Radical democratic schooling on the ground: pedagogical ideals and realities in a Sudbury school

Sudbury schools, which originated in the USA in the 1960s, are radical alternatives to traditional public schooling that promote egalitarian relationships between children and adults. Given that the Sudbury model has been largely overlooked in educational anthropology, this paper presents findings from a 1.5-year critical ethnographic study of a Sudbury school in California. In analysing participant interactions within the school's 'democratic' decision-making group, the paper presents evidence of an informal power structure that privileged older age, male gender and greater experience over youth, female gender and novicehood in determining whose voices wielded power. In doing so, the article provides an illustrative example of how theoretically democratic settings are edited to meet realities on the ground.