Reimagining Democratic Education with Care Ethics—Toward Care-full Democratic Education

In an era of democratic crises, democratic education in basic education is considered crucial. However, recent studies show that young people perceive their influence both at school and in society as limited, which decreases their civic activity later in life. The aim of this theoretical study is to reevaluate democratic education through feminist care ethics, which is an under-researched topic in the current theoretical debate. In our article, we outline a novel approach to caring democratic education (i.e., care-full democratic education), which presents a complementary stance toward current democratic education, which relies heavily on the theories of liberal democracy and a rational and atomistic subject. Instead of an individualistic emphasis, our approach cultivates the idea of relational autonomy, interconnectedness, and respecting mundane practices in schools as the basis for child-oriented democratic education. In addition, our study dismantles some of the structural injustices (childism and privileged irresponsibility) that we have identified in society and in education, which hinder the realization of democratic culture in basic education.