In this article, the authors argue that teacher education needs to make a fundamental shift in whose knowledge and expertise counts in the education of new teachers. Using tools afforded by cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and deliberative democracy theory, they argue that by recasting who is considered an expert, and rethinking how teacher candidates and university faculty cross institutional boundaries to collaborate with communities and schools, teacher education programs can better interrogate their challenges and invent new solutions to prepare the teachers our students need. Drawing on examples from joint-work among universities, schools, and communities in a variety of teacher education programs, they highlight the possibilities and complexities in pursuing more democratic work in teacher education.

Traditional conceptions of civic education for young children in the United States tend to focus on student acquisition of patriotic knowledge, that is, identifying flags and leaders, and practicing basic civic skills like voting as decision-making. The Civic Action and Young Children study sought to look beyond this narrow vision of civic education by observing, documenting, and contextualizing how young children acted on behalf of and with other people in their everyday early childhood settings. In the following paper, we offer examples from three Head Start classrooms to demonstrate multiple ways that young children act civically in everyday ways. When classrooms and teachers afford young children more agency, children’s civic capabilities expand, and they are able to act on behalf of and with their community. Rather than teaching children about democracy and citizenship, we argue for an embodied, lived experience for young children.

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Social studies scholars consider the role that schools, and in particular teachers, play in preparing young students to be active participatory citizens in a democracy. Yet, the research on teachers learning to be democratic teachers overwhelmingly focuses on the social studies methods course rather than field experiences. This study examines how teacher candidates experienced, conceptualized, and enacted democratic education while immersed in a semester-long elementary field experience in a democratic classroom. In particular, this paper focuses on two case studies which represent the most clear, as well as disparate, conceptions and enactments of democratic education; one engaged in a critical examination of society through curriculum, while the other focused on the inculcation of particular discussion and deliberation skills necessary to be an engaged democrat. While each classroom afforded the teacher candidates a thick conception of democratic education that drew on critical curriculum and pedagogy, as well as democratic skills, the teacher candidates' lived experiences and prior conceptions of democracy shaded their learning and created missed learning opportunities. Classrooms as sites of knowledge about democratic education provide robust learning opportunities for teacher candidates; however, like any transformative learning experience, those opportunities need mediation to realize their full potential.