ABSTRACT
The quotation from Brookfield is a chapter title which certainly reflects and represents the approach of many adult educators over the years and yet there is a clear disagreement between his perspective and that suggested by Mill. Mill is implying that democracy is not necessarily a good thing, whilst Brookfield’s chapter heading suggests that it is selfevidently good. Clearly Brookfield did not consider the implications of the type of argument that Mill asserted, neither perhaps should he have done since political argument was not his purpose. However, there are sufficient implications in this difference of approach to justify an exploration into the relationship between the idea of democracy and the functions of adult education and learning. Indeed, it is a necessary exercise if educators of adults are to make claims about democracy, or citizenship, and education. This chapter, therefore, commences with an initial discussion about the nature of democracy and concludes that no simple definition will suffice. Indeed, the concept varies according to the theories of and values about society that individual scholars bring to their analyses, Subsequently, Held’s (1987) different types of democracy are examined. Rather than analysing fully all of his ten types, three distinct approaches which reflect some of the main tenets of the positions he discusses are examined in order
to illustrate something of the complexity of the argument. Finally, it is indicated that the democratic state in some way involves participative citizenship, and so both the concepts of citizenship and citizenship education are discussed.
