Preparing Democracy for Children: A Defense of Enfranchising First Graders

• In Event: Decolonizing Civic Education

Abstract

There has been a recent surge of scholarship exploring political conceptions of childhood and, more specifically, voting rights for children. This interest in children’s suffrage has been strongest among moral and political philosophers, including philosophers of childhood. Philosophers of education, by contrast, have had little to say on this topic despite the field’s long history of engagement with questions related to democratic theory and to the role of schools in promoting citizenship. This paper aims, then, both to make a contribution to the emerging scholarship around children’s suffrage and to encourage greater uptake of the issue within philosophy of education.

Author

• Tony DeCesare, Saint Xavier University Chicago