Possibilities and limitations of radical democracy in teaching and ESD
Within the research tradition Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), there´s an ongoing discussion about how to apply postmodern and qualitative research in different studies, especially in regard to power and democracy. A lot of research in ESD concerns how to educate pupils for action competence as well as finding best practice concerning Sustainable Development. The aim of this paper is to analyse possibilities and limitations of radical democracy in teaching in a general sense, as well as in a more specific one, in Education for Sustainable Development.
To explore possibilities and limitation of radical democracy in teaching two concepts will be used: consensus and dissensus. These concepts can be seen as two different positions. One might call these positions the discourse of consensus and the discourse of dissensus.
Within discourse of consensus two strategies of managing conflicts will be explored (Honig 1993). The first one, named virtue, tries to abolish conflicts by means of procedure and consensus efforts. The second strategy, named virtú, allows and even encourages conflicts. But both strategies, I will argue, is within the discourse of consensus which in a sense diminish possibilities of democracy in teaching. We could say that teaching is still in the hegemony of consensus.
The discourse of dissensus can be seen as a more radical position of democracy. The concept dissensus is developed by the philosopher Jacques Ranciére. His complex and radical view of democracy will not be explored in this paper. Instead the concept dissensus will be scrutinized in relation to consensus trying to find possibilities and limitation of teaching. Dissensus might mean a step beyond the hegemony of consensus, if that is possible.
The text ends with some concluding implications saying that democracy in teaching has its limitations which should be considered in teaching in general and more specific in Education for Sustainable Development.
2010.
"Active citizenship" NERA`s 38th Congress, Malmö, Sweden, 11-13 March, 2010