Educating for Democracy

‘With democracy under attack world-wide, this book could not come at a better time. Civic education has long been seen as a means for restoring commitments to democratic institutions, but when it comes to civic engagement, boosting political participation has always been a difficult nut to crack. Enter school-based participatory budgeting. As an approach to democratic renewal, the power of PB is well-known. As a pedagogy, it holds particular promise. This book offers a much-needed roadmap with dozens of practical how-to examples. Teachers, principals, academics, and policymakers who want to know what school participatory budgeting is and how it can help strengthen democracy should all read this gem of a book.’ -- Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa, Canada ‘Democracy is a highly contested, nebulous and contentious concept. Everyone wants it but we are often focused on, and frustrated, by normative elections as the way to get there, and those elections are fraught with problems, including, ironically, not building a critically-engaged democracy. In Educating for Democracy: The Case for Participatory Budgeting in Schools, Daniel Schugurensky and Tara Bartlett have pulled together a wonderful group of international scholars to highlight the process of building democracy, within citizens, schools and communities. While important, the end-point is not as fundamental as the process, and this book provides significant insight into how participatory budgeting can help us create more engaged and democratic societies. This book can help us start to rethink citizenship education at the local level.’ -- Paul R. Carr, Université du Québec en Outaouais, Canada