E&C ◆ Education and Culture

In this article we contend that attempts to foster democratic education in the United States ’ public schools rarely include mathematics class in meaningful ways. We begin with Dewey’s conception of democracy and then argue that current ways of thinking about mathematics do not provide adequate foundations for democratic mathematics education. Our reconceptualization of mathematics draws on Dewey’s uniquely humanistic philosophy of mathematics. We conclude with some implica-tions of democratic mathematics education for school and society. Thus, this project seeks to blur the theory-practice dualism, developing a theoretical argument which draws sustenance from and seeks to contribute back to educational practice. John Dewey, often referred to as the philosopher of American democracy (Sleeper, 1988), forwarded the idea that democracy is realized by the twin tenets of opportunities for full development of capacities for all and the concurrent demand of social responsibility from all. Dewey described education as growth and framed it within activity. Many working under the banner of democratic education cite Dewey as an influence.1 While the impact of democratic education proponents on American schooling can be debated, it is interesting to note that any influence the movement has had on schooling in general has been even less evident within the realm of mathematics education. Furthermore, those working in and around the realm of democratic mathematics education seem less likely to draw on Dewey for theoretical support. This is particularly interesting, given that Dewey cowrote a book on mathematics education early in his career. The Psychology of Number and its Ap-plications to Methods of Teaching Arithmetic, originally published by James A. McLel