Practice in the making

Organisational democracy completely fits into schools because if we are taught at a young age that we matter and that somebody cares about what we have to say and we develop that self-esteem muscle, to be able to express our voice and to be able to learn how to contribute to a team, I think that that will incredibly impact the global economy, will incredibly impact the happiness level of people … (Elannah Cramer) I think democracy needs to be part of the learning environment from the day one, where we are empowering individuals to be part of their future – and that comes through how they are being educated, how they are taught and how they are engaged in their daily lives from a very early age, as opposed to ‘hey, do what we tell you, do what we tell you, do what we tell you, and hey by the way now you’re old enough, you participate in a democracy’. (Heath Mackay) … a democratic school system is impossible in a capitalist society … But at the level of the school and the local school system there is the possibility not just of conjunctural campaigns – whether over pay and conditions or over issues such as proposals for Academies – but also of the institutionalisation of forms of popular and professional participation in their decision-making processes. In this sense schools and local school systems can be more or less democratic – they are sites of struggle. (Richard Hatcher, 2009, emphasis in original) In this chapter, examples of practice are featured, drawn mainly from the state sector in England, concluding with insights into examples and perspectives in Latin America, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada. These illustrate adaptive strategies and amplification, and are characterised to varying extents by aspects of holistic democracy – namely, the expressive elements (holistic meaning and well-being) and the participative elements (power sharing and transforming dialogue). Both elements feature to some degree in all the examples. They are organised within this chapter, in a loose fashion, from those in which the participative elements features more prominently, moving to instances in which expressive democracy and holistic meaning are particularly apparent. Radical traditions There is a heritage of democratic innovation in state education in England and elsewhere that we should not forget.

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