Professor Emeritus Chip Bruce has authored a new book exploring the relationship between education and democracy. Democratic Education: Finding Hope in Challenging Times was recently published by Peter Lang.
In the book, Bruce explores how democracy and education are deeply connected and the need for the two entities to work together in order to address the challenges of modern society. He advocates for "education with democracy," in which students learn democracy through their work on democratic practice.
Bruce connects the book's ideas to current global trends.
"An educated public is necessary to resist these trends; legal safeguards, cultural practices, and democratic norms are insufficient on their own," he said, citing the Varieties of Democracy’s (V-Dem) latest annual report findings, specifically the downgrading of the United States from its liberal democracy category.
Drawing on the ideas of democratic theorists such as John Dewey and Paulo Freire, Bruce surveys experiments in democratic education spanning preschool through doctoral study. These examples show how democratic principles can be applied in real-world learning environments, both inside and outside the classroom.
Bruce's work focuses on inquiry-based learning, community inquiry, and the information and communication practices that help people in communities learn and work together. His recent books include Beyond the Classroom Walls: Imagining the Future of Education, from Community Schools to Communiversities (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Thinking with Maps: Understanding the World through Spatialization (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), and Education’s Ecosystems: Learning through Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020). He holds a BA in biology from Rice University and PhD in computer science from The University of Texas at Austin.