Gutmann On How Our Democratic Society Should Make Decisions About Education

 

Supplement For First Class: Introduction:

 

Copyright © 2026 Bruce W. Hauptli

 

Please read my A Quick Introduction to “Deliberative to Democracy” and Democratic Education; as well as Guttmann's "Preface to the Revised Edition" and "Introduction: Back to Basics" (pp. xi-18) prior to class.  

 

These Class Supplements (and other pieces from my website) generally may be read before and/or after class.  They will remain on my webpage as long as it is active.  In class I hope to cover most of the points, but am not wedded to the order they will be presented in or discussed.  I will open class with a call for questions about the material as well as about the prior classes. 

 

I. Initial Discussion of Democracy and of Gutmann's View of "Democratic Education:’

 

What are its most salient characteristics? 

 

Democracies have citizens rather than subjects.  Democracy is often described as government "of the people, by the people, and for the people.” 

 

Georgetown University Dept of Government: the foundation of democratic systems rests on interconnected principles.  Popular sovereignty, the bedrock principle, establishes that legitimate political authority derives from the consent of the people it governs.  Combined with political equality, it ensures that everyone has equal rights to participate in democracy regardless of their background or social status.  Majority rule with minority rights creates a balance where democratic decisions reflect the will of the majority while protecting the rights of those who dissent. 

 

Modern Democracies have: 

Rule of law and constitutional protections

Individual rights and civil liberties

Civic responsibilities: voting, serving on juries, civility and respecting fellow citizens

Checks and balances between branches of government at differing levels of governance

 

What would Gutmann add to this list?  pp. xii-xiii

 

xii-xiii A guiding principle of deliberative democracy is reciprocity among free and equal individuals: citizens and their accountable representatives owe one another justifications for the laws that collectively bind them.  A democracy is deliberative to the extent that citizens and their accountable representatives offer one another morally defensible reasons for mutually binding laws in an ongoing process of mutual justification.  To the extent that a democracy is not deliberative, it treats people as objects of legislation, as passive subjects to be ruled, rather than as citizens who take part in governance by accepting or rejecting the reasons they and their accountable representatives offer for the laws and policies that mutually bind them. 

  Deliberative democracy underscores the importance of publicly supported education that develops the capacity to deliberate among all children as future free and equal citizens.  The most justifiable way of making mutually binding decisions in a representative democracy—including decisions not to deliberate about some matters—is by deliberative decision making, where the decision makers are accountable to the people who are most affected by their decisions.[1] 

 

xiv Democratic Education offers a principled defense of schooling whose aim is to teach the skills and virtues of democratic deliberation within a social context where educational authority is shared among parents, citizens, and professional educators. 

 

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I greatly appreciate comments and corrections--typos and infelicities are all too common and the curse of "auto-correct" plagues me! 

Email: hauptli@fiu.edu 

Last revised on 02/05/26