Rachel Wahl

This article draws on the philosophical work on dialogic rationality offered by Charles Taylor as well as qualitative studies of dialogues between politically opposed college students to argue that these conversations succeed as tools of democracy precisely because they fail as interventions. That is, the democratic strength of such dialogue is the way in which it is unreliable as a means of producing particular outcomes. Students whose political views eventually shifted partly in response to dialogue understood this not as a process of changing their commitments, but rather of finding a better expression for the commitments they already held. But the interviews show, too, just how rare it is for such shifts to occur at all, at least for these students in a period of political polarization and mutual distrust. The interviews suggest as well that the appeal to already shared ground is not the whole story of what prompts people to change their minds in these kinds of conversations. Rather the asking of direct but respectful questions was a crucial ingredient. Finally, dialogue did not independently cause the most profound changes in political views. Instead, it was the direction of students' lives that over time shifted their outlook. Their dialogue experience then gained meaning in retrospect, as the beginning of a process of self-questioning that was brought to fruition only later, as a first time that they had heard alternative possibilities for how value commitments can be expressed through politics.

Educators, philosophers, and commentators in the popular media often assume that students and adult citizens alike should engage in dialogue regarding ethical, social, and political issues, particularly with people who hold different views. Debates about the value of such dialogue tend to focus on the political implications of these exchanges and neglect the ontological and epistemological assumptions that could make sense of why people should talk their way to greater understanding. This focus on the political implications of dialogue also obscures conceptions of personhood that could call into question the relationship between dialogue and understanding. Drawing on conceptual resources available in the work of Charles Taylor, this article argues that ethical insight may best be cultivated when dialogue is interdependent with a quieting of the linguistic, conceptual mind. Taylor insists that articulation is indispensable to moral orientation. However for Taylor, rather than merely identifying or entirely constructing the good, language “grants access” to the good. This suggests that language is a vehicle for sources that exist outside of articulation. Education meant to cultivate students’ capacity for judgment in discussions of ethical, social, and political issues might then be enhanced through practices that reserve space for that which lies outside of language. In particular, educators could cultivate students’ capacity to produce reasons through dialogue not in isolation but in relationship to students’ receptivity to non-verbal insight.

Enhancing agency—or in a more colloquial term, promoting empowerment—is typically viewed as an unquestioned good. International organisations promote the empowerment of girls and other vulnerable groups around the world. Domestically, democracies rely for their legitimacy on the idea that citizens have agency; hence, civic educators aim to strengthen student ‘voice’ and their inclination to participate. This is all for good reason, as justice does depend in part on the agency of individuals and oppressed groups. But a focus on individual or even collective agency has a dark side. For if people feel that they can change the world, then they also often feel that they should. This sense of responsibility to use one's agency at all times can encourage an instrumental relationship to others and make it difficult to learn receptively, particularly from people with whom we disagree, and especially in moments of crisis.

The press and scholars alike often bemoan the failure of civil public deliberation. Yet this insistence on civility excludes people who engage in adversarial tactics, limiting the ideas that are heard within deliberation. Drawing on a deliberative dialogue that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the aftermath of the deadly White Supremacist rally of 2017, this article reveals how the capacity of deliberation to be inclusive of diverse voices depends upon deliberators’ orientation to learn from people who do not participate in deliberation. While much scholarship attends to learning for democracy, as in the preparation of young citizens, this article shows the significance of learning in democracy, as in the capacity of adults to learn in the midst of political strife.

Fierce debates over standardized assessments in teacher preparation have revolved around flaws in implementation and the politics of privatization. While important, this focus obscures the philosophical divide between proponents and opponents of standardized assessments. This article examines how faculty in New York State argue for and against a controversial performance assessment for teacher candidates, the edTPA. Revealing the distinctive ways that teacher educators on opposing sides of this debate understand the nature of knowledge, human development, professionalism, and social justice clarifies what is at stake in debates over how to prepare teachers. Such clarification can deepen the discussion on how to evaluate learning and growth as well as enrich the conversation on how to protect the integrity of educational professions and practices.