Constructive Dialogue: Books, Articles, & Reports

This webpage lists a few high-quality books for the K-12 and general adult audiences with their descriptions from WorldCat. You can request the books through your local public library. The articles and reports are all openly available when you click on the link in the description.

Table of Contents

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Books

Books are available through your Public Library. Books labelled Open Access are available for free download.

K-12

• Brookfield, Stephen D., and Stephen Preskill. 2012. Discussion As a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Wiley.
  • Description from WorldCat: Discussion as a Way of Teaching shows how to plan, conduct, and assess classroom discussions. Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill suggest exercises for starting discussions, strategies for maintaining their momentum, and ways to elicit diverse views and voices. The book also includes new exercises and material on the intersections between discussion and the encouragement of democracy in the classroom. This revised edition expands on the original and contains information on adapting discussion methods in online teaching, on using discussion to enhance democratic participation, and on the theoretical foundations for the discussion exercises described in the book. Throughout the book, Brookfield and Preskill clearly show how discussion can enliven classrooms, and they outline practical methods for ensuring that students will come to class prepared to discuss a topic. They also explain how to balance the voices of students and teachers, while still preserving the moral, political, and pedagogic integrity of discussion.
• Kay, Matthew. 2018. Not Light, but Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom. 1st ed. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Stenhouse.
  • Description from WorldCat: Do you feel prepared to initiate and facilitate meaningful, productive dialogues about race in your classroom? Are you looking for practical strategies to engage with your students? Inspired by Frederick Douglass’s abolitionist call to action, ‘it is not light that is needed, but fire’ Matthew Kay has spent his career learning how to lead students through the most difficult race conversations. Kay not only makes the case that high school classrooms are one of the best places to have those conversations, but he also offers a method for getting them right, providing candid guidance on: How to recognize the difference between meaningful and inconsequential race conversations; How to build conversational ‘safe spaces,’ not merely declare them; How to infuse race conversations with urgency and purpose; How to thrive in the face of unexpected challenges; How administrators might equip teachers to thoughtfully engage in these conversations. With the right blend of reflection and humility, Kay asserts, teachers can make school one of the best venues for young people to discuss race.
• Lo, Jane C., Wayne Journell, and Diana Hess. 2022. Making Classroom Discussions Work: Methods for Quality Dialogue in the Social Studies. 1st ed. New York: Teachers College Press.
  • Description from WorldCat: The field of social studies education has seen an increase in research on the use of discussions as an essential instructional technique. This book examines the importance of using quality dialogue as a tool to help students understand complex issues in social studies classrooms. The author provides a collection of well-known, evidence-based discussion techniques as well as classroom examples showing the methods in use. While the benefits of using discussion as an instructional method is widely considered a best practice of civic learning, actual high-quality discussions are rare and notoriously difficult to facilitate. This book is designed to guide teacher educators and classroom teachers in facilitating equitable and productive discussions that will boost learning and democratic engagement. This book offers methods and tips to help teachers make discussions more equitable in their classrooms.
• Rubenstein, Susane. 2022. Can We Talk?: Encouraging Conversation in High School Classrooms. 1st ed. Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.
  • Description from WorldCat: The proverbial “lost art of conversation” has become more than a cliché. Once young people learned the art of conversation outside of the classroom-in their homes, in organized social groups, and with their peers-but today such human encounters are limited, partly because of the ubiquitous presence of technology. Face-to-face conversation offers a different and vital kind of connection, one that is at the core of our humanity and essential for a democratic society. As teachers, we have a responsibility to help our students find their voices and truly listen to the voices they hear. The strategies and activities described in this book are easily integrated into an already existing curriculum and will allow students to become not only better speakers, but better writers, better thinkers, and better human beings.

General

• Cattani, Adelino and Bruno Mastroianni. (Eds.). 2021. Competing, Cooperating, Deciding: Towards a Model of Deliberative Debate. 1st ed. Florence: Firenze University Press.
  • Open Access
  • Description from Publisher: Will there be any ‘happy dispute’ again? A debate among people holding different opinions that does not end with a repetition of the initial idea, but rather with an improvement of one’s own beliefs and those of others? In order to achieve this, we need to rely on education which, through deliberative debate training activities, can foster the development of rhetorical and dialectical skills (the ability to persuade and compete) as well as critical thinking and open-mindedness (living together and cooperating). A number of scholars from around the world reflect on the topic both from a theoretical point of view – the significance of debate in a hyperconnected society – and from a practical point of view, the application of educational models and tools to measure their effectiveness.
• Grenny, Joseph, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory. 2022. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill.
  • Description from WorldCat: Crucial Conversations provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation-especially difficult ones-leads to the results you want. Written in an engaging and witty style, the book teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offers powerful skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person.
• Stone, Douglas, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. [1999] 2023. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Revised ed. New York: Penguin.
  • Description from WorldCat: Difficult conversations are, well difficult. It’s not easy to tell your mom you want to take a year off university … or have to negotiate with a client … or even tell someone you love them. Difficult Conversations helps ease you through these troubling social interactions. You’ll learn how to start a conversation without defensiveness, keep and regain your balance when verbally attacked and understand what any difficult conversation really means.

Articles

All articles are Open Access

• Halteman Zwart, Megan. 2021. “Can Developing Virtues Improve Dialogue Across Political Difference?” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 21 (4). doi: 10.14434/josotl.v21i4.32699.
  • Abstract: After the polarizing 2016 presidential election, I heard from many distressed students who felt they lacked the skills or confidence to have difficult conversations with those who disagreed with them politically. In response, I developed a course that aims to help students grow in the virtues and skills necessary for listening and dialogue, putting these to use discussing controversial issues including abortion, gun rights and regulations, cancel culture, speech on campus, immigration, environmental policy, and kneeling for the national anthem. In this article, I make the case for foregrounding virtues such as attentiveness, curiosity, intellectual humility, and empathy to promote good dialogue and prepare students to engage productively across difference. Then, I describe the course design, share qualitative results from student reflections, and highlight insights that are applicable across disciplines. Finally, I address practical obstacles and ethical concerns that have arisen when teaching polarizing topics and offer responses to these challenges.
• Kendall, Kason. 2023. “Teaching Democratic Humility to Improve Classroom Discussion.” Research in Social Sciences and Technology 8 (2):1-20. doi: 10.46303/ressat.2023.8.
  • Abstract: Democratic discussion in the classroom has been viewed as a way to increase consensus, however the spread of false and misleading information through social media and influencers can make classroom discussions problematic. This electronic text analysis study will highlight the social media site of Quora and posts related to the Gulf War. Posts related to the Gulf War will be critically analyzed and their potential impacts will be examined This study will also analyze the posts and potential impacts of a conservative influencer named James Lindsay. The study will analyze specific polarizing posts that Lindsay has made on Instagram and highlight the potential impacts on classroom discussions of some of these posts. A purpose of the study is to analyze negative potential impacts of social media on student’s views and on classroom discussions. The study also highlights two potential solutions to overcoming these negative potential impacts. One solution is to use Stanford History Education Group’s Civic Online Reasoning, and another solution is to explicitly teach Democratic humility. With democratic humility, individuals learn not to make hyperbolic claims about their beliefs. Students could also be taught when learning about democratic humility, the importance of suspending judgement until they have gathered sufficient information on the topic.
• Lee, Eunjung, Toula Kourgiantakis, Ran Hu, Andrea Greenblatt, and Judith Logan. 2022. “Pedagogical Methods of Teaching Social Justice in Social Work: A Scoping Review.” Research on Social Work Practice 32 (7):762-783. doi: 10.1177/10497315221085666.
  • Abstract: Purpose: Social justice is a foundational social work value, but social work education continues to experience ongoing challenges with how to teach students to embody social justice values. The aim of this scoping review is to map empirical studies on teaching methods that translate social justice value into teachable curricula. Methods: Following Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework, we conducted a rigorous process in which we screened 5953 studies and included a final sample of 35 studies. Results: Our findings identified seven main teaching approaches: intergroup dialogue, online asynchronized discussion board, simulation and role play, group work and presentation, written reflection, community-engaged learning, and social action-oriented learning. In terms of competency development, most of the studies focused on awareness and knowledge versus skill-building. Most teaching methods emphasized students’ affective experiences during the social justice learning activities. Discussion: Challenges, lessons learned, and future recommendations of each teaching method are presented.
• Mabrey, Paul, Kevin E. Boston-Hill, Drew Stelljes, and Jess Boersma. 2021. “Debate for Civic Learning: A Model for Renewing Higher Education’s Civic Mission.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 21 (4). doi: 10.14434/josotl.v21i4.32845.
  • Abstract: Rapidly eroding financial support and tuition increases that outpace inflation threaten the viability of an education that considers civic engagement as foundational. Simultaneously, institutions of higher education are increasingly perceived by the public as market-driven entities existing for the economic benefit of the individual, the upward mobility of a social class, and in turn the further sedimentation of racial and class differences. Now, more than ever, our nation is in need of deliberate attempts to fashion common understandings, ways to navigate inevitable disagreements, and reasonable paths forward. Higher education is positioned to respond to these civic needs but requires a commitment to be bold and remain dedicated to our shared civic mission in the face of alarming polarization and vacated institutional trust. One way institutions of higher education can return to their shared sense of civic mission is with the integration of debate across the curriculum through innovative partnerships and collaborative design. Debate across the curriculum utilizes intentional course redesign to offer active learning experiences that combine public speaking, evidence-based reasoning, collaborative learning, and argumentation into various advocacy simulations. The debate for civic learning model has faculty partnered across multiple institutions to design, integrate, and assess debate-based pedagogy to positively impact student civic learning. Students and faculty across disciplines have reported that debate-based pedagogy helped improve classroom engagement, critical problem solving, perspective taking, empathy, and advocacy skills. This mixed-method research provides insights not only into debate-based course design and learning improvement strategies but also into how faculty, students, and administrators can partner between institutions to demonstrate a shared commitment to the civic mission of higher education and democratic promise of our nation.
• Morrissey, Lachlan and John Boswell. 2023. “Finding Common Ground” European Journal of Political Theory 22 (1):141–160. doi: 10.1177/1474885120969920.
  • Abstract: Deliberative democrats have abandoned the ideal of consensus in favour of a range of different, more realistic alternatives. But these alternatives provide little anchorage to guide or even evaluate deliberative practice – something acutely problematic given the contemporary context of accelerating polarization in many advanced liberal democracies. In this article, we turn to Stalnaker’s account of the ‘common ground’ – the shared pool of information that is agreed upon by the parties to a discourse – to reassert a distinct ideal standard for democratic deliberation which remains malleable enough to apply across messy contexts of real-world political contestation and debate. Our account offers an appropriate normative yardstick by which to assess deliberative practices across different discursive contexts, as well as impetus for further experimentation and innovation in efforts towards democratic renewal and reform.
• Pandey, Sumali, Patricia Wisenden, and Whitney R. Shegrud. 2020. “Using Student-Led Discussion and Reflection of a Public Health–Related Nonfiction Book as a Tool to Encourage Inclusive Pedagogy in an Undergraduate Classroom.” Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education 21 (1):1-4. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v21i1.2069.
  • Abstract: Educators realize the need to provide an inclusive, safe environment in a diverse classroom setting to encourage discussion of sensitive topics. However, descriptions of evidence-based approaches that may help us to meet inclusive pedagogy–related competencies are limited. Here, we describe a discussion format that followed chapter readings from a nonfiction biographical book called Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (2003), by Tracy Kidder. This semester-long effort allowed sufficient time for students to develop an understanding of global public health affairs and to reflect on their own role in this world as responsible citizens. A discussion around several sensitive issues emerged, such as the extent of their belief in faith versus science, their opinion on providing financial aid to developing countries versus addressing public health issues in their home country, stereotypes and how that may spread panic during a public-health emergency. The student essays provided evidence that activities were successful in 1) drawing out students’ voices about world affairs, 2) teaching students to empathize with varied belief systems, 3) helping students develop a deeper appreciation of empirical and ethical factors that may affect such issues—all of which are key competencies for an inclusive classroom setting. We believe that the activities are flexible in structure and could be easily incorporated into a biology or liberal arts classroom setting to achieve inclusive pedagogy–related goals.
• Rapanta, Chrysi, and Fabrizo Macagno. 2023. “Authentic Questions as Prompts for Productive and Constructive Sequences: A Pragmatic Approach to Classroom Dialogue and Argumentation.” Dialogic Pedagogy 11 (3):A65-A87. doi: 10.5195/dpj.2023.546.
  • Abstract Excerpt: Our findings show the predominance of the so-called Discovery questions as prompts that are both productive and constructive and Inquiry questions as prompts of argumentative constructive interactions. We discuss the importance of these findings for teacher professional development purposes.
• Rapanta, Chrysi, and Mark K. Felton. 2022. “Learning to Argue Through Dialogue: A Review of Instructional Approaches.” Educational Psychology Review 34 (2):477-509. doi: 10.1007/s10648-021-09637-2.
  • Abstract: Over the past 20 years, a broad and diverse research literature has emerged to address how students learn to argue through dialogue in educational contexts. However, the variety of approaches used to study this phenomenon makes it challenging to find coherence in what may otherwise seem to be disparate fields of study. In this integrative review, we propose looking at how learning to argue (LTA) has been operationalized thus far in educational research, focusing on how different scholars have framed and fostered argumentative dialogue, assessed its gains, and applied it in different learning contexts. In total, 143 studies from the broad literature on educational dialogue and argumentation were analysed, including all educational levels (from primary to university). The following patterns for studying how dialogue fosters LTA emerged: whole-class ‘low structure’ framing with a goal of dialogue, small-group ‘high structure’ framing with varied argumentative goals, and studies with one-to-one dialectic framing with a goal of persuasive deliberation. The affordances and limitations of these different instructional approaches to LTA research and practice are discussed. We conclude with a discussion of complementarity of the approaches that emerged from our analysis in terms of the pedagogical methods and conditions that promote productive and/or constructive classroom interactions.
• Schmoker, Mike. 2023. “Civil Dialogue: How to Prepare for and Participate in Text-Based Discussions in High School and College.” American Educator 47 (3):61-62. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1394334
  • Abstract: Participating in fair-minded, text-based classroom dialogue has immense benefits. It contributes not only to learning and academic success but also to the ability to effectively participate in democracy. This article presents how to prepare for and participate in discussions that will powerfully equip students to listen carefully, learn from their peers, and express themself with skill and sensitivity.
• Schmoker, Mike. 2023. “The Urgent Need for Free, Frequent Classroom Discussion.” American Educator 47 (2):34-38. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1394133
  • Abstract: In these fraught, divisive times, K-12 educators have an opportunity to make a profound contribution to students’ academic, intellectual, and civic maturity by giving civil, purposeful discussion the priority it deserves. With reading and writing, discussion is a co-equal leg of the tripod of literacy. By engaging in frequent discussions of challenging academic content, students could learn to listen (not just wait for their chance to talk), to offer their thoughts with an open mind, to fairly consider multiple perspectives, and to agree to respectfully disagree. They could carry these vital abilities with them into adulthood, which would prepare them to become more contributive citizens, better neighbors, and more productive employees. In fact, employers rank communication and interactional acumen among their highest priorities. This article makes the case for civil, rational argument in the classroom, describes how any teacher can conduct such discussions, and highlights schools where these discussions have led to both high engagement and significant academic gains.

Reports

K-12

• Duong, Mylien. 2023. Political Polarization and Its Repercussions for Public School Teachers. Constructive Dialogue Institute.
  • “We conducted a qualitative research project to explore the dynamics of cultural conflicts in K-12 public schools and their impact on teachers. Our main objective was to understand how teachers experience political polarization in their day-to-day work. 1. We aimed to answer the following research questions: When and how do teachers encounter political polarization in their daily work?; 2. What are the effects of polarization on teacher burnout and teaching quality?”

General

• Better Arguments Project. n.d. What is a Better Argument. Better Arguments Project.
  • “[T]he Better Arguments team traveled around the country to meet with more than 75 advisors, ranging widely in age, background, expertise, and perspective. With these advisors, we addressed the fundamental question: What is a Better Argument? This document summarizes our learning throughout this discovery phase. The purpose of this document is to offer key operating principles based on our learning.”
• Beyond Conflict. 2020. Understanding the Psychology That Drives Us Apart. Beyond Conflict.
  • “New insights from brain and behavioral science explain how polarization is fueled by Americans’ misconceptions about each other. Learn more about the psychology that drives us apart, and how we can start to reverse it.”
• Duong, Mylien, Caroline Mehl, and Caroline Jany. 2023. Building Bridges in the Context of Inequality. Constructive Dialogue Institute.
  • “In response to rising polarization, a number of grassroots organizations have formed to bridge the growing political divide. Individuals dedicated to this cause have been called “bridge-builders,” and they aim to facilitate dialogue across lines of difference. As the field has grown, however, several concerns have been raised about whether bridge-building is a viable solution in the context of systemic inequities. These concerns, questions, and criticisms of bridge-building point to the tension—perceived or real—between efforts to repair intergroup relationships and efforts to correct inequitable structures. In this report, we grapple with the critiques of bridge-building, with the hope that it will spur sustained discussion within and across the bridge-building and social justice communities.”
• Kleinfeld, Rachel. 2023. Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
  • “The United States feels roiled by polarization, and the philanthropic world is seized with debates about what to do. Some scholars claim that Americans are so polarized they are on the brink of civil war. Other polls suggest that voters agree on plenty of policies and that polarization is an illusion. Some philanthropists call for pluralism and civility, while others lean into activism, believing polarization is a byproduct of change toward a more just world. So, is the United States polarized or not? If it is, what is causing the polarization and what are its consequences? Should polarization be solved or tolerated”
• Sentaro, Leah, Jerry Lee, and Robin Stryker. 2021. The Role of Rhetoric and Emotions in Civil Discourse. National Institute for Civil Discourse Research.
  • “Should civil discourse avoid emotional appeals? Are there desirable ways to use emotions to encourage debate about political issues and policies?”