Abstract

My dissertation establishes a "grounded" theory of democratic education. Arguing that the survival of a democratic regime depends on the development of specific human habits, I analyze assumptions which make this development possible and persuasive. These assumptions may be grouped into two parts: the psychological and epistemological. Citizens must be capable of learning the requisite political habits, and those habits must embody human capacities for activity, thought, and communication. ;I explore the most sustained and compelling of these two assumptions in the work of Rousseau and John Dewey. Rousseau identifies the psychological, Dewey the epistemological conditions, on which a plausible theory of democratic education must rely. My thesis argues that Rousseau is as pessimistic as Dewey is optimistic about the possibilities of educating citizens to rule themselves. I conclude with a defense of democratic education which confronts their disagreement. ;My thesis begins with a defense of its own methodology. I discuss contemporary theories of democratic education which fail to offer a psychological or epistemological justification of their program. These theories, which I define as "ideological", try to justify their policy recommendations exclusively by reference to the political process. This form of justification is incoherent: it raises central questions which cannot be answered in its own terms. In contrast, I offer the conception of a "grounded" theory as exhibited by Rousseau and Dewey. A "grounded" theory rests neither on a priori assumptions nor on contextual premises, but instead relies on an analysis of historically evolving human experience. ;Rousseau's psychological model of human interaction produces a revolutionary conception of democratic education: citizens must learn to construct a plethora of barriers which limit political, material or sexual gratification. I trace Rousseau's political pessimism to his conviction that the autonomous construction of these barriers is all but impossible. John Dewey's educational theory produces more sanguine conclusions. I treat Dewey's writings on philosophy, politics and education as a unified and internally coherent vision of a reformed public space. For Dewey, it is reconstruction and not retrenchment which enables the configuration of the political ideal