Deliberativ didaktik – några slutsatser

I det föregående avsnittet har samspelet mellan elever och lärare betonats som viktigt. Jag vill i det här sammanhanget när det handlar om didaktiska överväganden utgå från några tankar om refl exiv samverkan och hur lärare kan mötas för att utveckla refl exiv kunskap. Bland lärarna som deltagit i gruppsamtalet uttrycks intressen i den riktningen. Det gäller ett intresse att utveckla såväl elevers delaktighet som att tillsammans med andra lärare försöka fi nna praktiska lösningar på situationer där exempelvis tillfälliga samtalsgrupper kan organiseras för att skapa möten mellan elever från olika klasser. Ur denna refl exiva samverkan kan kunskaper utvecklas som under- lättar för lärare att organisera samtal och utveckla förmågan att leda samtal. Detta är också något som Walter C. Parker (2003) framhåller när han skriver att lärarens uppgift är inte enbart att delta i diskussioner och samtal tillsam- mans med eleverna utan även att utveckla refl exiv kunskap tillsammans med andra och att delta i deliberativt inriktat utvecklingsarbete.

Oscarson (2005) satte i sin rapport från den nationella utvärderingen av grundskolan 2003, om elevers demokratiska kompetens, likhetstecken mel- lan deliberativ didaktik och deliberativa samtal. Jag menar, som jag också tidigare framhållit, att didaktiska överväganden är komplexa fenomen som handlar om mer än enbart själva samtalssituationen; exempelvis hur beslut kan genomföras och vilka konsekvenser de får för undervisning och lärande. Utifrån de studier som genomförts inom ramen för denna avhandling vill jag formulera deliberativ didaktik som en didaktisk dimension av refl exiv samverkan. Det handlar om ett refl ekterande förhållningssätt där läraren bjuder in eleverna att tillsammans överväga olika frågor om innehåll och arbetssätt, samtals- och klassrumsklimat (den sociala utbildningsmiljön) och olika former för elevers delaktighet samt det gemensamma. Jag vill också betona den praktiska samverkan, den handling, som följer av det

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gemensamma talet som lika betydelsefull i en didaktisk praktik som själva samtalet.

Jag har samlat några av dessa aspekter i en fi gur, eller en didaktisk mo- dell, där innehållet i undervisning och lärande – i form av utbildningens kärna – sätts i centrum för dessa överväganden (se fi gur 5, bilaga 3). Mina erfarenheter från olika sammanhang, till exempel i lärarutbildningen, visar att många didaktiska beslut i vardagen börjar utifrån överväganden kring arbetssätt och metodfrågor så som diskussion och olika former av elevaktiva arbetssätt exempelvis deliberativa samtal. I ett sådant tillvägagångssätt fi nns det en risk; att ensidigt utgå från ett arbetssätt där deliberation görs till en metod kan innebära att frågor om innehållet, men även frågor om elevers delaktighet, förblir orefl ekterade eller till och med glöms bort. Jag betraktar deliberativ didaktik som en didaktisk dimension av refl exiv samverkan som påverkar såväl varför-frågor som valet av innehåll och arbetssätt. Det är en dimension där den sociala miljön och klassrumsklimatet (det didaktiska rummet) utgör en viktig utgångspunkt för en didaktikens var-fråga och olika aspekter av elevers delaktighet på motsvarande sätt för vem-frågan (se fi guren).

I samband med ett växande intresse för deliberation i olika utbildnings- sammanhang ökar möjligheterna att skapa ett mer samlat perspektiv på utbildning som kommunikation. Ett deliberativt didaktiskt förhållnings- sätt kan enligt min uppfattning vara ett bidrag till ett sådant perspektiv. Därigenom kan såväl lärare som elever i olika grupperingar, var för sig och tillsammans alltefter vad de deltagande bedömer som relevant, bidra till att utveckla en vana att arbeta med deliberativa samtal av skilda slag. Idag saknas många gånger en sådan vana. Detta belyses dels av de nu ge- nomförda gruppsamtalen och erfarenheter från det utvärderingsprojekt kring deliberativ demokratisk kompetens som jag skrivit om tidigare, dels av studenter som under sin verksamhetsförlagda utbildning försöker sig på att prova olika former av deliberativa samtal. Lärande genom samtal med deliberativa kvaliteter, vars karakteristika jag bidragit med att utveckla i denna avhandling, är exempel på sådana deliberativa samtal som benämnts som kunskapsbildande. Övervägande samtal kring skolans och klassrum- mets sociala miljö, bland annat utifrån olika erkännanderelationer som jag analyserat i kapitel 8.2, ser jag på motsvarande sätt som exempel på det deliberativa samtalets omdömesbildande dimension. I samtal om olika aspekter av elevers delaktighet och det gemensamma/offentliga ges ett fl ertal tillfällen att arbeta med och utveckla deliberation exempelvis genom tillfäl- liga samtalsgrupper och med stöd i tankar om sådana samtalsgrupper och en formativ planeringsprocess som jag diskuterat i kapitel 8.3 vill jag betona en samhörighetsbildande dimension. Dessa exempel och de resultat som

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jag presenterat i denna avhandling visar på deliberationens och det över- vägande samtalets potential i olika utbildningssammanhang – inte minst när det handlar om demokratifostrande aspekter. Genom att betona dessa olika aspekter av undervisning som en kommunikativ och demokratisk praktik ges elever möjligheter att utveckla vanor och erfarenheter, i såväl samtal som handling, som bidrar till att utveckla deras samtalsdemokratiska kompetens.

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Summary

Dialogue, classroom climate and student participation – some aspects of deliberative didactics

Democracy and citizenship education are the principal focus of this disser- tation. I take my starting point in the growing interest in deliberative demo- cracy and communication, seen both in society at large and in education over the last decade. Examples include the fi nal report of the Swedish National Commission on Democracy, several texts from the National Agency for Education, and a number of dissertations in education and political science. This interest is also refl ected in the national syllabuses from 2000 for civics and other social science subjects, at both primary/lower secondary and up- per secondary levels, where words such as communication, argumentation, dialogue and communicative competence occur more frequently than used to be the case. At the same time though, in evaluation and research reports, attention is drawn to a range of diffi culties and shortcomings, especially when it comes to students participating in the democratic life of schools in accordance with curriculum objectives.

Aim and outline of the study

In this dissertation I focus on learning through deliberative dialogue, the social climate of the classroom, and certain aspects of student participation in civic education in upper secondary schools, as well as aspects of delibe- rative didactics.

The following questions are addressed: 1.

a) What opportunities are there for students to learn about society and democracy through dialogue or discussion, and what diffi culties stand in the way of such process of learning?

b) What are the characteristics of learning through dialogue with delibe- rative qualities?

2.

a) What signifi cance does the social climate of the classroom have for lear- ning through dialogue? What is regarded as good in this regard, and what may need to be developed?

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b) Can the concept of a morality of recognition be used to develop our thin- king about the social climate of the classroom and the social environment of learning in civic education? And if so, how?

3.

a) What opportunities are there for student participation in civic education, and what diffi culties stand in the way of such participation? What different opinions are expressed on this subject?

b) What could the implications be for student participation of a view of the classroom as a public sphere in which students can develop their ability to deliberate on what is common and public in school and society?

The questions marked (a) above are analysed primarily on the basis of em- pirical studies involving focus group interviews with students and teachers, and those labelled (b) also with the help of different texts studied within the theoretical perspective adopted, together with current research and texts from the national education authorities.

The dissertation consists of nine chapters. In the fi rst, I give a short back- ground and present some of the results of my licentiate thesis (Larsson 2004), as well as its relationship to the present work, while the second chapter sets out the aim and arrangement of the dissertation and the research questions addressed. In chapter 3, I give an overview of (parts of) the complex fi eld of democracy and (civic) education, and especially of the concepts of concern here, i.e. deliberative democracy, the social climate of the classroom, dia- logue, democratic competence and certain aspects of student participation. I provide this overview, which includes a number of examples of recent Swedish research in education and political science, as well as texts from the national education authorities, in order to give the reader an insight into the fi eld. For my own purposes, the texts referred to are tools for the discussion and analysis of the following chapters. Theory and methodology are presen- ted and discussed in chapters 4 and 5, respectively. The results of the focus group interviews with students and teachers are presented and discussed in chapter 6. In chapter 7 I return to texts about learning through dialogue, the classroom as an arena for common understanding and certain aspects of the teacher’s role, in order to provide a broader and deeper perspective for the discussion and analysis of the research questions in chapter 8 and for my discussion of deliberative didactics in chapter 9.

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185 Theory and methodology

My theoretical approach takes its point of departure in John Dewey’s texts on democracy and education and, consequently, in pragmatism as it is ex- pressed there. Dewey’s thinking on knowledge, communication, experience and action is examined as a framework for the study. Particular interest is focused on the importance of the social environment of education, pos- sibilities in terms of organizing the student’s educative experiences, and Dewey’s understanding of learning. He took the view, for example, that we never educate directly, but by means of the environment, and hence that environment needs to be “deliberately regulated with reference to its educative effects” (Dewey 1916/1985, p. 23) if it is not to be a chance environ- ment. Dewey also wrote that the process of living together educates, and concluded that such an education for social life is moral. To deepen and shed more recent light on such a moral perspective, I have turned to Axel Honneth (2003, 2007) and to his studies of humiliation and disrespect and his sketch of a theory of moral recognition. From Dewey’s thinking about school as a form of community life, I go on to study certain aspects of the social environment of education, with the help of Wilfred Carr & Anthony Hartnett (1996) and their views on “social intelligence”. The school as a public sphere and questions of private and public in civic education are discussed with reference to Walter C. Parker (2003, 2005) and Tomas Eng- lund (2004, 2007a). To round off chapter 4, I tie together the ideas of civic education as a practice of communication and democracy with Honneth’s understanding of democracy as refl exive cooperation, where, with reference to Dewey, he “combines the idea of democratic deliberation with the notion of community ends” (2007, p. 220) and thus accentuates intersubjective speech as well as the action that follows from it.

Following the theoretical perspective of Dewey’s pragmatism, in my discus- sion in chapter 5 of the methodology of the dissertation I take as my starting point “educational inquiry” as a model for educational research. I do this with reference to Gert Biesta & Nicholas Burbules (2003), and a view of a transactional framework and a close interaction between educational re- search and educational practice. From this point of view, the results of edu- cational research can provide teachers with different ideas and perspectives as a “tool” for their inquiries and actions. But the educational practitioner cannot expect direct or concrete solutions to educational problems in the classroom, or rules for educational action, from educational research. In the second part of chapter 5, I present my use of interviews with students and teachers, and discuss focus groups as the qualitative method used in these group interviews with reference to, among others, David L. Morgan (1997).

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For an earlier study (for my licentiate thesis), I visited three upper secondary schools in central Sweden and interviewed one group of four students and one group of four teachers at each of them. For my doctoral dissertation, I interviewed another four groups of students and one group of teachers at one of these schools about their opinions and experiences, on the basis of the dissertation’s aim and the research questions it addresses. The chapter ends with some (self-)critical refl ections on the method chosen, on idealism in democracy education, and on my dual role as both a researcher and a teacher of civics at an upper secondary school.

Learning through dialogue with deliberative qualities

In updated versions of Swedish national curricula and syllabuses from the last decade, we fi nd a growing emphasis on the importance of dialogue and discussion for the development of democracy (and social change). The steering documents for the country’s schools have thus come to incorporate a deliberative approach to democracy. These circumstances have guided my research interest and inspired me to study what opportunities there may be for students to learn about society and democracy through dialogue and discussion in civic education, and what obstacles there may be to that hap- pening (1 a), and to explore what the characteristics of such a dialogue with deliberative qualities could be (1 b).

In the focus group interviews with students and teachers which I conducted as a basis for a discussion and analysis of my research questions, both stu- dents and teachers drew attention to the potential to learn civics through dialogue and discussion. They felt that discussions were interesting and fun, and the students were curious to acquaint themselves with different views on the issues in focus in their learning about society. With such a process there also followed an increased understanding for other people and their opinions. Some students said that they learned better from verbal situations, perceiving them as more tangible than studying from textbooks. Another positive view expressed by students was that their interest and motivation to learn about society and democracy increased when there were more discussions focused, for example, on topical social issues. The teachers regarded dialogue as an important element in civic education, but also saw certain problems. These were related to what can be called frame factors, such as shortage of time, how to organize classroom discussions, and unclear rules on assessment and grading. There were also a number of diffi culties that were identifi ed by teachers and students alike. Most of these were concerned with how to deal with silent students and “troubling speech” – situations which are the focus of my second research question and are discussed later.

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What are the characteristics of learning through dialogue with deliberative qualities? Both students and teachers in my group interviews pointed out how important they considered knowledge content to be, to ensure that the students had some basic facts and were familiar with some aspects of the context, in order to learn in a meaningful way from dialogue and discussion. Parker (2003, 2006) adds a second foundational element of meaningful lear- ning through dialogue and discussion, when he emphasizes the importance of clarifying the purpose of such a situation. This is necessary both for the participants and for the leader of a discussion, who needs to know how to prepare and how to facilitate participation, and to be able to see when the intended results have been achieved.

Let us turn now to abilities which are or may be essential for participants in a deliberative dialogue. An evaluation of civics in year 9 of primary and lower secondary school, carried out by the National Agency for Education (Oscarsson 2005), focused on three characteristics of deliberative compe- tence/deliberative dialogue. On the basis of my earlier studies of delibera- tive democracy (Larsson 2004) and ongoing discussions with students and teachers, I was able to add another three aspects. I brought these views on relevant characteristics to the focus group interviews, to encourage the students and teachers to share their experiences of how they work and their views on what they think is important when engaging in dialogues, and asked for additional ones. From the group interviews and the studies of texts presented in chapter 3 (e.g. Gerrevall 2003) and chapter 7 (e.g. Parker 2003, 2006), I arrive at the following characteristics of learning through dialogue with deliberative qualities:

Purpose: There should be a clearly defi ned purpose to the dialogue or discus-

sion, and it should be part of or related to a planned learning process.

Knowledge content: When a dialogue is planned, relevant knowledge of the

topic to be considered should be studied, to enable the students to learn in a meaningful way from the dialogue and discussion.

Conduct of the dialogue and the role of the teacher: The participants should

apply and develop

• an ability to listen to the opinions and arguments of other students, to argue their own opinions, and to try to take the perspective of others and understand their views,

• an ability to consider – and express – different positions or alternative courses of action (and their consequences),

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• a readiness to reconsider their own opinions, for example in the light of what could be the best solution from the standpoint of a common interest (a “we” or “in-between” perspective).

• In addition, the teacher should lead, or develop his or her ability to lead, the dialogue in accordance with the points above, to give every student the same opportunity to speak and to allow additional per- spectives to be brought into the dialogue where relevant.

Refl ection/evaluation: The dialogue should be evaluated with regard to

both content and form, and an assessment made of the need to follow it up with other activities – and this evaluation should be documented as a basis for future dialogues.

Depending on the students’ experience of dialogue and discussion in the classroom, the teacher, or the teacher and students together, will decide which elements can gradually be applied in given situations. There are also a number of practical matters to consider, including how to form discussion groups and how to arrange the furniture in the classroom, all with the aim of continuously improving the deliberative competence of the students.

The social climate of the classroom, and moral recognition

The school is a special environment, Dewey wrote when he studied its social function, and he stressed how we educate indirectly by means of the envi- ronment. He also focused on how people meet and develop their experiences in communication, and on the problems of living together. In line with the theoretical approach of my dissertation, this provides the starting point as I now turn to a study of the social climate of the classroom in civic educa- tion. What do students and teachers regard as good and what needs to be