Rethinking democracy and education: towards an education of deliberative citizens

Neo-pragmatism focuses on communication as a democratic form of life. It therefore creates new visions for the relationship between democracy and education. Models for deliberative democracy inspired by neo-pragmatism are explicitly based on the need for education of citizens in deliberative capabilities and attitudes. The idea of deliberative democracy as an educational process is one where individuals bring different perspectives to on-going communication, which is here presented as an important way to interpret John Dewey, specifically his Democracy and Education. This approach to reading his work is compared initially with other and earlier ways of reading his work, i.e., the educational philosophies and movements of progressivism and reconstructionism.