The time frame of this article covers the Portuguese transition to democracy in the 1970s until the 1990s, when democratic institutions operated fully. The focus lies on the way in which changes in the conceptualization of nature and society and their mutual relationship were reflected in secondary education textbooks. We explore whether and how…

Drawing upon the African concept of "ubuntu," this article examines the epistemic orientations toward individual-society relations that inform democratic citizenship and identity in South Africa. Findings from focus group interviews conducted with 50 Xhosa teachers from all seven primary and intermediate schools in a township outside…

"Elitism" is frequently invoked among the pantheon of "isms" actively to be disavowed. Indeed the charge of elitism often takes the form of reiteration, of identifying yet another manifestation of adherence to traditional standards steeped in discrimination by sex, race, and class, this time in their institutional guises in the merit credited to…

In this paper, the authors discuss the influence of democracy and law on music education in Sweden and Finland, and the potential for music education as training in democracy. The latter consideration can be instructive regardless of the nation, or its laws and paradigms of music education. The theoretical background is based on Jurgen Habermas'…

Many so-called traditionalist musicologists and music educators would agree that one of the aims of education in democratic society should be to assist students, regardless of gender, class, ethnicity, or culture, and to the extent that it is possible, to construct their own musical and other differences free from excessive coercion. However,…

Liberal education and liberal society are both being transformed into their opposites as the utopian project of diversity, multiculturalism, and group equality continues apace. Taking Allan Bloom as a guide, Carol Iannone explains the way in which American democracy was meant to work and how education was meant to function within it. Iannone…