Habits of Democracy: A Deweyan Approach to Citizenship Education in America Today

Throughout his works, John Dewey makes deep and intriguing connections between democracy, education, and daily life. His ideas have contributed to both the theory and practice of participatory democracy and, although he actually “had surprisingly little to say about democratic citizenship” directly, his scholarship has influenced the ideas of others working on citizenship education and has provided rich notions of democracy, education, experience, and public life underlying it.1 However, Dewey commentators Michael Eldridge and Robert Westbrook worry that, although Dewey promoted deeper ways of participating in democracy and engaging in social life, he failed to fully explain how to achieve his vision.2 Instead, he ..