Education for Deliberative Democracy: A Typology of Classroom Discussions

The theory of deliberative democracy places public deliberations at the heart of democracy. In order to participate in democratic deliberations, citizens need certain skills, attitudes, and values. Within the field of education for deliberative democracy, it is assumed that these are learned through participation in democratic deliberation. Thus, one way to educate future citizens for deliberative democracy is by constructing democratic deliberations in the classroom. In this article, four strategically chosen examples of discussions taking place inside classrooms are analyzed, in order to flesh out the abstract criteria of democratic deliberations and to create an empirically based typology of classroom discussions. In this article I also aspire to contribute to classroom practices by pointing out how teachers can steer classroom discussions toward democratic deliberation: They can use questions that open up space for disagreement, while at the same time present opportunities to reach collective conclusions

Designing a Bluetooth Speaker: A Collaboration with Orlo AB

This report details the collaborative project between the Author, Zenit Design AB which is performed on behalf of the bluetooth speaker manufacturer, Orlo AB. The Project is divided in two parts, where the first aims to identify a new market where Orlo’s technical expertise will benefit the user in a unique way and the secondary part is about designing a speaker for the said market. Several potential markets are identified through analysis and among all candidates, Hotel Rooms are chosen as the definite field of work. Hotels in Lund and Malmö are visited to learn more about the needs of hotels and their guests. The findings from these visits are used as foundation in a brainstorming session that results in wide range of potential concepts. These concepts are visualized and evaluated through sketches and quick mock-ups. Ultimately, it’s decided to proceed with a wall mounted speaker concept. The Design phase is set up by Orlo providing the necessary technical specifications requirements and combining these with thoughts on how to protect the speaker from being stolen and preventing mis-usage and disturbance amongst the guests. Competitor speakers are then studied from an aesthetic point of view, with the intention to learn what has already been done and not. Finally, several inspiration boards are used to frame the different visual aspects of the project, such as how to work with forms, materials and color e.g. The Actual design phase is initiated by experimenting with different forms with the set volume of one liter. One of these shapes are chosen for further work and developed through several stages to the final design. Parallel to the overall design process, smaller topics such as in-depth thoughts on wood and coating processes, working with meshes, branding the product and incorporating visual feedback through lighting are discussed too. Lastly, the concept is finalized through the development of the inner components such as the orifice and manifolds

Education for Deliberative Democracy. Theoretical assumptions and classroom practices

It is often said that education is closely linked with democracy. This may refer to different things, however. It may refer to the idea that the educational system should be consistent with democratic values, for instance equal access. It may also refer to classroom practices that allow students to express their opinions and be at least partially in control of their school life. A third interpretation is as a preparation for future democratic participation. This involves teaching students common knowledge along with more specific democratic skills and values. This notion is often referred to as ‘education for democracy’, and this is the topic of the present dissertation. Here, education for deliberative democracy is investigated in a qualitative and explorative manner. The aim is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the specific knowledge, skills, and values that future citizens should acquire to be prepared to participate in deliberative democracy, and to identify the pedagogical practices that should be applied to achieve this. I investigated education for deliberative democracy in different phases, each phase corresponding with a different research focus. In the ‘pre-phase’, I addressed how scholars of political philosophy conceptualize deliberative democracy. According to the ideal of deliberative democracy, citizens and their representatives should justify their positions through public reasoning, in which they seek mutually justifiable reasons for the laws they impose on one another. It is not majority rule per se that justifies political decision but the reason-giving process that precedes voting, where citizens weigh arguments and alternatives against each other and strive toward mutual agreement. In ‘Phase 1 – Literature review’ I investigated how scholars of education describe and define the project ‘education for deliberative democracy’. What are the skills and values they advocate? Do these coincide with what scholars of political philosophy argue for? Furthermore, do they present ideas concerning how an education for deliberative democracy should be implemented? Two findings are particularly interesting. First, there is widespread agreement in the field about how future citizens should learn deliberative skills and values – through participation in democratic deliberations. Second, the field contains a gap. Articles arguing for deliberative democracy as an educational aim on the one hand, and articles investigating pedagogical practices on the other, are often far removed from one another. The problem lies mainly at the pedagogical end of the spectrum, where articles investigating pedagogical practices often fail to ground their studies in the political definition of deliberative democracy. This causes them to lose their immediate relevance to questions related to education for deliberative democracy. Thus, when the argument is made that deliberation as a pedagogical method fosters certain skills and values, the question that remains to be answered is what makes these relevant for deliberative democracy (article 1). In ‘Phase 2 – Empirical study’, I conducted a short-term ethnographic study. I found that many classroom discussions appear to be examples of democratic deliberations, but when scrutinized, they are found to lack one or more crucial features. In these cases, they often include either a reason-giving process and a reflective process or a search for a conclusion, but usually not all three simultaneously. However, at other times, they may include all three aspects and qualify as democratic deliberations. In this regard, the type of question discussed is important because different types of questions are associated with different types of discussions. Discussions including reason-giving and reflection, but lacking a search for a conclusion, are structured around open questions, whereas discussions including a search for conclusion but lacking reason-giving and reflection are structured around closed questions. Discussions including all three aspects, however, are structured around questions with a ’suitable’ balance between openness and closeness. Based on this, a practical implication is articulated: in order to steer classroom discussions in the direction of democratic deliberations, teachers should pose questions open enough to give students the possibility to disagree on the matter while at the same time closed enough to give them the opportunity to reach a collective conclusion (article 2). Furthermore, I found that consensus as a criterion for classroom discussions can be problematic, according to teachers experienced in conducting classroom discussions. It can alter the pattern of communication in undesirable ways and cause emotional strain in students. However, by defining consensus as a regulative aim and a multifaceted concept with different meanings, I argue that many different types of agreements and disagreements can coexist and that it should be possible to retain consensus as an ideal in classroom deliberations without necessarily creating the negative side effects declared by the teachers (article 3). In the ‘concluding phase’, I formulated my version of an education for deliberative democracy. Grounded in the political understanding of deliberative democracy, I argue that an education for deliberative democracy should focus on teaching future citizens how to give each other reasons for the positions they hold, how to weigh different arguments and alternatives against each reason offered, and how to strive for mutually acceptable decisions on how to act. Furthermore, I argue that they should learn this by practicing democratic deliberations (in the classroom). In this regard, the teacher’s task is to moderate the classroom discussion, to reflect on a number of contextual factors, and to steer the exchange of ideas in the direction of democratic deliberations. This will give students the opportunity to practice giving reasons, reflecting over others’ statements, and striving for collective conclusions. This formulation can be regarded as a minimalistic model of an education for deliberative democracy. There are arguably other skills and values that are also important for deliberative participation. However, in order for such skills and values to be relevant in a deliberative sense, they need to be firmly connected to the core activity of deliberative participation. I therefore argue that even though this formulation is a minimalistic one, it is the necessary starting point for an education for deliberative democracy

Education for Deliberative Democracy and the Aim of Consensus

The aim of consensus is essential to deliberative democracy. However, this aim has also been frequently criticized. In this article, I present two different forms of criticism against consensus in democratic education. The first, articulated by scholars of education for democracy, claims that the aim of consensus fails to account for the conflictual nature of democracy and thereby disallows disagreement and dissensus. The second, formulated by classroom practitioners, argues that it disrupts the pattern of communication in classroom discussions. I nevertheless attempt to defend consensus on both accounts by arguing that it is a multifaceted concept that allows for different types of agreements and disagreements to coexist and therefore will stand in the way neither of pluralism nor of dissensus. It also will not necessarily foster undesirable patterns of communication in classroom discussions

Hanbury Brown Twiss effects in channel mixing normal-superconducting systems

An investigation of the role of the proximity effect in current cross correlations in multiterminal, channel-mixing, normal-superconducting systems is presented. The proposed experiment is an electrical analog of the optical Hanbury Brown Twiss intensity cross correlation experiment. A chaotic quantum dot is connected via quantum point contacts to two normal and one superconducting reservoir. For dominating coupling of the dot to the superconducting reservoir, a magnetic flux of the order of a flux quantum in the dot suppresses the proximity effect and reverses the sign of the cross correlations, from positive to negative. In the opposite limit, for a dominating coupling to the normal reservoirs, the proximity effect is weak and the cross correlation are positive for a nonideal contact between the dot and the superconducting reservoir. We show that in this limit the correlations can be explained with particle counting arguments.Comment: Invited talk at LT2

Bootstrapping parallel treebanks

This paper argues for the development of parallel treebanks. It summarizes the work done in this area and reports on experiments for building a Swedish-German treebank. And it describes our approach for reusing resources from one language while annotating another language

Apophatic Listening

In our response to “Deliberating Public Policy Issues with Adolescents,” we address the matter that students seem to be reluctant to changing their minds, opinions, and initial positions in classroom deliberations and instead see such deliberations as an opportunity to perform and publicly announce their preexisting views. We argue that this calls for an increased focus on teaching students how to listen to each other and that such a focus should come in the form of teaching them apophatic listening. We also propose pedagogical practices that could be used for teaching students this particular deliberative skill

Apophatic listening. A response to Deliberating public policy issues with adolescents : Classroom dynamics and sociocultural considerations

publishedVersio

Apophatic Listening. A Response to Deliberating Public Policy Issues with Adolescents: Classroom Dynamics and Sociocultural Considerations

In our response to “Deliberating Public Policy Issues with Adolescents,” we address the matter that students seem to be reluctant to changing their minds, opinions, and initial positions in classroom deliberations and instead see such deliberations as an opportunity to perform and publicly announce their preexisting views. We argue that this calls for an increased focus on teaching students how to listen to each other and that such a focus should come in the form of teaching them apophatic listening. We also propose pedagogical practices that could be used for teaching students this particular deliberative skill.publishedVersio