Education and democracy for complex contemporary childhoods

Education and democracy for complex contemporary childhoods

Everywhere, children are facing extraordinary complexities and challenges in an increasingly globalised and hyper-connected world, in which flows of information, capital and people increasingly break down existing social, economic, political and cultural boundaries. Contemporary childhoods are simultaneously filled with possibilities and fraught with dangerous tensions as the big social apparatuses that drove much of the last century – Capitalism, Liberalism, Democracy – seem to be struggling, and in some places, entirely coming apart. Added to these complex social, economic and political concerns is a growing sense of unease – perhaps even dread – that we are facing a century of significant turmoil, from dealing with the multiple challenges of the Anthropocene and climate change, through to the continuing rise of reactionary populism and neo-fascism across the ‘democratic’ world in places such as Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela and the United States. It seems clear to us that democracy is in a state of profound crisis and with it, the commitment to raising children with a strong sense of civic virtue and cooperative responsibility. We suggest that one of the most pressing issues of our current global moment is how we collectively respond to these antidemocratic forces and what the potential role of education might be in equipping young people with the tools and knowledge to become powerful democratic agents of change in an increasingly unstable and dangerous world.

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