BEYOND STUDENT VOICE: PATTERNS OF PARTNERSHIP AND THE DEMANDS OF DEEP DEMOCRACY

Abstract

We need to develop schools and other institutions of education that take participatory democracy seriously. Given the hostility and practical difficulty in imagining and developing alternative realities of this kind, the paper offers an intellectual typology and practical tool - patterns of partnership - intended to assist in the process of intergenerational learning and democratic development. Having given examples of what each pattern might look like in real schools in real time, the paper argues for one particular perspective - democratic fellowship – that attends, not only to power, but to relationships, to care as well as to rights and justice, to creative and joyful relations between persons as both the end and means of politics. The paper concludes by suggesting we need to reconnect to radical democratic traditions of education. It is here that we are most likely to find both the intellectual continuities and the practical storehouse of alternative capability on which we might usefully draw to inspire and sustain the kinds of democratic developments the paper advocates. Furthermore and finally, a 10 point framework is offered as a means of helping us to draw generic conclusions about alternative ways of living and working together in democratic fellowship.