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18 - Debate and Deliberation in Democratic Education

from Part Three - Key Topics and Concepts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

By
Jane Lo  and
Paula McAvoy
Edited by
Julian Culp ,
Johannes Drerup  and
Douglas Yacek
Julian Culp
Affiliation:
The American University of Paris, France
Johannes Drerup
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
Douglas Yacek
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
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Summary

Debate and deliberation are two commonly promoted strategies for democratic education. Both strategies are designed to unearth different points of view and then engage in reason-giving and argumentation; in other words, they help students to recognize pluralism. When done well, both also model inquiry and deepen understanding about the issues being investigated. In this chapter, we discuss the theoretical justification for each and show how the adversarial aspect of debate engages a different set of democratic skills than the more collaborative approach of deliberation. These differences require teachers to make judgments about how best to use these strategies in the classroom. We conclude by addressing some critiques of these strategies and discuss how alternative discussion designs might overcome some of the limitations of deliberation and debate.

Keywords

deliberationdebateclassroom discussiondemocratic educationpluralism
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Democratic Education , pp. 298 - 310
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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