Georgia Southern University)

Against all odds, Carr & Thésée have created a book that offers hope for the potential of democracy in education. Exhibiting a rare balance of critical scholarship, possibility, and readability, they show how teachers are responsible for the kind of transformative education required for authentic democracy and compassionate global citizenship. In re-imagining how (read more) (Four Arrows (Don Trent Jacobs), Fielding Graduate University)

With our fragile democracy under siege, fake news obfuscating truth at every turn, and a newly invigorated White supremacy on brazen display, this book―more than ever―is required reading. A critically engaged and participatory democracy is our only hope for resistance, resilience, and, ultimately, justice. By interrogating (read more) (Marc Spooner, University of Regina)

About this edition

• Publisher: Myers Education Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 197550142X
• ISBN 13: 9781975501426
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 325