Richard Hoggart’s legacy for democratic education

Abstract

This article argues that Richard Hoggart’s legacy for democratic education is to be found in the moral unity of his life and work: his life as an adult educator, university professor, and international administrator; his distinctive idiom as writer and critic; and his commitment to education as a deeply deliberative process of widening participation. The right use of judgement is central to the life, the idiom and the commitment. As an abiding presence, Hoggart is an exemplar of how critical discrimination and discernment can be deployed, from the centre ground, in the interests of the good society.