A vindication of transnational democratic education – replies to Michael Festl, Martin Beckstein and Michael Geiss

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Democratic Education in a Globalized World (Routledge, 2019) I defend a discourse theory of global justice as the appropriate normative 1 1 I would like to thank the guest editors of the book symposium, Klaus Dingwerth and Simon Pistor, as well as David Tresilian and Sharman Levinson for valuable exchanges on this article. ground for conceiving educational justice and citizenship education under conditions of economic and political globalization. In addition, I articulate democratic conceptions of global educational justice and citizenship education that recognize a moral-political right to democratically adequate education and call for the creation of transnational democratic consciousness. Based on these conceptions I spell out school practices such as historically informed, cross-cultural learning within socially diverse settings that would contribute to realizing these conceptions. In this article I reply to liberal perfectionist, communitarian-conservative and empiricist-historical critiques of Democratic Education in a Globalized World from Michael Festl, Martin Beckstein and Michael Geiss, respectively. I emphasize the feasibility of injustice-reducing educational practices, I explain how a discourse theory of justice accommodates considerations of both the good and the right, and I justify why the grim record of past educational experience does not render pointless the pursuit of progressive aims through education.