Democratic Learning in U.S. Career Education

This paper analyzes various U.S. career education programs through a democratic learning framework that adopts three foundational principles: 1) Democratic career education respects student rationality by encouraging student critique and evaluation of course material; 2) Democratic career education includes alternative perspectives on vocationally related issues such as labor market structure, environmental impact and sustainable development, the labor movement and labor history, acceptable working conditions and economic globalization; 3) Democratic career education emphasizes that economic, labor market and working conditions are constructed through human agency and can be reconstructed through democratic participation ( Hyslop-Margison & Graham, 2001 ). The authors conclude the reviewed career education programs undermine democratic learning in a variety of ways.