Review of Research in

Education
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Education, Democracy, and the Public Good

Kathryn M. Borman, Arnold B. Danzig and David R. Garcia
REVIEW OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION 2012 36: vii
DOI: 10.3102/0091732X11424100
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Introduction
Education, Democracy, and the Public Good
Kathryn M. Borman
University of South Florida

Arnold B. Danzig
David R. Garcia
Arizona State University

To be interested in the public good we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our
personal selves are wrapped up.
George H. Mead
It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them
all subservient to the public good.
James Madison, The Federalist No. 10
(as cited in Bozeman, 2007, p. 1).

n the second decade of the 21st century, the world in general and schools in particular are becoming more diverse. All around us, the percentages of students from
different ethnic and racial backgrounds are increasing. At the same time, social and
economic inequalities are on the rise along with civil disturbances and alienated
youth. In addition, the relationships between schooling, democracy, and citizenship
are being reshaped as interpersonal relationships are created and sustained beyond
the intimacy of face-to-face communication. Skype, Twitter, Facebook, and other
new ways of communicating allow people to connect to one another in ways not
possible only a few years ago. These new modes of communication not only open
new horizons by allowing people to connect across great distances, but they also create new challenges for schools and for social cohesion. As new information becomes
available and students look to new sources for inspiration, schools must also change
Review of Research in Education
March 2012, Vol. 36, pp. vii-xxi
DOI: 10.3102/0091732X11424100
2012 AERA. http://rre.aera.net

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viiiReview of Research in Education, 36

in response. Educators themselves need to become boundary crossers in order to

understand and nurture the strengths that a new generation brings to their experiences in school, at home, and as global citizens.
These ongoing changes mean that stories and narratives are being written, for people all over the world, and these changes even call into question who is represented in
the public good. Finkelstein (in press) argues that individual locations worldwide
are transforming and that through stories, narratives, and oral and ethnohistories, it
is possible to capture these new dramas and social identities. Schools are places where
these new narratives play out on a daily basis. Ideally, schools, as the sites of formal
education, are also the places where students are afforded meaningful opportunities
to belong, aspire, contribute, grow, and inspire others.
With these demographic, social, and educational changes as a backdrop, the purpose of this volume of Review of Research in Education is to present new research
that explores the varied intersections between Education, Democracy, and the Public
Good. It is intended to give readers a broader perspective on how the three constructs
are interconnected and applied in the United States and in other countries around
the world. By examining the theme in multiple contexts and through diverse lenses,
the chapters provide a deeper understanding of the many ways that education and
schools serve the public good, where the public good is used throughout the volume as a unifying concept to express purposes beyond individual self-interest in order
to encompass those that serve greater public purposes.
For our part, in addition to bringing together the esteemed authors who contributed to the volume, we extricate the major themes that arise in our minds from our
reading through the chapters. The introduction is intended only as a guide for the
reader and not a directive. We invite readers to experience the volumes content for
themselves.
Democratic Deliberation, Citizenship,
and the Public Good
One theme that is addressed in multiple ways across the chapters in the volume
concerns the various terms often associated with the public goodfor example, the
common good, the public interest, and public values. One key to defining the public
good according to Feinberg (Chapter 1) is the proposition that the public good is a
collective reflection on values held in common, which makes them public values as
opposed to common values. In this view, a commitment to the public good requires
democratic deliberationopen and rationale debate in which citizens consider the
ideas presented by others.
In defining the public good, various chapters raise concerns for how various
communities identify a shared (i.e., public) good. One approach taken is to hold
ones narrower public interest up to scrutiny of the wider community where alternatives are deliberated, social consequences are tested, and the most widely values of
a shared public good are identified. Rogers et al. (Chapter 3), for example, explain

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodix

how new communities of learners engage in public debates over what it means to
participate actively and meaningfully in a democracy. In their explanation, democracy requires recognition of common interests, and this recognition comes through
discussion and publicity. Democracy also requires that individuals come to public
deliberation with an open mind. If people are predisposed in advance, the opportunity for democratic deliberation breaks down and the system becomes ideologically
driven. Instead, conflicting interests must be brought into the open to be discussed
and evaluated. This process requires holding suppositions open to public scrutiny
and public deliberation.
At issue is how people learn to act as citizens in a democracy. This specific concern
is considered by Fischman and Haas (Chapter 8), who explore the notion of citizenship as embodied cognition (Lakoff, 2002). According to the authors, embodied cognition points to the deeply embedded and unconscious ways that people come to see,
understand, and represent citizenship and the ways schools contribute to these definitions through citizenship education. In their view, people are not born good citizens
but learn to be good citizens in school and in other settings (i.e., family). Learning
to be a good citizen, however, requires learning to manage the various tensions of
citizenship, tensions among egalitarian aims, and unequal outcomes. People understand and construct self-interest through unconscious and automatic subjectivities.
As a result, directed instruction alone will never carry the day, and instead, the deep
learning required of citizens in a democracy occurs through metaphor and prototypes. Education then provides access to the very language and thought required for
democratic deliberation of the public good and reveals the importance of schooling
to achieve these understandings.
Democratic deliberation involves cooperative inquiry; it does not equal an aggregative approach to the public good or one in which special interests dominate.
Rather, deliberative democracy holds promise for developing alternatives to market
failure and economic individualism. Bozeman (2007) points out that
democracy was . . . a powerful method of problem solving, one that possessed an informal logic of inquiry
that must sound quite familiar to contemporary observers and advocates of public dispute resolution
methods and techniques. (p. 110)

The importance of democratic deliberation, for understanding how education

contributes to democracy and the public good, is captured in the new scholarship in
this volume on charter schools, neighborhood effects, social cohesion, social justice
curricula, forms of direct democracy (e.g., ballot initiatives), and achievement gaps
among ethnic groups. The chapters provide concrete examples of the complexity of
education practice and the difficulties encountered in defining and achieving the
public good. They also illustrate how the public good is less well understood by a
vague ambiguousness and better understood by the recognition that it can be represented via multiple meanings.

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xReview of Research in Education, 36

The Private Sphere and the Public Good

Multiple chapters in this volume emphasize the public sphere and how schools and
other educational settings contribute to the public good. The chapters also consider
how the personal or private sphere contributes to a greater good. This view points to
multiple ways in which people form community connections, one of which is through
religious participation. Historically, there are many examples of religious groups who
look inwardly to look back outside to a vision of public action and the public good (e.g.,
the antichild labor movement of the 19th century, the civil rights movement, AIDS
activism) examples that draw from religious communities (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan,
Swidler, & Tipton, 1996; Putnam, 2000, Putnam & Campbell, 2010). Putnam (2000)
characterizes the accumulated efforts of ecumenical religious organizations that look
outward and encompass people from across different social and economic divisions as
bridging social capital, a lubricant of sorts that eases social connections by forming weak
ties that link people and communities who normally move in different circles.
The way in which religion brings people together and contributes to democracy
is examined by Fischer, Hotam, and Wexler (Chapter 11) who ask, what it means to
think about democracy and education within society, culture and religion (p. 262).
Their case study of politics and religion in Israeli society focuses on contemporary
religious Zionism and challenges the notion that a return to religion is synonymous
with a return to fundamentalism. Instead they argue for a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which democratic self-expression, authenticity, and freedom
of the self are located in religious understandings that are different from religious
orthodoxy. The commitments to religion are drawn from a democratic character that
is rooted in communitarian (as opposed to liberal) democracy. The case study argues
that religious Zionist democracy is not a democracy of isolated, atomized individuals each jealously guarding his/her rights. Rather, it anchors democracy in participation in the community, in the cosmos and in God (p. 272). The downside of this
conception of democracy, however, is that it is acceptably exclusionary. The authors
point out that historically, exclusion has not always been the case and that a democracy of interconnectedness is still possible, especially as pedagogy of personal expression is embraced, one that involves educational and religious choice for teachers and
students and that nurtures self-expression, freedom, autonomy, and authenticity in
the educational process. Their case study points to new directions for democratic
schooling in which learners are not alienated from one another and which rejects the
exclusion of others in the name of community and collective self-hood.
Fox, Buchanan, Eckes, and Basford (Chapter 12) raise similar concerns by exploring niche charter schools with enthnocentric cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or philosophic orientations. These schools adopt language, religious, and cultural programs,
while trying to avoid running afoul of church and state separation. Are these schools
best understood as exclusionary and sectarian? Should they be eligible for public
funding? Do they contribute to the public good? Fox et al. propose that these more

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodxi

ethnocentric schools are better able to accommodate cultural values and beliefs, and
possibly religious practices as well. They can protect children from negative assimilation, marginalization, and risks associated with low achievement.
Reflection and Learning in a Democratic Community
The research reported in this volume illustrates how learning is built on the foundation of democratic community that contributes to the public good. Multiple case
studies describe educational settings in which priority is given to (a) open inquiry and
free interplay of ideas, (b) commitments in which members work for the common
good, (c) environments that respect the rights of all including the least powerful, and
(d) changes to school structures, processes, and curricula. Democratic community
emphasizes reciprocal (as opposed to hierarchical) relationships among community
members, in which authority is understood as authoring oneself rather than directing
others as to what to do. In democratic settings, learners are best served when they
control the conditions of their own learning.
The idea of learning in a democratic community draws from the work of John
Dewey (1916, 1938). Deweys vision for democracy viewed the ordinary individual
as capable of participating in the economic and political decisions that determined
their fates (Robertson, 1992; Minteer, 2006; Schubert, 2009). Dewey (1933) proposed that people learn by holding their experiences up to experimental scrutiny
and that civic capacity is enhanced as people deliberate, take action, and reflect on
their actions. Rogers (2002) adds that democratic participation is enhanced through
reflection because
Reflection is meaning makingit moves the learner to a deeper understanding of
experience and its relationship with and connections to other experiences and ideas.
Reflection is a systemic, rigorous, and disciplined way of thinking, with roots in
scientific inquiry.
Reflection is part of a community of learners, understood in interaction with others.
Reflection is an attitude that values the personal and intellectual growth of oneself
and others. (Rogers, 2002, p. 845)
Reflection as Meaning Making
Researchers indicate they stand on the shoulders of giants to imply that understanding is built around social consensus and that learning from one source is applied
in subsequent situations. Chess players gain expertise from the experiences of others,
studying thousands of unique situations, which are then recalled and applied in new
circumstances. Real-world actions are also context bound, and every situation has
unique qualities, which must be considered to take action. Experience, by itself, is
not enough; actions can become routinized or actors can become cynical. The goal
of reflection is to learn what to take away from experience. Reflective practitioners

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xiiReview of Research in Education, 36

learn from experience by connecting their individual and personal experiences with
deeper and more extended considerations that are raised by knowledgeable others.
According to Rogers (2002), The creation of meaning out of experience is at the
very heart of what it means to be human. It enables us to make sense of and attribute
values to the events of our lives (p. 848).
Reflection as a Rigorous Way of Thinking
Reflection is more than stream of consciousness or simply believing that something
is the case; it is systematic and disciplined (Dewey, 1933; Rogers, 2002). Reflection
bridges one experience to the next by moving a practitioner from a state of questioning (perplexity) to a more settled state, when the implications of experiences are not
yet fully established. This process involves a certain amount of curiosity, which opens
up the possibility of new learning.
Reflection as Part of a Community of Learners
Reflection connects everyday experiences into theories of action and links individual moral action to societal change and the public good. In this view, reflection
occurs within a community and is accomplished in collaboration with others. Taylor,
Rudolf, and Goldy (2008) identify three core stages in how people learn to be more
reflective in practice: (a) understanding the social construction of reality, (b) recognizing ones contribution to that construction, and (c) taking action to reshape that
construction (p. 659). Reflection suggests that internal perceptions shape how external reality is viewed and that inner thoughts and prior experiences shape how people
define situations and make inferences.
The three stages are not separate from one another, and there is interplay among
them (Taylor et al., 2008). Recognizing the social construction of reality involves
unpacking the multiple points of view and contexts of an event. Looking at ones
individual perspective entails a more detailed explanation for how things happen in
the world and slows down premature interpretation for why things happen. Taking
action requires a reframing of an event in ways that alter ones previous construction
of events based on new information and evidence. Ultimately, reflection is a tool for
connecting individual experience to the community of practice and facilitates learning from experience.
Civic Pragmatism and Application of the Public Good
John Dewey (1916) points to civic pragmatism as a method of democratic social
inquiry that achieves social consensus and the agreement to view the world in a
particular way at a particular point in time. Pragmatism combines the idea of public
good and its practical applicationthat is, the public good in action (Bozeman,
2007). The research in this volume supports the view that the public good is understood through the workings of social inquiry and citizen-engaged discussion and

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodxiii

accomplished through democratic deliberation. Education, citizenship, and the public good are not associated with specific interest groups, and the state is more than an
umpire among competing interests. Rather, the public good is a political construct
where in the presence of disputes and disagreements, all parties must learn! The educational potential of democracy is to broaden interests and improve intellectual and
communicative skills.
For some people, participation in democratic processes enables them to discover
and develop their public dimensions, by providing the kinds of interactions that
develop capacities for autonomous judgments. This is one of the themes presented in
the chapter by Rogers, Mediratta, and Shah (Chapter 3), who argue that when youth
engage civically, they are more likely to participate civically as adults. They point out
that youth organizing often focuses broadly on social injustices, often highlighting
racial oppression. These students are then empowered by relating personal experiences within broader patterns of inequality.
Mickelson and Nkomos (Chapter 9) examination of integrated schooling and
social cohesion concludes with an argument for the importance of schooling in the
development of key social building blocks for a cohesive, multiethnic society. They
report that the preponderance of social and behavioral science research finds that
a positive relationship exists between attending schools with diverse peers and life
course outcomes consistent with social inclusion in democratic, multiethnic societies.
This is less of an economic argument for the benefits of integrated school and social
cohesion and more the case that when many people share a particular good, there are
good reasons to sustain it.
Hogrebe and Tate (Chapter 4) offer the geographic information system (GIS) as
an underused but timely and powerful tool to inform legislators, citizens, and other
stakeholders about important social issues such as segregation, fiscal inequality, and
sprawl. They argue for the use of GIS to develop visual political literacy projects
that can help communities learn while supporting civic engagement. They make a
strong argument through a review of related research that visual images facilitate the
comprehension and retention of complex social arrangements, and visual representations, such as maps, are a useful source of information to facilitate civic debates about
regional development issues. One type of GIS in particular, participatory GIS or
community-based GIS, holds promise to empower historically disempowered people
and communities, by empowering grassroots organizations to participate effectively
in planning and policymaking decisions.
One must remain cognizant, however, that not all racial/ethnic groups fare equally
under a democracy. Bedolla (Chapter 2) describes the uneven treatment of direct
democracy for Latinos, the largest and fastest growing minority community in the
United States. She argues that the disparities in academic opportunities, the low levels of educational achievement, and the lack of civic learning opportunities in public
schools are all associated with low levels of Latino civic engagement. Thus, even
though choice through direct democracy is intended to provide an opportunity for

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xivReview of Research in Education, 36

the populous to make policy decisions on their own behalf, there remains a disjoint
between public policies that govern Latino communities and the lived experiences of
Latinos themselves.
As a whole, the authors in this volume argue for the capacities of the common
man and in the enabling power of education provide an antidote to those with less
hopeful views. Deweys (1916) view of the public interest is that it is not an absolute,
universal, or ahistorical good. Conflict is not ignored in this view; rather, deliberation
and democratic social inquiry can promote the discovery of new courses of action
and reveal underlying shared interests. In Deweys view, the process could result in
the transformation of the underlying conditions that produced such conflict among
individuals and groups, making it possible for a common political culture to be established and maintained (Bozeman, 2007; Dewey, 1916).
Choice and the Challenges of Individualism
Policymakers continue to use choice as a governance strategy by placing decisions of considerable consequence in the hands of parents and the electorate. Among
policymakers, school choice provisions for parents are often regarded as a universally
positive feature of public policy that garners bipartisan support. The potential pitfalls of choice as a potentially divisive force are interwoven throughout the volume.
Many of the authors, through the course of contemplating the intersection between
Education, Democracy, and the Public Good from different perspectives, arrive at a
common point; choice will continue as a dominant policy strategy and, as such, will
continue to reveal the tensions between individualism and collectivism. How society
responds to choice will shape the contours of democracy and how well the public
good is served.
Glass and Rud (Chapter 5) provide a starting point by defining individualism as
the freedom from interference by any group or organization, including government,
in the quest to achieve his or her own goals. Individuals are to be protected from obligations imposed by the state (p. 96). When policymakers follow individualistic principles and allow parents to chart the education course for their own children, they
shift public education from government-provided schools to government-funded
and privately provided schools, abdicating the states responsibility to provide quality
educational settings and rendering government to the more limited role of regulating
education. Once the state provides parents with school choice options and parents
make their choice, parents themselves become responsible for the consequences of
their choices (Hursch, 2007), despite the confusing information provided to parents via accountability polices (Garcia, 2011). Individualism as applied to electoral
choices creates a tension between voting based on self-interest and voting based on
collective welfare. The concern is the extent to which the voting public can move
beyond self-interest and support education and social policies that benefit other peoples children. The alkali of individualism is the inability to look beyond self-interest
to understand, even appreciate, the social purpose of organizations that do not serve

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodxv

ones personal self-interest, a transcendent quality that is central to promoting community in a democratic society.
When choice promotes individualism, the threat exists that self-interest can
trump the public good, and a pressing question throughout many of the chapters is
where and how can the collective shape educational policy? With regard to policy,
the collective can be understood as a shared common good of citizens, comprising a
recognizable political community. In this view, education policy promotes the public
good if and only if (a) people share it (b) by virtue of their role as a member of the
public and (c) can be best or only promoted by concerted public action. The public
good then comes from shared public roles and requires deliberate and coordinated
collective action to accomplish (Bozeman, 2007, p. 103).
For some, populist forms of direct democracy, such as ballot initiatives, are one
way in which the collective can become engaged because policy choices are decided
by those most affected by the outcomes. Ballot initiatives have also become a popular
option for legislators, who may prefer to send controversial initiatives to the ballot
and avoid the public backlash of an unpopular vote, and for frustrated citizens, who
would rather take initiatives into their own hands rather than work through legislative bodies that can be perceived as detached from the concerns of everyday people.
Ballot initiatives, however, are often complex, and the provisions contained therein
can be more radical than if the policy had been debated and compromised through
more representative forms of democracy.
Moses and Saenz (Chapter 6) target an overlooked consequence of direct democracy; education ballot initiatives often affect minority populations, yet they are
decided by majority rule. They raise concerns about the ballot initiative process and
whether seemingly democratic referenda truly serve the public good. They question
if important public values such as affirmative action policies can be trusted to a voting process in which self-interest and manipulated information are the predominant
modes of deliberation. They conclude that ballot initiatives related to issues of civil
rights for minority populations serve to degrade the democratic ideal, and consequently the public good (p. 126), and they call on researchers to provide expert
information to inform citizen decision making.
Furthermore, choice is often associated with markets and consumer behavior.
Sandlin, Burdick, and Norris (Chapter 7) examine the ideology of consumerism as
an additional challenge to democracy because citizens are redefined as consumers and
traditional democratic forms of civic participation are eroded to hollow expressions
of consumption. Consumerism furthers individualism through encouraging market
behaviors, and society becomes reduced to a collection of individuals meeting their
own needs and desires, connected only by the common consumption of like products. Commercialism in public schools can lead to miseducation and threaten the
sustainability of a democratic society by replacing human values with market values,
and school marketing promotes impulsive behavior over the sustained ability to think
critically about complex issues.

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xviReview of Research in Education, 36

Many of the authors identify the importance of a community conversation in the

maintenance of a deliberate democracy. This point is summarized well by Feinberg
(Chapter 1), who reminds us that the notion of acting as a collective requires a conversation between strangers and should not be confused with the collective behavior
of individuals acting on their own interests. The public is more than the sum of
individuals but requires rational deliberation about a common fate (p. 4). Like
other authors throughout the volume, Feinberg uses choice to articulate his arguments. He contends that vouchers are supported on the idea that it is appropriate to
transfer public funds to private purposes because the education of ones child benefits
others, a neighborhood effect. The benefits are individualistic, however, and are not
based on the shared value that allowing parents to use vouchers to choose schools
for their individual preferences is beneficial to the community as a whole. In other
words, there is no public discourse or reflection leading to a shared judgment on the
purposes and ends of public education.
Feinberg identifies the goal of public schools as renewing a public by providing the young with the skills, dispositions and perspectives required to engage with
strangers about their shared interests and common fate and to contribute to shaping
it (p. 1). Yet choice policies present a direct challenge to the opportunity for students
to attend schools with students of different backgrounds and to learn from a diversity
of opinions. Segregation is a detrimental byproduct of choice policies as students of
similar demographic backgrounds are likely to self-congregate in schools of choice
(Garcia, 2008). Fox et al. (Chapter 12) chronicle one extreme example, culturally
focused niche charter schools, which are unique educational spaces made possible
through the expansion of charter school policies. The expressed mission of niche
charter schools is to preserve language and/or cultural ties while serving the needs of
special interest groups. The limited missions of niche charter schools attract homogenous student bodies.
Finally, to the extent that choice policies remain a fixture of public policy, individuals will be compelled to not only fend for themselves but to suffer the consequences
of their decisions. These high stakes will accrue without the benefit of public forums
where citizens can debate, be held accountable for their opinions, and find mutual
solutions that benefit all segments of society. Instead, public policies will be decided
by citizens who express their preferences through individualistic and shielded venues,
such as the secrecy of the ballot box or voting with your feet along with a group of
like-minded friends. Then, one can look toward demographic trends to understand
the complexity of the challenges that lie ahead, particularly for the United States.
Here, we return to Glass and Rud, who point out a stark reality: The demographic
majority of today is not the demographic majority of tomorrow. In the United States,
the current demographic reality allows a wealthier, older, White majority to impose
their policy preferences over those of a burgeoning, young, and brown populace.
There exists the legitimate fear of tyranny of the majority and the possibility of future
civil discord as the tables are turned over time. As these many challenges to our sense

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodxvii

of collectivism take hold, there is a pressing need for public education to stimulate cross-generational, cross-racial, community conversations to shape our collective
notions of democracy and what it means to serve the public good.
Orientation to the Volume and Brief
Overview of the Chapters
Overview
The volume is divided into three sections based on common themes.
Schooling, Inequality, and Commitment to the Public Good
The chapters in this section focus on inequality in schooling and how inequality and social inequity affect the public good. The section opens with Feinbergs
thoughtful treatment of how the public good is distinct from the common good.
As mentioned above, Feinberg argues that public schools and an education policy
committed to the public schools shape public rationality and a commitment to a
common public identity. Feinberg discusses the encyclopedic consideration of racism and sexual harassment to make the case that reflection on common values makes
them public values.
Bedollas research on educational attainment and Latino civic engagement provides a human face on issues of social cohesion and participation in a democratic
society. Bedolla discusses how despite being the fastest growing group of citizens in
the United States, Latino students and families are still drastically underserved by
public schools. The chapter highlights the major problems that English-language
learners face in public schools, in part because of budget issues and ballot initiatives
that influence the quality of education that Latino students receive. She highlights
a central problem: If one of the purposes of public schooling is to develop an educated citizenry, then public schools are failing a fast growing minority group that will
occupy a prominent place in the American electorate in years to come. Improving
preschool opportunities, changing second-language education, and authorizing the
DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act are a few of
the suggestions for combating alienation and enabling Latinos to contribute to the
public good in a manner commensurate with their growing demographic numbers.
Rogers, Mediratta, and Shah explore how through youth organizing, minority
youth can engage civically and learn democracy in their own right. Historically, the
experience of minority and low socioeconomic status students in the United States
has resulted in an unequal distribution of opportunities for learning and practicing civic engagement. Youth organizing is a promising method for young people
to practice politics and get involved, hopefully establishing civic habits that remain
throughout their lives. One of the benefits of youth organizing for public education
is that it encourages the most vulnerable community members to engage with policymakers. As a result, voices that are often left out of the education policy debate, such

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xviiiReview of Research in Education, 36

as students with low grades or discipline problems, are included in the conversation,
subsequently affecting policy.
Hogrebe and Tates research examines the tremendous potential of GIS tools to
influence education and health policy. GIS allows people to visually engage the results
of policy decisions and to hold controversial issues such as segregation in public schools
up to the light of public scrutiny. Three broad categories of approaches to GIS in education are highlighted in their research: (a) desktop software, which allows for great
flexibility in overlapping information; (b) GIS Internet applications, which can be used
to visualize location of relationships on a website; and (c) K12 curricular applications,
which are used to help develop spatial thinking. The major uses of GIS are discussed
in terms of a new visual framework for seeing relationships among variables, which,
because of their physical proximity, allow for a better understanding of and reduction in
social inequity. The authors demonstrate how GIS can empower grassroots organizations to participate effectively in planning and policymaking decisions.
Individualism, Self-Interest, and the Public Good
The uniting subtheme of this section is an exploration of the circumstances,
opportunities, rationales, and motivations for moving from self-interest toward
greater democratic participation and contribution to the public good. This section
addresses concepts such as individualism, self-interest, consumerism, and the consequences associated with how these concepts play out in different public settings.
Conversely, the authors explore counter concepts such as communitarianism, democratic participation, voter participation, and the meaning of citizenship. In general,
the chapters point to the rising of individualism and the challenges it presents for
advancing the collective or public good.
Glass and Rud define the contours of individualism, and on the support of a wellreasoned analysis of U.S. demographic data, they bring to light the tensions between
the pursuit of individual interests and demographic realities. They raise the alarm
that current education policies advance the interests of todays voting majority. These
policies serve the needs of older, White voters, who are less willing or unwilling to
pay for the adequate education of racial/ethnic minority children in public schools,
and may create conflicts in the future as the young, growing Latino population enters
into political maturity. The authors raise the question whether self-interest and individualism will override consideration for a greater good of the community, that is,
the public good.
Moses and Saenz point out that ballot initiatives, typically thought of as a form
of direct democracy that engages citizens in a democratic process, can also trample
on minority rights and constrain the democratic process. The history of ballot initiatives points to manipulations, confusions, and unequal access to information. These
actions can represent a hijacking of the democratic process. Their analysis leads the
authors to suggest that the policy outcomes of the ballot initiatives related to the
rights of minority groups (e.g., affirmative action and desegregation) are too risky to

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodxix

leave in the hands of the public at large, whose interests can be manipulated through
political pandering.
Sandlin, Burdick, and Norris suggest that the rise of the ideology of consumerism,
delivered through the ubiquitous commercial settings that surround us daily, encourages consumption as a primary source of well-being. The authors challenge some
widely held popular ideas that some consumer behaviors contribute to the public
good, when, in fact, these activities serve to erode the public sphere. Alternatively,
they argue for a more critical examination of how the private sphere contributes to
the public good. In particular, the authors suggest that school commercialism has
become an insidious element of this process, bringing consumer culture into schools
and shifting public education to a dystopian commercial venture that stands in opposition to what Dewey envisioned as the role of public schools in a democratic society.
Finally, Fischman and Haas challenge the idealistic perspectives of how citizenship education is delivered in schools settings in an era of quickly transforming
and global societies. They review the historical perspective that undergirds the notion
of citizenship as the development of socially acceptable relationships between individuals and the nation-state, including who is allowed membership and the prominent place of schools in promulgating bounded forms of citizenship education. They
advance the theory that one learns through metaphors and prototypes and that, as
such, notions of citizenship are more fluid and better understood via the lens of
embodied cognition. They use the nation as family as a metaphor to reconsider
issues of democratic governance and the relationship between schooling and citizenship. They argue that using embodied cognition is a more realistic framework from
which to consider how students construct their subjectivities and that citizen education should link democratic activities to the lived experiences of students in and
outside of formal school settings.
Social Justice and the Public Good in Cultural, Ethnic,
and Religious Educational Settings
The chapters in the final section of the volume explore a common concern with
the changing borders of schools and communities and how different types of schools
and school settings can contribute to the public good. The chapters also focus attention on a variety of civic skirmishes that have arisen in different locations and contexts. The chapters consider issues related to access, institutional variation, and patterns of belief and behavior. Collectively, they regard schools and communities as
places with unprecedented diversity. They also attest to cultural congestion, where
the contours of community life and bonds of affiliations are continually subject to
negotiation. In these locations, designations of insiders and outsiders are explicit and
fluid; time-honored habits of heart, mind, and association are deeply challenged. In
these communities, new institutional forms are proliferating, and traditional beliefs
and social practices are at risk.
Mickelson and Nkomo provide a detailed review of research on social cohesion
in multiethnic democratic societies. Their evidentiary review finds that integrated

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xxReview of Research in Education, 36

education is positively related to several worthwhile social outcomes, such as K12

school performance, acceptance of cultural differences, and lower rates of racial prejudice. The more general theme is that diverse education is an important building
block of a cohesive democratic society.
Hill et al.s chapter defines justice in terms that include not only the overall distribution of inputs and outcomes but also what happens within educational settings
that contribute to well-being and an overall relational justice. The authors look at the
relationships experienced by students (and perhaps teachers) in schools and consider
how these issues are connected to issues of race, class, culture, language, HIV status, marginalization, and so on. Specifically, they discuss how South African schools
might better serve the public good from both a distributed justice and a relational
justice perspective. The authors conclude that citizenship is deeply related to everyday experiences and applications of distributed and relational justice/access for children. In essence, one cannot have a public good unless the idea of including the entire
public is addressed.
Fischer, Hotam, and Wexler contend that education, citizenship, and religion are
not necessarily at odds with one another. They propose that religion provides opportunities to cultivate the self and participation in a public good. The challenge is
how to create a language of educational practice, which is not exclusionary or oppressive to outsiders and those considered to be the other. The importance of education
in cultivating a rational, sensitive, and ethical human being committed to the public
good gets new importance in this iteration.
Fox, Buchanan, Eckes, and Basford explore some of the legal basis and differences
between religious and cultural schools. They examine niche charter schools, which
are sanctioned by law and straddle constitutional lines through the use of academic
materials with religious content and school practices that afford opportunities for
religious activities. The authors use a case study approach, with a focus on Hawaiian
Charter schools and a charter school serving Somali students in the United States, to
present a nuanced understanding of the relationship between culture, religion, and
public education along with the advantages and challenges these schools face. The
authors suggest that the public views these niche charter schools in very positive ways
but that the schools also push the boundaries between church and state.
Closing
In closing, this volume of Review of Research in Education covers new ground on
the intersection of education, democracy, and the public good. As a whole, the volume gives readers new research for examining the values that underlie current thinking regarding schooling and civic capacity, citizenship, individualism and community,
religion and ethnicity, and justice and social equity, as these concepts intersect with
the public good. We hope that readers come away with an enriched understanding
of how social, cultural, political, and economic values shape current debates about
schools and education policy nationally and internationally and with appreciation for
the dynamic skills and civic capacities needed in a changing world.

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Borman et al.: Education, Democracy, and the Public Goodxxi

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The editors would like to thank Emily Ackman for her support and assistance in
making this volume possible.
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