"How to be Nice and Get What You Want": Structural Referents of "Self" and "Other" in Experiential Education as (Un)Democratic Practice

Authors

Franklin Vernon, University of Wisconsin - MadisonFollow

Abstract

This critical ethnography explores a social justice program utilizing nontraditional, democratic, "experiential" education practices. The author posits a historical legacy of pedagogy of self obscures its emancipatory, democratic potential while simultaneously expanding on contemporary discourses of self and other as aspects of the educational setting. Students' labors to reference and enact oppressive, capitalistic idealizations of either self or other problematizes pragmatic theories of self, and the author draws upon critical pragmatism to reposition self and other as aspects of pedagogy and curriculum in democratic education.

Response to this Article

Jayson Seaman, Is Group Therapy Democratic? Enduring Consequences of Outward Bound’s alignment with the Human Potential Movement.

Recommended Citation

Vernon, F. (2015). "How to be Nice and Get What You Want": Structural Referents of "Self" and "Other" in Experiential Education as (Un)Democratic Practice. Democracy and Education, 23 (2), Article 3.
Available at: https://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol23/iss2/3