Decolonizing and re-theorizing radical democratic education

Toward a politics and practice of refusal

Bibliographic Data

ID12928835
AuthorsM Zembylas (0000-0001-6896-7347, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume14
Issue2
Pages157-171
Publication date2022-02-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePower and Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1757-7438 • E-ISSN: 1757-7438
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/17577438211062349
OpenAlexW4213252366
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited41

The aim of this article is twofold: first, it seeks to discuss the relationship between democracy and colonization, and to examine the implications of this relationship for democratic education and, second, it turns to decolonial thinking as a resource for critiquing and reconstructing “radical democratic education.” A decolonial critique offers two crucial insights to radical democratic education that draws on Mouffe’s theory of radical democracy: first, it shows how Mouffe’s theory entails the risk of re-inscribing the hegemony of liberal democratic principles because this theory is insufficiently attentive to the harms caused by dispossessions of colonized peoples, especially the loss of their land and, second, a decolonial critique highlights the role of recent ethico-political movements such as “refusal” in resurrecting and rehabilitating the radical promise of democratic education. These insights have practical implications for those who are rethinking radical democratic education in terms of an expanded notion of democracy encompassing subaltern standpoints

Critical theory · Democracy · Democratic Education · Democratic Theory · Epistemology · Hegemony · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subaltern · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Law · Peace and Human Rights Education · Philosophy

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