This article analyses pre-service education student perceptions and perspectives related to education for democracy in Australia. The article begins by outlining the concepts of thick and thin democracy and why this is important in relation to contemporary debates about the state of civics and
citizenship education, and then explains the conceptual framework of critical pedagogy and methodology. The datum analysed is discussed in relation to neoliberalism and indicates that the pre-service teachers in this study view democracy in a narrow or thin way that may impact on their classroom practice where they would be teaching about but not for democracy. More