Journey to discover the history of voting rights in an east London School. Rosie Goodhart and Florence Pennant. Some rights reserved.
This week we explore democracy in crisis, not just in Turkey, Russia, India or Egypt, but in its heartlands. So for Part 2, "Democracy and Education", we have a different theme every day this week, to try to embrace some of the larger implications of the 'seismic quakes and perpetual uncertainty' that have followed Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in June 2016, and the election of Donald Trump as US president in November. Our last special week on "Education and Democracy" began with the educational dilemmas of Brexit Britain, and we return to that theme with a new sense of urgency, as the prognosis on the UK's deepening inequality remains bleak. This week-end we have been reminded of the huge differences between talking the talk and walking the walk on inequality, the challenge of bridging the divide between the winners and the losers, and the importance of finding new forms of democratic scrutiny to help make this transition. This coincides with new messages from across the Atlantic about a politics of polarisation and manufactured paranoia designed to set back the pluralization and democratization of America, in which the political class and the media seem ever-more complicit.
