The Contribution of Education to the Formation of the Democratic Citizen

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold; firstly, we will attempt to highlight the contribution of education to the formation of the democratic citizen. However, the reason for our study was the ideas of the ancient Greek thinkers regarding the relationship between education and the citizen. In the course of the work, we ascertain the topicality of their theories, as well as their influence on modern researchers, which will constitute the second purpose of our research. People have the same desire for glory, power and material wealth as the citizens of ancient Greece, that’s why their texts acquired a timeless value. To support our proposal, we will invoke the proposal of T. Parsons, who argues that Western societies originate from the ancient Greek ones (Parsons, 1966).

In the study at hand, we will also be concerned with the issue, if education still plays a primary role in the formation of the democratic citizen, given that there are now many educational institutions, such as the Internet. In addition, we will deal with whether the concept of democracy has been differentiated in relation to the way it was understood by the ancient Greek philosophers, who believed that the citizen should be active and participate in the commons. Nowadays, do education systems promote political participation or passivity, serving the interests of the ruling class of states?