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19 - Agonistic Democracy and the Question of Education

from Part Three - Key Topics and Concepts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

By
Gert Biesta
Edited by
Julian Culp ,
Johannes Drerup  and
Douglas Yacek
Julian Culp
Affiliation:
The American University of Paris, France
Johannes Drerup
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
Douglas Yacek
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
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Summary

In many policies for and practices of education for democratic citizenship it is assumed that the democratic community is a community of shared democratic values. On such an account, education has the task of including “newcomers” into this community by ensuring that they adopt and internalize the common democratic values. In this chapter, I discuss the work of two authors, Chantal Mouffe and Jacques Rancière, who both have challenged this understanding of democracy and the democratic community. Both authors highlight the contested (Mouffe) and sporadic (Rancière) nature of the democratic community, thus bringing into view the work done to constitute the political community. They also highlight that this constitution does not happen before democratic politics can take place, but actually is an essential part of it. I provide a reconstruction of Mouffe’s and Rancière’s ideas and explore the implications for education.

Keywords

democracycommunitycivic educationantagonismagonismsocializationsubjectificationMouffeRancière
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Democratic Education , pp. 311 - 327
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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