Deliberating Controversial Public Issues As Part of Civic Education

The authors argue that deliberation should be an integral part of secondary civics classrooms and teacher education programs. Drawing on a wide range of research, they contend that teaching and learning deliberative skills has the potential to build individual and group civic capacity. They share some of the results of an evaluation of one ten-nation project, Deliberating in a Democracy, which suggest that teachers can learn to conduct deliberations in secondary classrooms. Furthermore, 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 important, students demonstrated greater perspective-taking abilities than students 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.