ENGAGING DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION IN THE NEOLIBERAL AGE Simon Marginson Faculty of Education Monash University ABSTRACT. For the democratic tradition to return to a vanguard position in education requires a thorough exploration of the problems of democratization in education and an inventory of possible new forms. In this essay, Simon Marginson reviews five books concerned with democracy and education: Michael Apple’s Educating the ‘‘Right’’ Way, Denis Carlson’s Leaving Safe Harbors, A. Belden Fields and Walter Feinberg’s Education and Democratic Theory, Trevor Gale and Kathleen Densmore’s Engaging Teachers, and Klas Roth’s Democracy, Education and Citizenship. While these authors imagine democracy in somewhat dif- ferent ways, they have a common interest in the role of public schooling in the formation of democratic agents and practices. The books do not offer a definitive account of the problems of democratization, nor do they embody a major breakthrough in democratic educational thinking, but they all provide helpful explorations of these issues. Marginson concludes with some thoughts on commodification and neoliberal economism in education, a contemporary focus of discussion in democratic educational circles. In this review essay, I will focus on five recent books concerned with democracy and education: Michael Apple’s Educating the ‘‘Right’’ Way: Markets, Standards, God and Inequality , Denis Carlson’s Leaving Safe Harbors: Towards a New Pro- gressivism in American Education and Public Life, A. Belden Fields and Walter Feinberg’s Education and Democratic Theory: Finding a Place for Community Participation in Public School Reform, Trevor Gale and Kathleen Densmore’s Engaging Teachers: Towards a Radical Democratic Agenda for Schooling, and Klas Roth’s Democracy, Education and Citizenship: Towards a Theory on the Education of Deliberative Democratic Citizens. Each book confines its exploration to certain parts of this large and heterogeneous field of discussion. While the authors imagine democracy in somewhat different ways, they have a common interest in the role of public schooling in the formation of democratic agents and practices. On the whole they focus more on policy, governance, and institutional leadership than on curricu- la and pedagogies. Michael Apple, Trevor Gale and Kathleen Densmore, and Denis Carlson explicitly position themselves in the radical democratic and radical pro- gressivist traditions in education. They all target the educational perspectives and policies of neoliberals and cultural conservatives, especially market mechanisms and standardized testing programs. Carlson’s approach is different in that he is con- cerned not so much with reasserting already established democratic traditions as with transforming those traditions. Klas Roth takes on the project of theorizing, us- ing a Habermasian framework, democratic formation in a multicultural society. Finally, Belden Fields and Walter Feinberg explore participation in school gover- nance through a case study of a Project for Educational Democracy formed by teach- ers, parents, and community members in one school board district. Democratic theorizing and activism in education in the United States and other Western nations can be traced at least as far back as Jean-Jacques Rousseau. EDUCATIONAL THEORY j Volume 56 j Number 2 j 2006 Ó 2006 Board of Trustees j University of Illinois 205