How to End a Discussion: Consensus or Hegemony? A Response to Education for Deliberative Democracy and the Aim of Consensus

By taking the vantage point of agonistic pluralism, the aim is to enter into dialogue with Samuelsson’s theoretical development of consensus as an educational aim for classroom discussions. The response highlights three points of interest in the deliberative conception of consensus. The first point relates to the problem of exclusion, which Samuelsson clearly framed as something that concerns deliberative theory and agonistic theory. The second point is about the relation between conflict and consensus and the kind of conflict that is compatible with Samuelsson’s idea of consensus. The concluding part of this response is an exploration of how the agonistic concept of hegemony could function as an alternative aim for ending classroom discussions

Democratic Education and Agonism: Exploring the Critique from Deliberative Theory

Due to the current political challenges facing democratic societies, including an apparent presence of populist rhetoric, the question of how political discussions should take place in democratic education is as urgent as ever. In the last two decades, one of the most prominent approaches to this question has been the use of deliberative theory. However, the deliberative approach has been criticized from an agonistic perspective for neglecting the role of emotions in political discussions. Deliberative theorists have in turn responded to this critique and argued that the agonistic approach tends to put too much emphasis on students’ emotions and identities in political discussions. Recently, as a contribution to this debate, the idea of assimilating agonism with deliberation has been suggested as a way of overcoming the differences between agonism and deliberative theory. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the educational debate between agonism and deliberative theory by exploring the deliberative critique from the vantage point of agonism. I claim that the deliberative critique of agonism is unfounded and based on a misreading of Mouffe’s agonistic theory. Furthermore, I argue that the attempt to assimilate agonism with deliberation is not compatible with Mouffe’s agonistic theory

Global citizenship as taken-for-grantedness: reflecting on Swedish students’ trip to Tanzania

Swedish students regularly take part in school partnership trips to Tanzania. Yet, little research looks at the extent to which these trips support global learning. This paper is interested in the discourses that enable and constrain ethical relationality in these educative encounters. It considers existing research on global citizenship education and school partnerships in relation to decolonial engagements then analyses interview data with four students who participated in an entrepreneurship themed trip to identify discourses available to them. Students articulated an overarching discourse of taken-for-grantedness. Several sub-discourses could enable but tend to constrain an ethical relationality in these educative encounters

Structural and magnetic changes in CoAlZr thin films upon post annealing

We present a study of the effect of annealing amorphous ferromagnetic thin films of Co0.85(Al0.7Zr0.3)0.15, post deposition. The annealing was done in vacuum with no applied magnetic field. We find that already at a relatively low annealing temperature of 130 ◦C there is crystallite formation that introduces both structural and magnetic inhomogeneity. This does not affect the saturation magnetization strongly, but strongly affects the switching behavior and the overall effective anisotropy of the films. Further, there is a dramatic increase in magnetization damping. Thus, the annealing has a profound effect on both static and dynamic magnetic properties of the material. This is important to keep in mind for potential applications using these materials.Icelandic Research Fund Grants No. 228951, 218029 and 217843.Peer Reviewe

Kontroversiella frågor och didaktiska svar

Goldschmidt-Gjerløw, Beate; Gregers Eriksen, Kristin &amp; Jore, Mari Kristine, red. (2022): Kontroversielle, emosjonelle og sensitive tema i skolen. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 206 sidor.</p

Agonistic teaching : Four principles

The aim of this article is to synthesize theoretical and empirical research on agonism in education into teaching principles. Agonistic theory underscores the role of conflict, emotions, and collective identities in democratic classroom discussions. Empirical studies on agonism in education provide empirical insights into how these aspects are played out in teaching practices. By synthesizing both theoretical development and empirical findings on agonism in education, this article suggests four principles for agonistic teaching. The suggested principles aim to function as a synthetization of research valuable to the research field of democratic education and as tools for teachers who want to explore the possibilities of agonism in their teaching

How to End a Discussion : Consensus or Hegemony?

By taking the vantage point of agonistic pluralism, the aim is to enter into dialogue with Samuelsson’s theoretical development of consensus as an educational aim for classroom discussions. The response highlights three points of interest in the deliberative conception of consensus. The first point relates to the problem of exclusion, which Samuelsson clearly framed as something that concerns deliberative theory and agonistic theory. The second point is about the relation between conflict and consensus and the kind of conflict that is compatible with Samuelsson’s idea of consensus. The concluding part of this response is an exploration of how the agonistic concept of hegemony could function as an alternative aim for ending classroom discussions