Populism, democracy and a pedagogy of renewal

Stephen Richard — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 18:53:39 +0000

Primary Author or Creator

Margaret Petrie

Stephen Richard Fri, 09/24/2021 - 19:53

Additional Author(s) / Creators

Callum McGregor, Jim Crowther

Date Published

Thu, 05/23/2019 - 12:00

Category

Education

Democracy

Type of Resource

Academic Paper

Length (Pages, words, minutes etc...)

1mB

Fast Facts

we explore the implications of populism for adult education aimed at defending and extending democratic life. We question the conflation of agonistic democracy with left populism on several grounds, and we consider how a focus on education might help to ground their theory and clarify its ambiguities.

More details

Laclau and Mouffe have long argued the democratic possibilities of ‘left populism’ underpinned by their agonistic critique of liberal democracy. We are currently witnessing the attempted application of their theories by European political parties. However, there remains very little international scholarship taking up the challenge of situating these arguments in the broader literature on the relationship between democracy and education. We argue that this is an urgent task, particularly in the context of populist trends which appear inimical to educational practice. Thus, we explore the implications of populism for adult education aimed at defending and extending democratic life. We question the conflation of agonistic democracy with left populism on several grounds, and we consider how a focus on education might help to ground their theory and clarify its ambiguities. We argue that adult educators can surface aspects of the context which representations of populism on the one hand, and populist representations on the other, often hide. Our argument is illustrated through two vignettes of populist events and the educational problems and opportunities they posed.

International Journal of Lifelong Education, Volume 38, 2019 - Issue 5 Full article behind a paywall

Resource Address (URL)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02601370.2019.1617798

Keywords

Populism

Democracy

Adult education

Language English