Democracy education: A philisophical approach to the development and analysis of a field study

Democracy is not a destination; it is a process composed of major and minor elements, many of which remain disputed due to divergent and antagonistic class, race, and national interests. Some elements of democracy (primarily rights and freedoms) come into being, then fade away or disappear overnight, and then, with struggle and tenacity, return again. Because democracy is not a place where a people can arrive, and because it is the process by which human beings develop community and peace, it must be studied and intensely experimented with in the real-life, real-time human incubator called here and now.;This research investigated the experiences and study that garnered my time and focus over the past 40 years that helped produce the elements of a Democracy Education field of study. The methodology for this research study combined the phenomenological and ethnographic approaches to research, concluding with an evaluation and analysis of Democracy Education.;I use the term, democracy, instead of democratic for two reasons. First, as a noun, democracy is the center and heart of the specie. As an adjective, democracy is a descriptor, an addition to some other phenomenon or object. For the purposes of this research study, I use Democracy Education as the thing itself; it is consistent with the Law in Law School, or the Medical in Medical School. One could look at it as the School of Democracy.;The movement for civil and human rights and peace is, far and away, the best social construct for the study and development of democracy. The movement develops the best researchers and teachers, as well as the most accomplished students. Jack O'Dell calls it the Joy Movement, and he rightfully acknowledges it as the institution or force that guides all other fields of study. This research suggests that public educators can benefit from adopting the pedagogies, methodologies, and strategies and tactics of teaching/learning developed in the movement.;Public education in the United States currently performs the function of molding individuals to oppose democracy. To be clear, since democracy is a process that combines human beings; recognizing their inherent and natural interconnectedness, an institution that molds individuals to act indifferently and even antagonistically to the process is, itself, opposing democracy. This opposition to democracy in public schools is carried out primarily by implementing a pedagogy of hyper-individualism, one that attacks cooperation and community. One of the clearest expressions of the intentful disenfranchisement of youth is that their education doesn't prepare for the effective exercise of their democratic rights.;This research study focuses, in part, on the necessity for education to focus on what Dr. King calls the triplets of injustice: racism, materialism, and militarism (King, 1968). Each of these three injustices derive from and form part of the free market economy. The struggle against slavery and racism, from the first days of the colonization provide elements of democracy. This is true as well of the Native struggle to defend land and culture (and to recapture them). The struggle to end poverty and share the benefits and sacrifices of the nation also adds to the growth of democracy. Clearly, replacing war with peace with justice adds greatly to the process of democracy. This research study also investigates the connection between action and reflection; suggesting that public education consist of reflective action, and active reflection. The effort to reflect without action is weak and anemic. Action without reflection is a sensate reaction likely leading to confusion.;The results of the research conclude that teaching and learning in ways that liberate the mind requires liberating teaching (Illich, 1970). Liberatory teaching means teaching liberation, but it also means liberating the act of teaching from the confines of an antagonistic education system that is antithetical to a formal learning process that unites and adds cohesion among diverse races and different sectors of workers in the effort to construct a more perfect union. The interests of the teacher and those of the learner, as well as the interests of justice and democracy, are served when the relationship between teacher and learner occurs in the context of the struggle for democracy; that is, in the collective emersion in the immediate effort to "be" and "do" for both the self and the common good (Cardenal, 1982).