Conference '09

Conference Sessions and Related Resources

The No Better Time learning exchanges are listed below, in alphabetical order, with relevant reading materials posted after many. You can also view these by keyword. If you would like to contribute links, reading materials, or other resources, please send them to Mica Stark. We welcome additional resources, and you do not need to have been at the No Better Time conference to contribute to this web page.

General Readings - For Everyone

TDI's Framing Paper
(This paper emerged from the June 2007 gathering which started TDI.)

Book List for Conference
(This is a list of books that will be available for purchase at the conference.)

Democracy, Growing Up

Where is Democracy Headed report.pdf
(A report that summarizes the first several years of DDC research.)

Bruce Mallory Opening Remarks


Readings for Learning Exchanges
(Sorted alphabetically by session name. To sort by keyword, click here.)

A deliberative framing of (and for) leadership and change in universities

Keywords: leadership, institutional change, shared governance

How can college and university leaders and change agents support the deliberative democracy agenda? How could such an agenda advance student learning, cultivate relationships with surrounding communities, and move toward more democratic practices of shared governance and collaborative decision making on campuses?

Summary Notes-A Deliberative framing for leadership univ.pdf

Authentic youth civic engagement: What are the essential elements?

Keywords: youth engagement, student engagement

A number of local governments have created dynamic, inclusive processes for engaging young people in local policymaking and problem-solving. However, much of this experience and knowledge has not been tapped, synthesized, or adapted for use by other leaders (including youth leaders) working in other communities or at other levels of government. How should we be defining authentic youth civic engagement?

And Justice for All: Straight talk about social and racial justice and deliberative democracy

Keywords: justice, inclusion, social justice

The essential meaning of democracy is free citizens with an equal opportunity to participate in the social, political, and economic systems that affect their lives. In this session, we’ll take stock of some of the forces that are driving this work: efforts to engage individuals in public life, to promote deliberative politics, and to increase social, political, and economic equity and justice. Is this a happy alliance, or are there underlying tensions? Is a more open democracy inherently more just for all, or can deliberative democracies still exclude historically marginalized groups? Is the language of “inclusion” sufficient and which groups respond positively or negatively to it? We’ll talk about these and related questions. And we’ll brainstorm ways to work collectively toward a vision of a more just and deliberative democracy.

Summary Notes-And Justice for All.pdf

Beyond the Timid University

Keywords: institutional change, leadership, academic freedom, higher education's mission

40 years ago universities were integral to the growth and social impact of the democratic youth movement. By contrast, during the last eight years, and despite the intense political and ethical controversies facing the country, our campuses remained quiet. Why are universities no longer resources, platforms, spaces for democratic organization, for public work, and for wide-ranging critical political conversation? What is it about academic work today that diminishes the democratic potential of college campuses? What might be done to re-orient academic professionalism towards the civic activity flourishing outside the university? What motivates those academics who have broken free of mainstream professionalism to foster collaboration between their campuses and community organizations? More generally, what can the academy do to support democracy without raising the red flag of "indoctrination not education?"



Summary Notes-Beyond timid university.pdf

Liz Coleman's call to reinvent liberal education

Building Capacity for All Through Citizen Action and Deliberative Democracy

Keywords: public capacity building, poverty

Across the country and around the world, low-income and marginalized communities have been experimenting with deliberative democracy to stimulate civic action and/or economic development. These efforts are sometimes done in partnership with colleges and universities, and they have been the subject of recent research. What are some of the key themes arising from this research? How can communities improve the effectiveness of democratic practices as a means to reducing poverty and revitalizing communities? How can highly disadvantaged people get involved? What role can colleges and universities play in this important and timely work?

Campuses and communities: Better together

Keywords: community-university partnerships

Deliberative democracy presents many opportunities for collaboration between universities, civic groups, local governments, school systems, and other institutions. What are the ways in which campuses and communities are working together? What are the keys to success, pitfalls to avoid, and areas that seem particularly fruitful for innovation?

Centers and institutes: What they do and how to create and sustain one

Keywords: centers and institutes

Centers for civic engagement, public deliberation, collaborative governance, community mediation... These are only a few examples of the kinds of structures on campuses designed to serve as partners with local communities. What do they do, and more importantly, what do communities want them to do? What are some strategies for creating a center or institute as valuable partners in a community,? How can they address the challenges of limited resources, changing staff and students, the academic calendar, academic culture, unsupportive peers, and more?

Centers and Institutes Learning Exchange.pdf

Choosing, Combining, and Adapting Deliberation Models and Methods

Keywords: dialogue and deliberation models

There are many different models and methods being used in this field, and it is not always clear which model is the best fit for a particular situation. Furthermore, most of these models end up being adapted to fit the needs and political context of the moment. How can we use what we know about deliberative projects on the ground to make better decisions about models and methods?

NCDD's Engagement Streams Framework

Beginning With the End in Mind article

The Public Health Agency of Canada's Draft Public Involvement Framework

Summary Notes-ChoosingCombiningAdaptingModelsandMethods.pdf

Close the Gap! (achievement gap)

Keywords: achievement gap, social justice, poverty

Many forces contribute to the achievement gap, including escalating tuition, increasing reliance on financial aid on loans and merit-based grants, and inadequate academic preparation. What should school systems, colleges, and universities be doing to improve the transition to college for lower-income students and students of color? Once they enter college, what strategies, practices, and culture are needed most at educational institutions to ensure that students achieve their college goals? What are communities doing to address the achievement gap? And how can communities and universities work together? In this session, participants will get the facts and explore ways to address this growing problem.




Summary Notes-Closing the Gap.pdf

Communication departments as hubs for teaching and learning deliberative democracy

Keywords: communication studies

Communication programs have always been dedicated to improving the quality of communication processes in all sorts of contexts. Augmenting courses in public speaking, argumentation and debate, small group communication, conflict resolution, intercultural communication, political communication, and rhetoric, some programs are adding courses such as "public deliberation," "communication & democracy," and "theories of deliberation and controversy." In this session, participants and practitioners will work to help further develop this relatively untapped resource. Martin Carcasson’s catalyst paper on teaching deliberative democracy in communication studies will serve as a conversation starter.

Summary Notes-Communication Studies.pdf

Community organizing and deliberative democracy: How do they relate?

Keywords: community organizing, advocacy

From the beginning, deliberation projects borrowed a number of tactics from the field of community organizing. Meanwhile, community organizing has evolved and diversified tremendously. The line between these two approaches to social change seems increasingly blurry. What are the similarities and differences? In what ways can they compliment each other and learn from one another?

Summary Notes-Community Organizing and Delib Dem.pdf

Deliberative democracy and climate change

Keywords: climate change, environmental issues

What is the status of local, state/provincial, federal, and global efforts to engage citizens in issues of climate change? What are the primary challenges, successes, and potential areas for innovation?

Summary Notes-DDandClimateChangeNotes.pdf

Deliberative democracy in federal agencies

Keywords: federal agencies, public administration

In the early months of the Obama Administration, how are federal agencies advancing their work in public participation? What are the most pressing challenges and opportunities, and how can researchers and practitioners be supportive of these efforts?

Summary Notes-DDinFederalAgencies.pdf

Creative work, social justice, and deliberative democracy

Keywords: art and democracy, social justice

How might social justice theater or public art advance education for democracy? How do the tools of deliberative democracy work alongside or as part of the creative process? This brief learning exchange will highlight three successful programs combining art, social justice and community engagement and create a space for all to share experiences, ideas and contacts.

Summary Notes-Creative Work Social Justice.pdf

Democracy and Participation in the Global South

Keywords: global democracy

The traditional (neo-colonial) view of democracy is that the countries of the North are the leaders, innovators, and ‘exporters’ of democracy to the Global South. However, it is increasingly evident that some of the most interesting and advanced democratic experiments are taking place in India, Brazil, Chile, the Philippines, and other Southern countries. This session will feature members of LogoLink, a network of civil society organizations based in the Global South, who will share their perspectives from research and practice. One of the overarching questions session participants will address is: How can we foster a higher degree of North-South collaboration and shared learning among democracy practitioners?

Champions of Participation UK report.pdf

PRIA - Gram Sabha.doc

PRIA - Community Participation Law.pdf

PRIA - Community Participation Fund.pdf

Legal Frameworks for Participation.pdf

Summary Notes-Democracy and participation in the Global South Feedback.pdf

Democracy matters: Faculty roles and rewards for engaged scholarship

Keywords: faculty roles and rewards, engaged scholarship

The growth in academic civic engagement has brought the question of faculty roles and rewards to the fore. If higher education is to contribute to nurturing a robust democratic culture, what are the implications for faculty careers? How should colleges and universities nurture, assess, and reward public engagement in teaching and scholarship? How should we understand the connections or tensions between the democratic or civic commitments of faculty and their professional or disciplinary commitments? How do we define the goals of engaged scholarship and teaching? How should institutions evaluate its quality? This session will explore these questions and connect them to current efforts to create academic policies for hiring, evaluating, and rewarding engaged faculty.


Summary Notes-Democracy Matters worksheet.pdf

Democracy, values, and cultural worldviews

Keywords: values, intercultural dialogue, intergroup relations

How does deliberative democracy help participants manage fundamentally different cultural, ideological, or partisan values – and simultaneously face the question of whether our laws, policies, and public processes really emerge from the full range of cultural and ideological values expressed in our society? To what extent do distinctly Constitutional ideals – liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness, the right to privacy – guide the work of a deliberative democracy, or do they? How do other values, such as community, generosity, and compassion, influence social change and public policy making? In an increasingly diverse and globally interdependent society, "values-based politics" can be both frustrating and motivating. How do practitioners and educators ensure that democracy is, indeed, a matter of principle?

Summary Notes-CulturalValuesWorldViews.pdf

Economic growth and deliberative democracy: Making the connection

Keywords: economic growth

In the new Soul of the Community report, Gallup has shown a positive correlation between "community-citizen engagement" and economic growth in the 26 cities served by the Knight Foundation. Meanwhile, the new NLC Governing Our Economies report argues that democratic governance is a critical economic development asset. How can researchers continue to explore the links between democracy and economic vitality? How should practitioners and local leaders be using these findings to explain their work and craft new initiatives?

Summary Notes-EconomicGrowthandDD.pdf

Embedding deliberative practices in local democracy

Keywords: embedded democracy, local democracy

Part I: What does it mean to “embed” public deliberation in communities and why should we care about it?

Some practitioners and scholars use the term “embeddedness” to describe situations where deliberative democracy has become a routine practice in a community’s social and political life. In this highly interactive session, participants will discuss various definitions of embeddedness and share concrete examples of what it looks like. We will also develop priorities for research and evaluation that will help the field build a better understanding of why embeddedness matters and of how to measure its contribution to local democratic governance.

Sustaining Public Engagement

Summary Notes-Embedding Deliberative Practice in Local Democracy Worksheet.pdf

Summary Notes-Embedding Deliberative Practices in Local DemocracyPartIFullNotes.pdf

Part II: Assisting communities and exploring new frontiers

How can we help public officials, veteran deliberation practitioners, and other leaders who are trying to embed deliberative practices in their communities? What elements are missing from current examples of embeddedness, and what kinds of work offer the greatest potential for innovation?

Embedding deliberative practices in national democracy

Keywords: national democracy, public administration

What would it look like to embed democratic principles and strategies in federal policymaking? How can the best practices being used in local democracy be scaled up to support public engagement in federal policymaking? What kinds of visions, roles, and assumptions are embodied in the new administration’s Open Government Directive (scheduled to be released in May), and how should practitioners and educators react? This session will focus on answering these questions and reviewing the latest developments in Washington. This session will focus in part on the Strengthening Our Nation’s Democracy report.

Summary Notes-Embedding deliberative practices in national democracy.pdf

Embedding Deliberative Practices: Updating the Legal Frameworks

Keywords: legal frameworks for democracy

Most of the laws that govern citizen participation at the local, state, and federal levels are now over thirty years old; they may not uphold, and may even interfere with, the best principles and practices that have emerged in deliberative democracy. How should we work together to revisit and revise the legal framework for democratic governance?

Bingham Collaborative gov'ce and incomplete legal frameworks.pdf

Summary Notes-EmbeddingUpdatingtheLegalframework.pdf

"Extending" cooperative extension: Promising developments in university-community collaboration

Keywords: cooperative extension, community-university partnerships

Cooperative extension programs were originally intended to provide education, research, and support to local people and communities, with a goal of increasing citizen capacity for self governance and local problem solving. How well do cooperative extension programs fulfill their original, democratic purposes? To what extent are they enabling collaboration between campuses and communities? In this session, we'll assess the latest developments and innovations and consider new possibilities for cooperative extension.

Summary Notes-cooperative extension.pdf

Funding and fostering democracy: What have foundations learned about the field, and what do they want to know?

Keywords: foundations

Some philanthropic organizations, from small community foundations to large national funders, have helped to seed and grow a more deliberative democracy. Most, however, are more reticent. Why are some funders committed to this work while others are not? What are some of their most common concerns? What questions do funders have about the way deliberative democracy has developed and where it seems to be heading? This session will build on the new Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) guide on "Funding and Fostering Local Democracy."

Funding and Fostering Local Democracy.pdf

Summary Notes-Funding and Fostering Democracy.pdf

Higher Education and the Future of Democratic Civic Engagement

Keywords: institutional change, higher education's mission

To what extent do traditional structures, policies, and cultures in academia limit civic engagement and make it less democratic? We invite you to participate in a session exploring the democratic framing and practice of civic engagement on campus, examining ways in which democratic engagement transforms higher education as an alternative to civic engagement that is accommodated to existing structures and practices. What do we need to do to be intentional about the democratic processes and outcomes of engagement? What can we do on our campuses to institutionalize democratic engagement? An exploration of this democratic framing is available at as a starting point for the session.


Summary Notes-DemocraticCivicEngagement.pdf

Summary Notes-DemocraticCivicEngagementNotes.pdf

High Impact Learning Structures

Keywords: diversity offices, civic engagement offices/centers, first-year experience

High impact learning structures such as those found in offices of student affairs, diversity and multiculturalism, the first-year experience, and community engagement facilitate student learning for democracy but such departments are often disconnected from each other and from traditional academic programs on campuses. By cultivating substantive and sustainable collaborations to educate students in democratic theory and deliberative practice (e.g., dialogue and deliberation models), there is potential to institutionalize such initiatives beyond a single department or office, engage more students in the democratic process, and encourage them to cultivate their skills in ways that promote a sense of social responsibility. Join us for a discussion focusing on what these learning structures can offer as partners and complements to academic disciplines and how can they work together to increase their effectiveness and their impact on the campus.

Diversity Gilchrist-Diaz.pdf

Summary Notes-High Impact Learning Practices Notes.pdf

How Can Federal Agencies Support Local Democracy?

Keywords: federal agencies, public administration, local democracy

The pressures that have fostered deliberative democracy in communities are increasingly evident at the federal level – but there has been very little discussion about how federal agencies, local governments, and other institutions should work together, or complement one another, in their efforts to involve the public. A few federal agencies, such as the EPA, have learned a great deal about how to engage citizens in ways that strengthen local democracy as well as meeting the needs of federal policymakers. What are the most critical lessons, and how can we use them to promote local-federal collaboration in this work?


Innovations in youth civic engagement

Keywords: youth engagement, student engagement

The role of young people in public life has become an increasingly popular topic - and a fast-moving target. What are the most promising strategies and approaches in youth civic engagement? How can governments, schools, universities, and other institutions assess and enhance their capacity to do this work?

Institutionalizing deliberative democracy on campus

Keywords: institutional change

One critique of the academy is that innovative programs or activities are often marginalized or linked to the hard work of one champion, and when the funding dries up or the champion moves on, the good work fades away. How can the champions of deliberative democracy on campus ensure that it outlasts them? How do we recognize a sustainable project – one that has been institutionalized across administrative units and academic departments? In this session, we'll consider approaches to deliberative practices that create the conditions for sustainable change.

Summary Notes-Institutionalizing DD on campus.pdf

Intergroup and intercultural dialogue, an international learning exchange

Keywords: intergroup relations, intercultural dialogue

The Council of Europe's commitment to "intercultural dialogue" has been adopted by the Council's higher education division as a central goal of higher education collaboration and reform. In the US, programs in intergroup dialogue flourish. What models are commonly used in the US, what is the research showing about what students get out of intergroup dialogue experiences, and how does that compare to efforts abroad?

Summary Notes-IntergroupandInterculturalDialogue.pdf

Making the Case for This Work

Keywords: assessment and evaluation

Despite all the research that has been done on public deliberation and all the evaluations that have been conducted by local projects, most of us struggle to concisely explain what kinds of outcomes can be expected from this work. Part of the problem is that there are many different kinds and levels of both processes and potential outcomes. This session will deal with the complexity of the evaluation question, and explore ways to make the collection and reporting of evaluations, case studies, and other data more effective.

DDC Session on Evaluation (Participants).pdf

Summary Notes-MakingtheCaseforThisWorkreportingoutcomes.pdf

Neighborhood Democracy

Keywords: local democracy, "embedded" democracy

Thirty years ago, a new democratic experiment began in a handful of American cities. In Portland, Oregon, Dayton, Ohio, St. Paul, Minnesota, and a number of other places, local governments created neighborhood council systems as a way of engaging citizens in public decision-making and problem-solving. What have we learned from this 'first wave' of neighborhood governance structures, and from the second wave that has followed in places like Los Angeles and Minneapolis? Do these systems hold promise as a way of embedding deliberative democracy in the social, cultural, and political life of communities? This session will build on the "Democratic Governance at the Neighborhood Level" meeting, held in November 2008, and the resulting report.

Promise and Challenge of Neighborhood Democracy.pdf

Diers Community's Role in Addressing Social Issues.pdf

Summary Notes-NeighborhoodDemocracy.pdf

New Frontiers for Assessment and Measurement

Keywords: assessment and evaluation

Communities need to be able to build ongoing evaluation mechanisms into their deliberation and democratic governance work – to monitor engagement processes, track outcomes, strengthen accountability, and learn how to improve their efforts. What indicators should we be using, and what other kinds of tools exist – or might be developed – to meet these community needs?

DDC Memo - Impacts and Outcomes of Participatory Processes in Brazil and Canada June 2009.pdf

DDC Impacts and Outcomes of Participatory Processes - indicators and variables July 6.pdf

Participatory Budgeting in Local Government

Keywords: participatory budgeting, leadership, local democracy

As city and county budgets shrink, more and more local officials are turning to citizens to provide input on cutting deficits and how best to spend remaining precious resources. Participatory budgeting examples range from large-scale big-picture input sessions to small groups acting as “mini city councils” to recommend trade-offs in line-item detail. What are the best ways to approach involving the public in budgeting decisions? How should local governments determine what questions should be asked of the public? Which civic engagement processes best fit which situations? What responsibilities do pol! icy makers take on when they ask the public? And how can these processes be embedded to ensure planning beyond the lean years?


See lots of materials from the Philadelphia Tight Times, Tough Choices Additional blogs and reports here


See material from City of Menlo Park on budgeting

Summary Notes-participatorybudgeting.pdf

Political Theory or Practice

Keywords: political science

The analysis of political life – whether it is how governments are structured, how and whether individuals participate in those governments, or more normative considerations about the best kind of government and the best kind of citizen – is what political scientists do. If we view democratic education as simply the creation or transference of knowledge about democratic politics, then the discipline is on track. However, if we think about political science as being the builder not just of knowledge but of democratic skills and habits – that is, if our work has an avowedly democratic purpose of helping to create citizens committed to and prepared to be engaged in democratic life – then it is hard to see the discipline as anywhere close to the center of that work. In fact, for much of the 20th century it developed as a social science discipline increasingly distanced from, and perhaps even contemptuous of, this work. In this session, we'll consider the purpose of political science and whether and how to increase the discipline's public relevance.

Political Science and the Work of Democracy.pdf

Race and democracy: Latest twists in a long and winding road

Keywords: racial equity, social justice

Over the last two decades, racial progress and the evolution of democracy are wrapped up in one another, pulling each other and pushing forward together. In the aftermath of an historic presidential election, how has the dynamic changed? What new challenges and opportunities have emerged?

Reframing and reclaiming democracy

Keywords: language

"Deliberative democracy" is just one of many different terms and labels ("public engagement," "civic participation," "citizen involvement," "democratic governance," and so on) being used to describe our work. The definitions of these terms are blurry and overlapping, and none of them seems very compelling. How can we develop and use language that explains, in a plain and powerful way, why this work is proliferating and why it matters?


Renewing the research agenda

Keywords: research and scholarship

We have achieved some momentum in the field by regularly convening practitioners and academics to discuss our common research agenda: What do we know about this work? What do we need to find out next? This session will use the DDC report, Where is Democracy Headed? Research and Practice on Public Deliberation as a starting point for the discussion.

Summary Notes-Reviewing Research Agenda.pdf

Restorative, community justice: Democratic solutions to a justice system in crisis

Keywords: justice

Across the country, governments are experimenting with approaches to managing criminal offenses by engaging citizens in creating community standards and actively involving offenders and harmed parties to hold offenders accountable. Similarly campus judicial systems are experimenting with forms of restorative justice and community standards using democratic dialogue, broad student participation, conflict management techniques, and collaborative decision making. These processes ask, for example, who was harmed by the offense? What is the impact on the community? What can the offender do to repair the harm and rebuild trust? In this session, we'll consider how restorative justice and community standards are consistent with the principles and practices of just and deliberative democracy, both in a campus and community setting.

Summary Notes-RestorativeJustice.pdf

Seeding democracy: Community colleges as community hubs for deliberative democracy

Keywords: community colleges

Rising tuition and fees are making university education out of reach for growing numbers of poor, middle, and working class students, so community colleges are viewed as the most accessible and equitable institutions in American higher education. At the same time, they face persistent challenges: decreasing public funding, transitory student populations, and pressure to educate for careers, usually to the exclusion of citizenship. How can our most democratic colleges – those where the faculty, students, and community are one-and-the-same –advance deliberative democracy in public life?

Summary Notes-Community Colleges.pdf

Stakeholders, citizens, or both? The interplay between conflict resolution, collaborative governance, and deliberative democracy

Keywords: conflict resolution, collaborative governance

Some colleges and universities offer programs in conflict resolution that work with stakeholders – governments and private and civic interests – to mediate conflict, address problems, and achieve solutions to public challenges. Others offer programs in “collaborative governance,” programs that provide support for governments seeking ways to improve inter-governmental collaboration. Enter deliberative democracy. How do citizen participation and deliberation affect these more established forms of decision and policy making? What can the field of deliberative democracy learn from the successes and failures of conflict resolution and collaborative governance educators and practitioners? And how are all of these fields evolving as they work to include ordinary citizens as stakeholders in addressing public problems?

Summary Notes-Stakeholders citizens or both.pdf

Student Democratic Leadership Education

Keywords: leadership education, student engagement

How do we prepare students, in both academic and co-curricular programs, for leadership work that promotes a deliberation democracy agenda? How do the terms "democratic" and "leadership" clash in the ways they are often presented in higher education? This exchange will illuminate both the complexities and the possibilities in student democratic leadership education in higher education today, learning from good program models, research, and shared stories of challenges and successes in this work.



Summary Notes-StudentDemocraticLeadershipNotes.pdf

Summary Notes-Student Democratic Leadership.pdf

Students as Catalysts for Change

Keywords: youth engagement, student engagement

A Session for Students - Participants in Support of Students Welcome In the 2008 presidential election, students voted in record number and their vote had a significant impact on the outcome of the race. Across the country, students campaigned door-to-door, wrote blogs, and joined national movements to express their views. Excited by this renewed energy, academics, practitioners, and public officials are searching for ways to sustain it in and beyond the classroom. What was it about the last election that captured student attention? What do students suggest as programs and activities that would prepare them for continued political engagement? It's important to include students in conversations about the next generation of civic education.


Summary Notes-StudentsasCatalystsforChange.pdf

Teaching Democracy in Public Administration Schools

Keywords: public administration

Some of the traditional employers of PA school graduates are looking for employees with the skills and mindset to engage citizens in more deliberative, democratic ways. How are PA programs responding to these new challenges? What kinds of "democratic skills" do graduates need? How should PA professors and administrators address these challenges and opportunities as they consider the future of their field? Matt Leighninger's catalyst paper* on public administration will help to set up this session.

Teaching Democracy in Public Administration - No Better Time paper.pdf

Teaching Teachers: Deliberative Democracy in Education Programs

Keywords: teacher education

How can we engage with schools of education, which prepare future teachers and principals? Too often, educators are prepared to teach academic content and "manage" classrooms or school buildings, but are not prepared to understand schools as potential classrooms and laboratories of democratic life. Yet there are allies in education schools. How can we work with teacher education and educational leadership programs to prepare teachers and principals to advance civic education and deliberative democracy in engaging and effective ways? This session will draw from Sarah Stitzlein’s catalyst paper on teaching deliberative democracy in education programs.

Deliberative Democracy in Teacher Education.pdf

Teaching Teachers Learning Exchange.pdf

Summary Notes-teaching teachers.pdf

Tech ethics: The values questions raised in a digital democracy

Keywords: technology

Many attribute the dramatic increase in youth engagement to shifts in the way democracy worked in this past presidential election, particularly the Obama campaign’s more technological orientation. What does that mean for face-to-face democracy-building? Where are the digital divides – age, economic disparity, language – and how do we overcome them? Who controls information exchange? Are the technology advocates in sync with the deliberative democracy advocates? This session will examine timeless questions – who controls information, who participates in policy making, how do we ensure equal voice and opportunity, what happens when we skip the relationship-building aspect of strengthening public life – in a new, techno-democracy.

Summary Notes-Tech ethics.pdf

Tech-Savvy Citizenry

Keywords: technology



I tagged a number of articles at my blog that might be useful to take a look at -- Brad Rourke.
For sure read this blog post about the session itself

Summary Notes-Social Media In The Service of Civic Engagement.pdf

The "downside" of deliberative democracy

Can deliberative projects spread misinformation, encourage narrow-mindedness, and discourage political action? How often are citizens actually capable of making fair, informed choices about policy? Is it realistic to think that decision makers will set aside power and authority based on the will of everyday people? These kinds of questions have been raised about the theory of deliberative democracy; are they valid criticisms of the practice? This session should allow for a candid exchange of these, and other, concerns so that practitioners and educators can learn, adapt, and respond.

Summary Notes-DownsidetoDD.pdf

The Kind of Scholarship We Need

Keywords: research and scholarship, faculty roles and rewards, engaged scholarship

One of the most valuable contributions scholars can play in strengthening democracy is helping society understand pressing social, civic, and ethical problems so that citizens can work to address them. Academics use many terms to describe this work: engaged, outreach, or applied scholarship, and participatory, collaborative, community-based, or action research. The more participatory, action forms of scholarship are particularly aligned with the principles and practices of a deliberative democracy. In this session, participants will explore these research methods and discuss what works best for communities, practitioners, scholars, and students. This session will draw from the Cunningham-McKinney catalyst paper on engaged scholarship.

Action Research Cunningham Mckinney revised.pdf

Summary Notes-KindofSchoalarshipDemocracyNeeds.pdf

This just in: The future of journalism in 21st Century democracy

Keywords: journalism

The shifts in local democracy, the development of online media, and the economic realities facing media outlets today all portend great changes in the way journalists are educated and employed. How can we assess these factors and envision new roles for journalists in 21st Century democracy? Do colleges and universities have an expanded role to play as providers of high-quality, up-to-date information? How can journalism support deliberative democracy, both on and off campus? David Ryfe’s catalyst paper* on journalism will help to set up this session.

Here is a list of websites related to the topic of this session.

Using Democratic Strategies in the Classroom

Keywords: pedagogy

This session examines a range of democratic strategies that make classrooms more interactive, engaging, and relevant to the development of students as citizens in a democracy. How can democratic strategies, such as deliberative forums and dialogue, be part of basic course design? How do we overcome barriers than might limit their use? How do we handle dialogue that is culturally, politically, or ideologically charged? What are the implications of using democratic strategies in the classroom for justice in democracy? We’ll also consider strategies for encouraging the use of democratic strategies across the curriculum and in co-curricular programs on campus.





Classroom supplemental resource, see Choices Program


Start Talking (a handbook about managing difficult dialogues in the classroom)

Summary Notes-DemocraticStrategiesintheClassroom.pdf


READINGS FOR BREAKFAST ROUNDTABLES (sorted alpha by session name)

Taking the Work to Rebuild Our Democracy Seriously 3-5.pdf


Other Readings

Academic Libraries Civic Engagement Kranich.pdf