Exploring the Democratic Challenges and Potential of Alternative Education

Does an assembly make a school a democratic space? What happens if a participant is not interested? Democracy for innovation or democracy for social transformation? Can a democratic school be neutral and apolitical? These are some of the questions this article will try to discuss by focusing on democratic aspects of alternative educational proposals. Based on an anthropological, ethnographic, and comparative study of three alternative schools and educational projects in Catalonia, this article sheds light on the challenges and contradictions but also the potential hidden behind such initiatives. More specifically, it first explores educational change in Catalonia through time and on the present, stressing its current depoliticization. Then, based on three ethnographic cases from the public, private, and self-organized educational sector, the article draws attention to aspects of decision-making and participation. It is argued that democratic assemblarian processes are important but with limited efficiency toward social transformation if engaging certain profiles and if restricted to the school context only

Toward Discussion Facilitation That Enacts Collective Care. A Response to “Teaching Dobbs Where Divisive Concepts and Abortion Are Restricted”

For both teacher candidates and teacher educators, facilitating discussions of contested issues in hyper-polarized climates remains a heavy lift. This response to “Teaching Dobbs…” celebrates the successes apparent in Geller’s team’s work and identifies key features that supported it. While cautioning readers against adopting avatar rehearsals elsewhere, I distill four themes of planning and enactment that show clear promise for broad transference in teacher education. Drawing from research exploring the interfaces of justice-oriented, practice-based, and democratic social studies scholarship, I offer pedagogical and logistical considerations for other teacher educators and researchers engaged in this ambitious and necessary work to sustain pluralistic democracies and seek justice. Such considerations include topic and question selection; discussion goals and norms oriented around collective trust; approaches to teacher disclosure (sharing); and facilitation choices that consider sociopolitical context in substance and process

Productive Discussion across Political Differences: Understanding Students’ Experiences with Comfort and Discomfort within Structured Discussions of Public Policy Issues

This study investigates the effectiveness of two pedagogical strategies—deliberation and debate—in fostering productive political discussions among high school students, with a focus on overcoming affective polarization. Paying attention to students’ comfort, engagement, and willingness to participate, this study employs a mixed-method approach using data from surveys, observations, and interviews with students participating in a civic immersion program in Washington, DC. Using deliberative theory and the concept of “productive classroom discussion across political differences,” the research explores the extent to how students perceive each strategy as productive, as well as their experiences of comfort and productive and unproductive discomfort. Additional attention was paid to how identity factors such as ideology, gender, race/ethnicity, and social class influence student experiences. Results of the study indicate that deliberations tend to enhance feelings of comfort and mutual respect, while debate garnered more participation and disagreement. We found that negative feelings with debate were often related to productive discomfort. Emphasizing the importance of discussion design in cultivating productive and unproductive discomfort, we provide insight into how teachers can support student engagement in political discourse and offer practical guidance in fostering inclusive learning environments as a means to overcome affective polarization

Learning to Talk and Listen in Elementary Social Studies: Exploring a Third-Grade Teacher’s Decision to Use Classroom Talk for Community Building

With mounting polarization in the political arena and media sources, trust of one’s neighbors and of teachers are facing increasing strain in the United States. Furthermore, teachers continue to struggle with how to teach high-quality, nuanced, social studies, especially in the elementary setting, where time and resources for social studies has been depleting for decades (e.g., Fitchett et al., 2014; Heafner, 2018). Within this context, this study presents a case of a third-grade teacher who chooses to use discursive talk as a way to support high-quality social studies and to build community in her classroom. Findings suggest that classroom talk has the potential to help young children learn to talk and listen when the curriculum provides content support and that talking and listening can help build a classroom of mutual concern. This suggests helping young people learn to talk and listen to one another can help support the kind of open-mindedness and perspective-taking that is missing in a era of polarization

Being in Community with Children and Engaging Their Full Range of Civic Capabilities. A Response to Learning to Talk and Listen in Elementary Social Studies: Exploring a Third-Grade Teacher’s Decision to Use Classroom Talk for Community Building

Early childhood social studies should open opportunities for children to make sense of their social world; the civic question of how we live together is central to the social world. Elementary classrooms are uniquely positioned to support democratic civic education given the amount of time children and adults spend together, the emphasis placed on cultivating a positive classroom community, and children’s capabilities to cultivate relationships full of care and concern for people from outside their close familial relations. In response to Lo’s (2025) examination of a third-grade teacher’s use of discussion to engage in contentious topics while cultivating a sense of mutual concern within her classroom community, I consider how we engage the full range of young children’s civic capabilities and the role of the teacher within the classroom community

A Plea for Deliberation in the Classroom. A Response to Fostering Open-Minded Political Engagement through Online Interscholastic Discussions

This response to “Fostering Open-Minded Political Engagement through Online Interscholastic Discussions” reviews the strengths of the study, highlights the limitations, and discusses the importance of continuing and scaling fostering open-minded political engagement in schools, particularly in middle and high schools. Polarization, both affective and political, is one of the most pressing issues of contemporary civic life, and this study takes this issue head-on and enables students to be thoughtful in their exchanges with diverse others. The authors leverage deliberative democracy theory and educational frameworks to explore how boundary-crossing discussions can enhance students\u27 political open-mindedness and engagement. While the paper contributes valuable insights into the pedagogical possibilities of cross-school discussions, this response offers a critical assessment for further iterations of this study

“You Don’t Have to Tell Them It’s a Lie”: Teaching Social Studies within a Backsliding Democracy

In this essay, the authors posit that democratic backsliding, rather than partisanship, is the prevailing political situation in which civics and social studies teachers are working. The authors then present evidence from focus groups composed of practicing social studies teachers from across the United States to illustrate how the reliance on evidence and argumentation is the primary mode of navigating contemporary political issues. However, while these strategies are built on decades of research in civic education, the authors illustrate a conceptual dilemma: Inquiry strategies may not be able to accommodate the realities of democratic backsliding and its attendant misinformation. The authors propose that reframing inquiries in terms of pro- or anti-democratic stances rather than more traditional liberal-versus-conservative framings could be a potential way forward

Teaching Dobbs Where Divisive Concepts and Abortion Are Restricted: Teacher Learning, Controversial Issues, and Mixed-Reality Technology

Though scholarship has long championed the positive impacts of classroom considerations of controversial or difficult issues, teachers have often hesitated to broach divisive topics for numerous reasons, including legislation purporting to limit controversy in classrooms and, often, that they had limited or no preparation to teach controversies, especially not politically contentious sociopolitical contexts. I worked with a research team to use a mixed-reality teaching simulation of a controversial issue discussion as a low-stakes learning context for developing skills for collective pedagogical reasoning. The teaching simulation centered on Dobbs v. Jackson, the 2022 Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated a constitutional right to abortion. This article presents a qualitative case study of one participating preservice social studies teacher, Cristina. In it, I trace Cristina’s participation in my class and the teaching simulation through her decisions to teach about abortion in her middle school student teaching placement the following semester. Findings suggest that the teaching simulation played an important role in her professional development and learning, facilitating her efforts to discuss abortion in a state with bans on abortion and teaching divisive concepts

“The Domino Effect”: How Early Adolescents Describe Their Capacity for Civic Engagement

This qualitative study explored how 28 early adolescents described their capacity for civic engagement as they participated in a civic education camp in the United States and engaged in action civics inquiry projects about local issues. Focus group interviews revealed that these youth recognized the capacity of people their age to raise awareness and advocate about issues they care about while acknowledging their limits as youth and conceding that adults have advantages of age and power. Participants also described their capacity to take personal responsibility for their actions and efforts and to leverage relationships to influence others. Findings suggest that as youth are given opportunities to discuss areas of personal control and influence while engaging in action civics projects, they may begin to develop civic dispositions and imagine themselves taking collective action as a form of democratic participation

Action Civics as a Powerful Tool—Not a Panacea—in the Provision of High-Quality Civic Education. A Response to “The Domino Effect”: How Early Adolescence Describe their Capacity for Civic Engagement

Action civics happens when young people do research, action, and reflection on social or political issues they care about. In this third decade of the 21st century, action civics is often found in after-school and/or out-of-school contexts, and substantive research now shows its power and potential for providing transformative learning experiences for young people, as is evidenced again in The Domino Effect: How Early Adolescents Describe Their Capacity for Civic Engagement —one of the feature articles of this issue. At the same time, action civics, precisely because it is so often conceived and enacted in out-of-school time spaces, is not, and should not, be considered a panacea for the dearth of school-based opportunities for high-quality civic learning and engagement for students. While recognizing its power and potential, this response article details the problematic of action civics as a panacea to the broader systemic issue of a lack of democratic education today