We review our involvement in social justice movements and projects over the past half-century that led to our understanding of importance of democracy. We contrast our understanding based on our extensive involvement in schools, our record of accomplishments from national and state legislation. e.g., ''New Careers'' projects, task forces in Australian state schools, to successful inclusion of the excluded into higher education, e.g.,. Upward Bound and HEP with Critical Pedagogy which at least from its most prominent advocates is mostly talk, little action. We contrast our testable democratic theory with clearly articulated principles with Critical Pedagogy efforts to impose ''truth.'' Keywords Democratic education Á Critical pedagogy Á Social justice Á New Careers Á Important knowledge Á Upward Bound Á Task force Á Disadvantaged Á Deficit thinking Á Postmodernism Á Rights Á Democratic theory Á Democratic principles Á Citizenship Á Youth cultures Á Aboriginal Á Economics Edwards does have a point in our contrasting Critical Pedagogy with democratic education. We did not do exhaustive research on Critical Pedagogy. We limited ourselves to its most visible and seemingly most authoritative spokespersons, Giroux and McLaren. But even so, our review of critical pedagogy was more thorough than his review of our interpretation of Democratic Education. The very A. Pearl
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