Is it ‘all about having an opinion’? Challenging the Dominance of Rationality and Cognition in Democratic Education via Research in a Gallery Setting

Abstract

McDonnell, JLIs it, 'all about having an opinion'? Challenging the dominance of rationality and cognition in democratic education via research in a gallery setting.http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/2719/ Article LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the University more effectively. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LJMU Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain.The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of the record. Please see the repository URL above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.

Recognizing Young People’s Civic Engagement Practices: Rethinking Literacy Ontologies through Co-Production

“…Building practices of civic engagement might instead mean going against the grain, refusing to engage with the "sensible" and engaging instead with radical and aestheticized practices (Ranciere, 2010). McDonnell (2018) argues that the arts can provide a space for collective decision-making that can also bring diverse and even opposing voices into one space. The example below explores this idea in more detail.…”

Political and Aesthetic Equality in the Work of Jacques Rancière: Applying his Writing to Debates in Education and the Arts

“…If the above debates indicate the problematic nature of politics in both art and art education, then the following discussion is intended to address some of the complexity of defining the role of art in political—specifically democratic—education. Elsewhere, I have argued that there is an ‘aesthetic deficit’ in democratic education, which, in the UK at least, has centered on providing young people with the cognitive skills, as well as the knowledge and understanding, necessary for participation in mainstream politics and democratic processes (McDonnell, ). In particular, I have noted the emphasis on rational discussion and debate within both state‐sanctioned political education (most notably citizenship education in the UK) and more alternative traditions such as democratic schooling and its recent incorporation within mainstream education via the student voice movement (see Rudduck and Fielding, for a critique of this).…”

“…In this paper, I wish in part to reiterate these points but also to set this argument about democratic education within the context of other debates in both arts education and the use of art within community and adult education. I do so by addressing three ‘problems’ or debates in these areas, namely; the challenge of postmodernism and contemporary art for arts education in schools and galleries, what I have elsewhere referred to as the ‘aesthetic deficit’ in democratic education McDonnell, ), and the balance between aesthetic and other—social, political and educational—aims in new forms of collaborative and participatory art. I am less concerned here with the aesthetics of teaching itself, than with how Rancière's work on politics and aesthetics can offer innovative and refreshing perspectives on these debates.…”