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Learning Democracy in a Place Without It

April 14, 2025

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At Olive Grove Academy in Jordan, students are taught with the goal to actively engage in critical thinking, respectful discourse, and global citizenship initiatives. Each of these life lessons are traits that we commonly associate with democratic thinking and action, yet they’re being taught in a monarchy where political power and individual freedoms are limited and filtered. While researching how Olive Grove Academy implements democratic education, this tension resonated with me. Can a school truly instill democratic values when the political system surrounding it doesn’t support them? And perhaps more importantly, what kind of leadership is actually being produced?

Through our research so far, we have found that Olive Grove Academy prepares students to be democratic leaders using two pathways: democratic mindset and democratic action. Student interviews reveal that through a heavy emphasis on critical thinking, conversation-based learning environment, and independent choice, the school is helping students to adopt a democratic way of mentally approaching the world. Additionally, by encouraging students to engage in community service and other student leadership opportunities, the school is guiding students to global citizenship initiatives which help to steer students towards democratic action. Despite understanding everything the school is doing to situate their students to be democratic leaders in the future, I still can’t help but wonder are these democratic habits actually enough to make someone a democratic leader in this political environment? And what would this leadership look like?

An important component of this question is understanding the intangibles of life at Olive Grove Academy. In particular, social class and furthermore social divides are an ingrained part of the social structure at the school. As an elite school, students at Olive Grove Academy primarily come from affluent backgrounds and elite families, with only a small portion coming from working class backgrounds. While one student noted that the school takes efforts to reduce social divides, she highlighted that they are still present and mostly revolve around social class. She also added that the reason for this, as she observes it, is simply because these students knew each other before school.

From the perspective of a student in the school, there might not be any obvious association between the class divide and students knowing each other from outside of school. However, Weis and Dolby present the point that class is reflective of lifestyle practices and shared cultural experiences, going deeper than just material realities (Weis & Dolby, 2012, pp. 1–2). Students from similar class backgrounds likely knew each other prior to school because they experienced similar lifestyles. As a result, at Olive Grove Academy, where there are now various clusters of students who are accustomed to different lifestyles, class divides emerge. Under the veil that the social divides are simply due to students knowing each other before Olive Grove Academy, the reality is that the social hierarchy emerges due to a lack of blending of the class characteristics that each cluster has been raised with.

These class differences might be less apparent between students from upper and middle class backgrounds, however, they are likely much more noticeable for the students who receive full scholarships. While the student interviewed mentioned that the school does a lot to minimize the class divides, Kenway and Howard highlight that elite universities often take advantage of diversity for marketing and ranking purposes while using the front of meritocracy in order to preserve the social hierarchy (Kenway & Howard, 2022, p. 84). I think that this insight is notable in highlighting the ongoing tension between the school trying to teach students to believe in equality when the structure of the school still reflects a very unequal environment.

Furthermore, I would argue that this contradiction parallels the Jordanian political system. Jordan is a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the nation is ruled by a king who holds most of the power along with the royal court. The “constitutional” part of that label means that the government has a parliament and elections for some roles, but in reality, citizens have few genuine opportunities to influence governance and political dissent is not tolerated warmly. In this sense, Olive Grove Academy can be viewed as a reflection of the larger national system. The school preaches and adheres to democratic values, yet in reality, functions within and thrives on the preexisting elite structures.

While students are encouraged to think critically and take democratic action, in all reality, they don’t always actually do it. In a similar way, Jordanian citizens may be taught to participate, however, these efforts are likely illusory due to the lack of mechanisms provided by the government to actually do so in a meaningful way. This creates a system that, in many ways, values the image of transparency and democracy, but often stops short of the real structural change those values would demand.

What struck me the most about this is how the fundamental contradiction between democratic ideals and elite structures can coexist in such a seemingly seamless way. My inclination was that in preparing students for democratic leadership, there would be an inherent push for social change towards a democracy, however, I have come to see that it is much more complicated than that. Olive Grove students are clearly thoughtful, engaged, and committed to making a difference, but they’re also navigating systems that reward conformity and privilege. Whether democratic education in this context is truly transformative or simply another tool for maintaining elite status is still unclear to me, however, I do not believe that this question can truly be addressed without long term research on the alumni of the school.

Sources

Kenway, J., & Howard, A. (2022). Elite universities: Their monstrous promises and promising monsters. Routledge

Weis, L., & Dolby, N. (2012). Social class and education in globalizing contexts. Routledge.

Fostering Democratic Leadership or Reinforcing Elite Education?

bmcade25 / Globally Elite /

March 31, 2025

Almost universally across all elite schools, the practice of community service appears to be a fundamental value. But has anyone ever really asked the question why? What exactly is the purpose of emphasizing community service in the context of an elite education? More specifically, I want to consider this idea with respect to Olive Grove Academy, an elite boarding school in Jordan.

At Olive Grove Academy, community service is undeniably more than just an extracurricular activity. Integrated into governing principles, it is embedded into their school identity. But does this commitment to service truly foster democratic leadership, or is it simply an extension of elite education, preparing students for philanthropic responsibility rather than systemic change?

Upon closer look, the answer is not simply one or the other. Based on student and alumni interviews, service at Olive Grove Academy does seem effective at exposing students to social inequalities. However, it’s not always long lasting and students’ motivation for civic engagement is often not aligned with that of democratic leaders. We will take a look at both perspectives to better understand its role, but a quick note before doing so is that while community service is highly encouraged, it is not mandatory. The school does everything in its power to enable students to participate in service initiatives, sponsoring and facilitating all sorts of opportunities, but students don’t technically have to engage if they do not want to (although most students do actively participate).

Now, as mentioned previously, community service is an effective way to expose Olive Grove Academy students to social inequalities. As an elite institution, this breaks students out of the so-called “bubble” of privilege, even if only temporarily, that the students are fully surrounded by at the school — one of the most significant ways that community service fosters democratic leadership at Olive Grove Academy. One student highlighted how it increased her awareness of economic and educational disparities while another mentioned gaining a deeper understanding of the meaning of systemic injustice. These experiences emphasize the mental push that community service gives students to think critically about their own role in the social problems they are encountering — a core part of what democratic leadership means.

Students’ experiences fundamentally shape the way in which they reflect on privilege and responsibility, and several different students note that volunteering made them more conscious of the advantages and opportunities they were offered. Additionally, the student-led community service programs that Olive Grove Academy supports gives students the chance to be able to actively take on a leadership position for a social initiative that is impactful to them. This serves to add deeper layers to students’ learning experience.

For instance, two students talk about independent service programs they initiated, which include a charity event for local causes and an online program to teach Arabic to non-native speakers. Through these experiences, Olive Grove Academy students are not only introduced to democratic values of equity and civic engagement but are also given opportunities to practice leadership in tangible ways.

Although community service at Olive Grove Academy, in many ways, does seem to encourage democratic leadership, a lot of students do also recognize it as an extension of elite education, reinforcing privilege rather than actually challenging systemic inequality. More than one student admitted that volunteering, while impactful, primarily functions for them as a resume-building tool rather than a true motivation to better a community and make social change. Similarly, a student noted that most of her classmates only participate in community service because it is expected of them, either by the school, peers, or family, highlighting the importance of community service on college applications.

With a lack of personal conviction at heart, long-term commitment to these projects is almost unheard of. Very few are invested enough to actually get involved or take direct action to address the issues they are exposed to — the bread and butter of true democratic leadership. In the big picture, students do walk away from their experiences with a sense of social responsibility. However, the student testimony makes it hard to ignore how the inherent structure of Olive Grove Academy as an elite institution reinforces philanthropic engagement over true, and genuine political action.

As a third party getting to look at this picture from a perspective that has no direct personal stake in the matter, it might be easy to make a judgement or conclusion about what you think. But, in all reality, this exists at the intersection of democratic and elite education, meaning that both perspectives don’t necessarily need to be mutually exclusive. It is very likely that every student’s experience is different, whether it be one way or the other, or even some combination of both. For this reason, it is impossible to come up with a “one size fits all” answer. However, Olive Grove Academy’s approach to service reflects a broader tension within elite education, introducing students to social responsibility but stopping short of dismantling the power structures that create inequality in the first place. Thus, it is essentially left to the students at this point. Every student is different therefore the effectiveness of community service in a school encouraging democratic leadership is entirely dependent on how deeply students choose to internalize and interact with the lessons they learn in the classroom and the world.

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Learning Democracy in a Place Without It

Fostering Democratic Leadership or Reinforcing Elite Education?