ABSTRACT
The key to renewing recognition and cohesion now lies in a radical re-imagining of the participation of citizens in public life. Democratic community participation will create the necessary public spaces and encourage the voices of different communities to deliberate common concerns so that citizens can become makers rather than merely detached voters in the polity. Only a transformation in education for democracy can engage citizens, and through the practice of deliberating common goods, achieve mutual recognition and mediation of cultural differences. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor believed in the capacity of ordinary citizens to learn and to participate in democracy. While de Tocqueville and Mill promoted participation as the school of democracy, developing the virtues and capabilities of citizens, and John Dewey wanted to extend democracy to everyday life in the community to restore the great society as he called it, a number of writers over the past twenty-five years have wanted to go further and to transform democracy.
