Conference Agenda

This paper stems out of a broader PhD research project that considers the role teachers could play in Libya’s efforts to stabilise a society in flux after the 2011 uprising against the 42-year old Col Gaddafi regime. It highlights that public school teachers are part of the public – be it hidden or unformed – and that teaching is a “relational practice” (Orchard et al., 2016, p. 42). Here, we will draw upon the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey’s conception of ‘the public’ in his book The Public and its Problems (1927) to help draw a path towards teachers’ agency in activating themselves, and other communities, to become conscious publics interacting to make up the public on the road to a fledging and floundering democratic Libya. To elucidate what Dewey means by ‘a/the public’ in a democracy to better see how, in practice, Libyan teachers could become one, it will be necessary to take a closer look at his notions of ‘individual’ and ‘community’ and how they too develop through relational ‘transaction’ – interactive experience and consequence.

Published in 1927, Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems describes what democracies are now, but also how they came about, to suggest a better way to conceptualise democracies. In this historical approach, he re-conceptualises the individual not as a separate entity or being that can be studied and known, or that can grow and act in isolation, free and sovereign. Rather, Dewey argues, an individual forms in relation to a social group; individuals develop by observing the direct consequences of their interactions with others. Then they decide which thoughts and behaviours bring about the best connections and consequences, the best potentialities; these desired consequences are then called our ‘interests.’

Once these interests are formed in an individual, through transaction with the immediate group of family, friends, classmates etc, the individual joins a community of common interests as it is here where these interests, in communitarian solidarity and communication, are best developed and cared for. However, a community is not yet a public. A public, in the Deweyan sense, emerges out of a community that has perceived “an indirect consequence” between other interacting entities (be they individuals or communities), one that needs to be regulated and controlled; a consequence that affects communities’ interests who are not directly involved in the original interaction. A public, if you will, is an organised and politicised community – one that has clear aims, methods and activities to take care of its interests. For Dewey, a public, although beginning on the outside of established state structures, does not merely attempt to influence from the outside, like an Interest Group or a Lobby. Rather, a public elects officials or representatives out of the community who will dedicate time and effort to inquire into and communicate on the issue affecting the community’s interests.

How can teachers become such an agentic public, such “supreme artists” (Lowery & Jenlink, 2019, p. 249) when there is a need for public thinking and associated living? Koopman (2009) highlights pragmatism’s most fruitful concepts, temporarlity and historicity, when he posits that transaction between all things (i.e teachers and students and curriculum etc) is always happening; to know how to proceed towards something better, the actors’ temporality and historicity must play a part. Biesta et al. consider teachers’ agency an “ecological” concept and argue that teacher communication, the vocabulary they use to make sense of their experiences and to shape potential progressive ideas and action (Biesta et al., 2017) matters. In Dewey’s words, teachers need to inquire into and communicate on the interests that need to be pursued.

The focus of the paper is on the relation between education and solidarity and the possible futures that this might entail. Schools are often pitched as tools of social justice from all sides of the political and social spectrum – governments as well as international organisations have been all too eager in the 21st century to position formal schooling in particular as a miracle cure for societal problems, such as low social mobility, poverty, various inequalities as well as physical and mental health issues. This opportunistic but also very visible rebranding of education constitutes a new politics of educational governance, one that offers a ‘quick fix for the ills of a post-welfare state’ (Murphy, 2022: 4). While this rebranding is morally dubious at best it represents part of a more general conflation of educational and justice aims.

The discourse over education and justice is instructive as regards what it omits – this equation is presented as natural and unarguable, as if ‘justice’ operated as the only important element of democratic society. When it comes to Enlightenment aims, solidarity has arguably been a poor relation to both freedom (liberté) and justice (égalité) as these values have embedded themselves in educational systems in Western democracies. While freedom (individualised pathways, growth of academies and free schools) and justice (comprehensivisation, more recently school improvement agendas) have tussled for top billing in educational systems, a focus on solidarity had been demoted, rearing its head if at all in the guise of civics, citizenship education or other curricular options.

I argue in the paper that this is a mistake, for two reasons. First a concern over solidarity has been a constant in different forms over the history of European education systems - these forms have encompassed a focus on socialisation and cultural reproduction, a desire to alleviate supposed moral decay, through to a more recent sense that education should do more to tackle social division, the rise of demagoguery and post-truth agendas. A long and steady relationship has been established between solidarity and education, but it has suffered in the glare of other, possibly more pressing, imperatives.

The second reason relates to the growing sets of pressures on school systems emanating from civil society, in the guise of organised advocacy and activist groups that together question the values and even existence of formalised school systems. While these encompass a wide range of ideological positions (home schooling movements, decolonising curriculum), together they constitute a formidable challenge to whatever is left of the education/solidarity relationship.

These two issues form the backdrop to this paper, which offers a ‘rethinking’ of the solidaristic nature of education. In order to expand on this topic, I draw on a number of intellectual resources, including the work of Hegel (bildung, socialised conceptions of freedom), and the 20^th century debate between Richard Rorty and Nancy Fraser over the possibilities of creating and maintaining social solidarity in an increasingly fragmented world. I conclude that a rethinking of educational aims along solidaristic grounds requires both a moral and a practical assessment of the issues at work in educational solidarity, especially in the context of 21^st century governance agendas seemingly intent on dismantling the democratic foundations of education.

Two decades ago, Starrat (2001) claimed that a qualified form of democratic leadership in schools (DSL) is not only possible, but also necessary. The sense of urgency that Starratt voiced at the time alluded to the ethical discrepancies of formal schooling that DSL is able to counter by promoting equity, active citizenship and empowerment, self-actualization, and the creation of a democratic culture in which free and equal individuals share and construct knowledge for the betterment of the school and even society as a whole. Yet, there are also those who assert that DSL is not only morally advantageous, but also enhances organizational effectiveness especially in a reality characterized by increasing complexity, wicked problems, cultural diversity and in a world radically transformed by the effects of technology and the forces of globalization (e.g., Begley & Zaretsky, 2004; Harber & Trafford, 1999; Woods, 2004); not to mention the disruptiveness caused by a global pandemic and an environmental crisis, which necessitate more distributive, collaborative and responsive forms of leadership and governance (Harris & Jones, 2020). More specifically, DSL, it is argued, has the ability to alleviate contradictions and tensions by making participation and collaboration (as well as other brokering strategies) central to the effective functioning of educational organizations (Gale & Densmore, 2003).

Alongside this dual (functionalist-ethical) argument for applying DSL, which originates from Dewey’s understanding of democratic governance’s highly developed ethical problem-solving capacities (Dewey, 1922; Wergin, 2020), there is also acknowledgment of the complexities, tensions and paradoxes involved in both the conceptualization and application of DSL (Guttman, 1999; Marsh, 2007; Reitzug & O’Hair, 2002). Corresponding to the growing attention to dilemmas of educational leadership (Author, 2021; Arar & Saiti, 2022; Bogotch & Kervin, 2019; DeMatthews & Mawhinney, 2014; Goldring & Greenfield, 2002; Shapiro & Stefkovich, 2016), DSL discourse is problematized from two different and interrelated directions. The first is the competition between different philosophical views of democratic governance in DSL discourse. Consequently, each competing view proposes different responses to the tensions and complication inherent to democratic governance. Second, given the above intricacies of DSL, it is possible to argue that its application compounds the dilemmas involved in leading educational organizations rather than alleviates them (Author, 2021).

The aim of this paper is to further the exploration of democratic leadership and governance by elaborating its inherently dilemmatic nature. Rather than viewing dilemmas and inner tensions as debilitating democratic governance and thus as demanding reconciliation or resolution, a dilemmatic approach views tensions between core values as one of its defining features and as central to its sustained implementation. The presentation will position a dilemmatic approach in relation to two generic approaches to DSL in the literature: the modernist and postmodernist. After identifying tensions and complications that unfold in each generic approach, a dilemmatic approach to DSL will be presented based on a discussion of both Chantal Mouffe’s (2000) agonistic-pluralist model, and Jurgen Habermas’ deliberative democratic model (1996). A dilemmatic approach goes beyond the above two opposing views by regarding DSL as a variable mode of democratic governance, characterized by a dynamic movement across different democratic models.