Democracy and Education

Democracy and Education

Democracy is the most common and familiar word in today’s contemporary politic discourse. It is used almost every day by different individuals, organizations, Medias, and politicians to describe and differentiate a good, stable, and legitimate political system from others. It’s easy to assume which country is and is not democratic without explanation and providing evidence. So, my goal here is to make such guessing easier by looking at some social indicators such as education, and explain its relation with democracy. So, the question would be how can we determine what country is democratic and non democratic based on some variables such as literacy rate? So, the research is based on three basic elements that are hypothesis, independent, and dependent variables. The hypothesis is about education and its effect on democracy. The question is what is the relationship between higher and lower level of literacy and democracy? What is the definition of literacy and how can we measure it? The discussion and explanation of such questions help us to explain our first variable-independent variable, which is the literacy rate. And what is the outcome of such measurement would be the prediction of democracy, which is the second variable- dependent variable.
There are many researches and studies about democracy and its relation with social and economic reality. There are also many discussions and explanations about the role of education and its affect on democracy based on these researches. The main point here is that education plays an important role in democracy. There are many reasons behind such assumption such as embracing and adopting democratic values by high educated individual compared to illiterate individual; it’s easier for educated individual to become a good, active, and responsible citizen; and generally educated individuals are prone to use rational and reason in assessing and solving every day problems, and they are less likely to be influence by dogmatic ideology. Lipset confirms some of the above reasons in his writing by indicating that “Education presumably broadens man’s outlook, enables his to understand the need for norms of tolerance, restrains him from adhering to extremist doctrine, and increases his capacity to make rational electoral choices” (Lipset, Economic Development and Democracy, 2006). We know that education is an important element of democracy, however, it’s more important to know that what makes education valuable is the quality of education rather education alone.
We have mentioned that education is necessary for democracy to develop and flourish. And we also pointed out that the quality of education is more important than education itself. How do I know that education or the quality of education is more important would be explained by discussing the hypothesis, dependent, and independent variables. The hypothesis was about education and its role and affect on democracy. To measure such hypothesis we need to have two main variables to test the validity of the hypothesis. The dependent variable is democracy which can be measured by the second variable, which the literacy rate. To gather such data on the ground and in each country that I have used would require enormous time and sufficient money, however, we have many trusted and qualified organizations and institution that are created and specialized to accomplish such tasks. Freedom House and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) are the two main agencies that I have used their data to measure my hypothesis and variables. I have selected the combination of forty democratic and non democratic countries (twenty from each) from Freedom of House’s 2007 survey of political rights and civil liberties. The democratic countries were (Finland, USA, Britain, Canada, Sweden, Spain, Chile, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Malaysia, Lebanon, France, Japan, Germany, Italy, Israel, Denmark, Greece, and Ukraine). And the non-democratic countries were (Afghanistan, Niger, Bahrain, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, Morocco, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, Chad, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Cameroon, and Mauritania). I treated the Freedom of House survey as a legitimate source because the organization is legitimate and they have offices in several countries around the world with experienced staffs. There are two countries in the democratic category that were rated as partial democracy in the survey, and I used them in democratic list due to the fact that these two countries (Malaysia and Lebanon) have fundamental democratic principles such as peaceful transition of power, opposition parties, economic stability, and individual freedom to some extent. Meanwhile, I have rated countries such as (Afghanistan, Bahrain, Morocco, and Yemen) in the non-democratic list due to the lack of freedom of religious, individual, and lacking economic stability or advance. The second data, which is the literacy rate, was selected from UNESCO website along with CIA facts about individual countries, and the reason for using such agencies is due to their overall reputation in collecting valid data along with the skills of expertise that work for them.
The collected data shows an interesting outcome by indicating the threshold of literacy and its relationship with democracy. The average percentage of literacy in democratic countries is about 98, meanwhile, the non democratic countries average is around 65. So, the difference between non democratic and democratic countries is about 33% which really huge. Despite the fact that there is no single country in the non democratic to have literacy rate of 98, there are countries in other category that have less than 98% literacy rate such as Chile, Malaysia, Lebanon, and Israel. What this phenomena tells us is very important than overall outcomes because these countries along with Cuba, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Zimbabwe confirms that what is more important is the quality of education that will determine what country will fall into or off the line of democracy. By quality of education I mean the philosophy and ideology behind the education system, whether that philosophy contradicts or supports democratic values. Because speaking about myself I was coming from an educated family from a country with relatively high rate of literacy (Iraq), but the education system was totally based on totalitarian ideology (Bathesim), and we never embraced or taught any democratic values as I was attending primary, secondary, tertiary, and college levels of study. I also believe the same assessment is true for Cuba because Cuban political system or structure is based on a signal party ideology which is Communism. So, what is important is what the individuals learn and practice in the result of education not only attending class and graduate with a degree. What makes citizens of democratic country different from non democratic country is the attitude, believe, norm, and understanding of civic life and the ways to engage in achieving personal goals than anything else. And these values can not be adopt or achieve without a good quality of education. That what is the outcome of this data tell us about each of these 40 countries rather than education alone.


After reviewing the gathering data I was convinced that it’s not education alone that matter in democracy, but it’s the quality of education and its role in determining which country is democratic and which one is not. The implication of this data is the confirmation of reality that education alone does not make a country more or less democratic if that education is not based on democratic principles and values. So, what is important is the quality of education rather than education itself.

Democratic Countries Literacy % Non-Democratic Countries Literacy %
Finland

100


Afghanistan

28

USA

99


Niger


29

Britain

99


Bahrain


87

Canada

99


Cambodia


74

Sweden

99


Bosnia-Herzegovina

97

Spain

98


Pakistan


50

Chile

96


Sudan


61

Netherlands
99


Syria


80

New Zealand
99


Mauritania

51

Norway

100


Morocco


52

Malaysia

88


Rwanda


65

Lebanon

91


Zimbabwe


92

France

99


Iraq


74

Japan

99


Libya


84

Germany

99


Cuba


97

Italy

98


Chad


26

Israel

97


Algeria


67

Denmark

99


Yemen


53

Greece

96


Egypt


71

Ukraine

99


Cameroon


68


Total
1953




Total
1306


Mean
98




Mean
65














Difference
33











































Works Cited

Lipset Seymour Martin. “Economic Development and Democracy.” Comparative

Politics. Ed. Patrick H. O’neil and Ronald Rogowski. New York: W.W. Norton

&Company, 2006. 316-29.

Freedom House. Freedom in the World. 2007. 26 February 2007.

< http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/press_release/fiw07_charts.pdf>

UN Statistics. Social indicators. 1 August 2006. 26 February 2007.

< http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/literacy.htm>

CIA. The World FactBook: Field Listing-Literacy. 8 February 2007. 26 February 2007.

< https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2103.html>