What Civic Dialogue is Not

Dialogue is when students and citizens discuss matters of importance to their community. According to some, it is not a situation where the following occur:

Advocacy: Advocacy is the act of pleading or arguing strongly in favor of a certain cause, idea or policy.
Conference: A conference is a formal meeting for consultation or discussion.
Consultation: In a consultation, a party with the power to act consults another person or group for advice or input to a decision. The decision-maker generally retains the power to take the advice or not.
Debate: A debate is a discussion usually focused around two opposing sides, and held with the objective of one side winning. The winner is the one with the best articulations, ideas and arguments.
Negotiation: A negotiation is a discussion intended to produce an agreement. Different sides bring their interests to the table and the negotiation has a transactional and bargaining character to it.
Salon: A salon is a periodic social, unstructured, and informal gathering involving open-ended conversation with no particular objective.

However, dialogue and open inquiry can help foster these other skills. Through dialogue, students can gain the experience necessary to understand critical social issues. Once that experience is achieved, the student can then advocate, consult, debate, and negotiate key social issues (see Johnson, 1997; Fallahi, 2007). Discussion and dialogue, then, are prerequisites to a more informed and active citizenry (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2008).

 

 Learning Processes