DEMOCRACY, EDUCATION & MULT CB

Publication date:

29 October 1998

Length of book:

310 pages

ISBN-13: 9780847685349

This important book looks at developments that are changing our understanding of the role of education in citizenship and the possibilities of democratic participation. The first chapter reviews theories of citizenship and education based on the classical contributions to political theory of C.B. MacPherson and T.H. Marshall. The second chapter challenges educators to think more politically about education. It is based on a seminal analysis that shows the role education plays in the liberal, neoliberal, and neoconservative state, incorporating critical perspectives from neo-Marxism, postmodernism, and feminism. In chapter three Professor Torres analyzes the transition from the welfare state to the neoliberal state, including the role of international organizations in promoting educational reform and privatization policies. In the concluding chapter Torres draws on Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Kant, Hegel, Marx and other writers such as C. Mouffe and C. Pateman to outline contemporary approaches to multiculturalism in education and citizenship.
Carlos Torres is one of the most perceptive critical scholars in education in the world. This book shows why. He synthesizes an immense amount of theoretical and empirical material and advances new and challenging ways to connect the struggles for democracy with those involving citizenship and multicultural education. This is a work of lasting value. -- Michael W. Apple, John Bascom Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison; author,