Abstract

In this timely book David Steiner argues that democratic education should equip citizens to be "the measure of all things." Questioning, criticizing, and reconstructing the language of the day, dissecting the rhetoric of politics, economy, and culture--these are the skills, Steiner contends, needed by those who will one day be the sovereign voices of our society. But this goal is not the focus of current educational reform--which aims at educating "productive citizens"--nor is it encouraged by democratic theorists in colleges and universities. A Theory of Democratic Education is the first work since John Dewey's to provide a model of education focused on the human capacity to judge and construct a well-measured life--a model in which philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy are brought together in a single, over-arching conception.