DELIBERATION AS A CORE PART OF TEACHER EDUCATION AND CIVICS CLASSROOMS

The author argues that deliberation should be an integral part of secondary civics classrooms and teacher education programs. Drawing on a wide range of research, she contends that teaching and learning deliberative skills has the potential to build individual and group civic capacity. She focuses on the results of an evaluation of one 10-nation project, Deliberating in a Democracy, which suggest that teachers can learn to conduct deliberations in secondary classrooms. Further, across countries, students reported increases in their understanding of issues, their ability to state their opinions, and their confidence in talking about controversial issues with peers. Most importantly, students demonstrated greater perspective-taking abilities than a comparison group not involved in the project. The potential limitations and weaknesses of the deliberative model are discussed, as are the implications for civic pedagogy and learning.