Launch Event: Democratic Pedagogies Journal Special Issue
Date: Monday, December 8, 2025
Time: 12pm - 1:30pm EST
Location: Virtual via Zoom
Join us for the virtual launch of “Democratic Pedagogies: Practices, Challenges, and Visions for Democratic Futures in Education,” our Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy special issue!
Rooted in interdisciplinary perspectives on critical and democratic pedagogies, this special issue explores the university as it is and as it could be, interrogating the promises and contradictions of education as a site of democratic practice. Contributors highlight the diverse ways people understand and experience education, offering ideas and practical tools that challenge undemocratic classrooms and curricula. How do we cultivate classrooms as communities of co-learners? How do we nurture belonging, care, and pluriversal knowledge? And how do we live democracy in spaces shaped by colonial legacies? Join us as we return to these guiding questions and more, delving deeper into the issue’s insights.
At this event, participants will explore the field of democratic pedagogies and engage with the issue’s main themes of:
Thinking democratic pedagogies as praxis,
Remaking the “classroom” through community-engaged democratic pedagogies, and
Designing and experimenting with democratic pedagogies.
We will reflect on what it means to practice democracy across diverse learning environments, opening a collective space to reimagine education’s role in shaping radically democratic futures, through a shared learning experience.
We invite educators, researchers, students, and community members to join us in celebrating this publication and engaging in a wider conversation about democratizing and decolonizing learning spaces.
Click here to find the special issue.
We hope to see you there!
Cover art by Madhuvanthi Mohan, aka Something Sketchy (2025).
Speaker Bios
Sarah Marie Wiebe grew up on unceded Coast Salish territory in British Columbia, BC. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Hawai'i, Mānoa. With a research focus on community development and environmental sustainability, she is a co-founder of the FERN (Feminist Environmental Research Network) Collaborative and has published in journals including Critical Policy Studies, New Political Science, Politics & Policy and Studies in Social Justice. Care, collaboration and community are core principles and practices that animate Dr. Wiebe’s approach to teaching and scholarship. At the intersections of environmental justice and citizen engagement, her teaching and research interests emphasize political ecology, policy justice and deliberative dialogue. Her current research focuses on governance through the aftermath of climate disasters, emergency management from an equity lens and co-designing policy from a Climate CARE approach (Community Actions and Responses to Extreme weather events).
Rachel Carvalho is a PhD candidate in the program "Democracy in the Twenty-First Century" linked to the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra. From August 2023, she was awarded with a FCT (Science and Technology Foundation) Research Fellowship. Prior to joining FCT cohort of fellows, Rachel was a Project Coordinator in Brazil. She has over 15 years' experience spread across sustainability consultancy, stakeholder engagement, partnership development, event production and workshops with communities. She's driven to work for intelligent organizations, with integrity, to create positive and lasting change for our planet and people. She holds a BA Social Science an MSc in Development Practice (MDP Brazil) by Rural University of Rio de Janeiro. She's also a certified in Environmental Management by Federal University of Viçosa and Environmental Education by Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She is passionate about people, public policies, education, community organization, participatory methodologies and poetry.
Joanna Ashworth is a researcher, educational planner and filmmaker. She is a research associate with CERi, Community Engaged Research Initiative, at Simon Fraser University and a researcher with Participedia.net. She founded and directed the Professional Programs and Partnerships in the Faculty of Environment at Simon Fraser University (SFU) from 2015-2021. In 2020 she received the President’s Award for Sustainability Leadership. Joanna is also the founder of SFU’s certificate program in Dialogue and Civic Engagement program, a former instructor at the Centre for Sustainable Development at SFU, and past director of Dialogue Programs at SFU’s Centre for Dialogue. Adult education, social learning, and sustainability inform Joanna’s orientation to democratic participation.
Stuart R. Poyntz is Professor and Director of the School of Communication, Editor of the Canadian Journal of Communication and a Director of the Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) at Simon Fraser University. He is Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology and has been Visiting Scholar at QUT, Griffith University, Hong Kong Baptist University and University of British Columbia. Stuart’s research addresses children’s media cultures, theories of public life, social care and urban youth cultures. His work in participatory research has largely involved teenagers in informal learning spaces and art institutes. He has published five books, including the new monograph, Youthsites: Histories of Creativity, Care and Learning in the City (Oxford UP), and has published widely in national and international journals and in various edited collections.
