Locating Democratic Citizenship in the Classroom: Engaging Canadian Teacher Codes of Ethics in the Quest to Understand What It Means to Teach Democratically

Maxwell and Schwimmer (2016) found that within the Canadian teacher codes of ethics “the values of care and liberal democratic education were the most weakly represented values in the codes whereas the values related to reliability were the most dominant” (p. 477). Approaching the codes with a critical discourse analysis lens (Fairclough, 2003), the author concurs, finding a strong deontological emphasis in 11 of the 13 codes. The analysis of the codes is used as a gateway into the understanding of democratic ways and pedagogies within the classroom. The author proposes a both/and shift whereby “deontological” responsibilities are motivated by an “aspirational” focus (Maxwell & Schwimmer, 2016), thus moving codes of ethics and teaching/learning landscapes into more ethically democratic spaces. In the both/and context, individuals are valued before ideas untangled