Abstract

Although the word “indoctrination” in the English language originally had a neutral meaning almost equivalent to educative teaching, it gradually assumed the connotations of coercive teaching and became disassociated from the emerging concepts of democratic education. During this century it finally acquired a derogatory connotation similar to propaganda and brainwashing and came to be regarded as the antithesis of education for life in a democracy. McClellan regards indoctrination as a counterfeit of teaching in two crucial senses: While the counterfeit and the genuine forms of teaching share the same properties, they differ in one property that crucially qualifies all the others. Counterfeiting subverts the institution that gives point to the counterfeiting itself. Indoctrination subverts educational institutions in their activity of teaching-andlearning