Relation of Open Inquiry to Civic Dialogue

“Given that an important mission of colleges and universities is to serve as sites of open inquiry, leading to a deeper understanding of contemporary social challenges, the need for such deliberative spaces is critical. As the higher education community works to address the challenges of increasing diversity, institutional governance, curriculum reform, and constrained resources, the need for inclusive forms of sustained and civil dialogue has become paramount.”
– Bruce Mallory (Associate Provost at the University of New Hampshire) and Nancy Thomas (Director of the Democracy Project) (Mallory & Thomas, 2004).

As we now know, open inquiry begins with asking questions. While inquiry could occur on an individual level (a person could research a social issue and ponder that issue by themselves), open inquiry requires an engagement with others. It presumes that a person interacts with others when conducting research and when discussing matters relating to the social issue. In this way, dialogue occurs between individuals who share an interest in social issues (Healy, 2007). Even Gorgias, going back to ancient Greece, argued that inquiry and dialogue were related in the pursuit for civic virtue.

Open inquiry is about revealing interpretations of fairness based on personal experience so that it can be melted into a group’s interpretation of fairness (Simmons, 2001). In an open inquiry process, the sharing of stories also builds familiarity – a prerequisite of trust and sometimes sufficient by itself. The stories told by the participants, no matter what the issue being addressed, are the stories that matter because these are the people that matter. An important gap in our educational system is preparing students to be effective democratic citizens. Open inquiry provides an opportunity to guide students in becoming good citizens of democracy who have patience, tolerance for ambiguity, and an aversion to either/or solutions.

 What is Civic Dialogue