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It is important to understand education within societal contexts. One of the most important aspects of society is the element of democracy – how individuals shape their government and, to a certain extent, their culture and the extent to which individuals are limited by certain forces of society. We looked at this issue of democracy from various angles – including how the individual shapes social forces and how social forces shape the individual – with regard to school practices and instruction. One purpose of education is to encourage intelligent debate so that students can participate in their society and in shaping the culture. In John Dewey’s understanding of this effect, he highlighted the importance of teaching that in rooted in experiential learning and that is informed by the experiences of other students. School is in turn affected by other cultures such as the dominant corporate culture and parents. One issue concerning democracy and social forces is school uniforms. Corporate forces take control of education, limiting the scope of the curriculum and disenfranchising students. Students are also subject to the societal force of racism. Due to a lack of an engaged citizenry, we are questioning the goals of the founding democratic principles of public education along with the loss of the founding democratic intentions of public education.

In module five, we will investigate these concerns. As you look at the content of each page of the wiki, you will see questions which will guide our discussion. Keep these questions in mind as they will be the focus of separate discussion threads in the module.

Below is the concept map of our project: