Abstract

On any robust account of its essential features and demanding aspirations, democracy is and always has been a utopian project.1 The same is true of democratic education: Aiming to cultivate and nurture a democratic citizenry is a task even more challenging than it is noble, and it is precisely in this conventional sense of the term (of aiming at particularly good but exceedingly difficult-to-achieve ends) that democratic education is "utopian." I intend in this too-brief article to explain and defend this claim by characterizing democratic education and by describing some of the obstacles that make its realization so difficult. More precisely, I shall offer, first, an ambitious and no doubt contentious conception ..