In contexts of escalating political repression, democratic backsliding, and structural inequality, this special issue explores how democratic pedagogies can serve as tools for resistance, imagination, co-creation and transformation. Grounded in love, joy, and justice, the contributions challenge dominant educational norms that commodify knowledge and silence dissent, advancing instead pedagogies rooted in relationality, reciprocity, decoloniality, and self-governance. Contributors theorize and practice education as a collective, political act, one that navigates and contests hierarchies of race, gender, class, and colonial power, while fostering inclusive, co-created learning spaces within and beyond the “classroom”. The issue is organized around three thematic pillars: democratic pedagogies as praxis; community-engaged reimaginings of the “classroom”; and experimental, participatory designs for democratic learning. Together, these works illuminate how pedagogy can enable self-governance, center marginalized knowledges, and cultivate collective agency. Emphasizing intersectionality, plurality, and creativity, this issue asks what it means to democratize education under conditions of uncertainty and how pedagogical spaces can be reclaimed as sites of world-making. Through diverse methodologies and grounded practices, it contributes to an urgent dialogue on how democratic pedagogies can confront authoritarianism and fascism, while building more just, inclusive, and transformative educational futures. We conclude the introduction by offering recommendations for how you can co-design, foster collaboration, and enact democratic pedagogies in your own contexts.