Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cultivating Moral Imagination Through Deliberative Pedagogy: Reframing Immigration Deliberation For Student Engagement Across Differences. A Response To "Deliberating Public Policy Issues With Adolescents: Classroom Dynamics And Sociocultural Considerations", Lisa Weasel

Democracy and Education

In “Deliberating Public Policy Issues with Adolescents,” the authors described what they determine to be an unsuccessful attempt at deliberative pedagogy on the topic of immigration in three high school classrooms that differed demographically. Specifically, the authors observed that students failed to engage with evidence, stuck with their initial viewpoints, and only listened politely to those with different views, rather than interacting across differences to reach consensus. While student positionality, as the authors suggest, is important to take into account, there may be ways to reorient deliberations on “wicked problems” such as immigration, which are by their nature prone to …