Democracy Will Not Fall From The Sky¹. The Global Doing Democracy Research Project: Seeking to Understand the Perspectives, Experiences and Perceptions of Teachers in Relation to Democracy in Education

This paper reports on the research of the international Global Doing Democracy Research Project, which currently has some 50 scholars in over 25 countries examining perspectives and perceptions of democracy in education among pre- and in-service teachers, teacher education academics, and educators, in general. The focus of the project is on how education supports, cultivates and engages in, and with, democracy. Using a critical pedagogical framework the research compares and contrasts these findings and implications across diverse political contexts, including the old democracies (countries such as the USA, Australia, Canada, England), emerging democracies (those countries coming out of autocratic, military or other dictatorships and or colonial rule), and what we have termed the new democracies (places and countries that are doing democracy differently as a result of public initiatives found in Latin America and elsewhere.