Download Pedagogisk praktik och demokratiska samtal

1
Christer Fritzell
Dept of Pedagogy
Växjö University
A contribution to the
European Conference on Educational Research,
University of Lisbon, Portugal, 11-14 September, 2002
Pedagogic practice and deliberative democracy
Introduction
During the course of modernisation it seems that a major problem facing educational systems
in Western societies had to do with growing difficulties in transforming structures of
pedagogic practice in accordance with social and cultural changes in society at large. The
traditional value basis of schooling has been subjected to disintegration with regard to
traditional world-views, further pronounced by multi-cultural influences, and teachers and
pupils are now faced with a situation in which the basic tasks seem to be vastly redefined. An
established focus on subject matter, which could previously be sustained by implicit cultural
values and latent social sanctions, is apparently becoming very hard to maintain. And many
pupils seem to be lost in late-modern conditions of highly flexible and increasingly
individualised structures of teaching and learning.
During the second half of the last century the problems of educational democracy attracted an
intensified significance in many European countries, as well as in the USA. Social and
cultural change placed systems of schooling under pressure of growth and new demands as to
the development of both fair and competitive comprehensive schools. If in modern society
democracy is to be taken as the very epitome of the specific values that are supposed to do the
job of holding people together as a society, such hopes were also to a substantial degree built
into the basic ideals of education, as was succinctly formulated already by John Dewey in a
well-known passage almost a hundred years ago:
The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that
a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and
who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of
external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be
created only by education. But there is a deeper explanation. A democracy is more than a
form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated
experience (Dewey, 1916/1997, p 87).
However, the operational meanings of fine words like these are not easily laid open. It rather
seems that in many educational and pedagogical discussions of democratic ideals and
aspirations, with their particular value bases as to ethics and moral virtues, the pitfall of what
could be called "abstract normativism" is more of a rule than an exception. By this I mean that
interest is directed to highly general and ideal notions of what needs to be done in educational
settings, but without much attention paid to the harder issues of how this could actually be
carried out. It is often very easy to criticise and pity the present condition, especially among
the young, and mass media are more than helpful in providing the "facts" of moral decline and
lack of discipline. Of course, everyone would like to see a more favourable situation, and
good hopes are always appreciated. In such discourse, exchange of abstract condemnation and
wishful speculation tend to exclude analysis, and the actual practice of teaching and learning
in schools tends to slip far away….
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If traditional values grounded in religious and ideological beliefs are loosing their capacity to
provide spiritual meaning as well as practical co-ordination in day-to-day activities, the
question arises as to functional alternatives, also as a basis of educational ambitions. Of
course social integration is pursued in many ways, perhaps most comprehensively in modern
society by means of two basic forms of steering; on the one hand political and bureaucratic
and on the other hand economic and market-based. Legal and administrative rules and
regulations as well as financial transactions tend to control ever larger sections of everyday
life. So also in systems of education, and it seem that the last decades have seen these
"steering-media", as they are called by Habermas (e g 1987), grow in importance in the
structuring of schooling.
In such processes human action is framed in forms of rationality in which basic cultural
values are not easily identified or acknowledged. The co-ordination of social activities may be
accomplished and sustained largely by the proper adjustment of functional consequences, and
topical interpretation in terms of cultural values may be of little significance as long as the
results meet such functional requirements. It seems that in late-modern systems of schooling
these forms of rationality often tend to dominate in conflicts of social roles as well as in the
social construction of prevalent concepts of knowledge.
So in departing from abstract normativism, a more concrete pedagogic analysis will need an
elaborate frame of reference with regard to the historical development of modern society, with
its cultural differences. In such an analysis problems concerning secularisation and social
differentiation, globalisation and multi-culturalism as well as a number of other aspects of
pluralism would probably have to be closely attended to. It seems however a safe assumption
that traditional perspectives related to homologous world-views can no longer be adhered to
in the pursuit of a legitimate value-basis of comprehensive schooling in Western countries. At
the same time as the extreme division of labour and fragmentation of functional relationships
underpin highly generalised norms, the actual content of central values like individual
freedom, responsibility, tolerance, solidarity and so on may seem to descend into obscurity.
If concepts like these are nevertheless needed in relation to education in general and basic
schooling in particular, an obvious problem centers on tenable ways of turning them into
some kind of tangible reality in the pedagogic practice of teachers and pupils. Likewise, this
task seems to entail enormous complications when it comes to interpretations of their explicit
formulation in policies and theories. While teachers and pupils no doubt often act out the
values of democratic education, it seems that efforts to actually pinpoint and communicate the
meaning of democracy in pedagogic practice constantly run into dead-locks of one sort or the
other.
Yet if schooling is supposed to pursue not only knowledge and skills, but also cultural and
moral values connected with the ideals of democracy, the practical implications in concrete
contexts will have to be dealt with. This is also the task of a research and development project
to be discussed in the paper. The aim here is to give an overview of the social philosophical
and theoretical basis of the project with particular attention to the issue of turning abstract
ideals into practical reality. In the following, concepts of democracy pertaining to general
school curricula in relation to practical pedagogic ambitions are described and analysed in
terms of moral development and citizenship.
On the meaning of educational democracy
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Perhaps the basic meanings of democracy are hard to pinpoint because they are so important
to all of us. Educational democracy is no exception. Educational democracy is certainly a
complex and multi-facetted concept, and democracy can even be considered the most
important aspect of education, particularly at the level of basic schooling. And democracy
may well be seen as the very epitome of schooling in modern society insofar as it is supposed
to characterise schooling in all its aspects. This ideal notwithstanding, the concept of
educational democracy is contested, and there seems to be a plethora of interpretations
competing for influence in educational theory and practice.
Quite a lot of research has been carried out on questions of democracy related to the
establishment and development of more comprehensive systems of national schooling. Wellknown contributions in this area are connected to names like Plowden, Jencks and Coleman,
and they have doubtless been very influential in terms of state policies in many countries.
Here, democracy was looked upon as a matter of the availability and distribution of education
to the population at large. How is schooling to be made available to all? What are the best
ways of differentiation and selection in terms of both efficiency and welfare? Questions like
these were raised in research and debate on the importance of education in the creations of
greater equality and democracy.1
Education was approached as a social "system" in relation to other systems, primarily work
and the labour market. Schooling was typically seen as a major stepping-stone on the road
from family life to professional life. Democracy in this context was often considered a matter
of how these systems were functionally connected in view of opportunities and difficulties for
various social groups. Thus a major issue turned on how educational systems could
compensate for inequalities in pre-requisites or differentiate fairly with regard to outcome and
effects.
Another point of departure has been to approach the issues of educational democracy in terms
of individual freedom and liberal ideals concerning the possibilities for single individuals to
choose according to their own interests and needs. The qualities of schools concerning
flexibility and individualisation as to both form and content were observed, and a democratic
value was attached to the degrees of freedom of choice when it comes to decisions on what
subjects to study in what ways, and so on.
I would venture to say that in very broad terms the problems of educational democracy have
been approached largely from these two points of departure; on the one hand analyses of
systems of schooling in terms of equal opportunity, differentiation and in general the
relationships between schooling, family and work, and on the other hand, matters of
individual freedom as to the catering for individual needs and the possibilities for individual
choice.
It also seems that these major approaches to the problems of educational democracy fall back
on two basic ways of apprehending democracy in society at large. I am thinking here about
the two general models of democracy that can be called the representative and the
participative. Thus, and again in very general terms, it could be argued that studies on equal
opportunity, distribution etc within schooling rely on notions of representative democracy in
which the task of polity is to maintain such educational systems in which the will of the
people is properly, i e democratically, expressed. The form and content of education will then
have to be adjusted to needs and requirements from this point of view. On the other hand,
1
For an overview, see Gutman (1999).
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notions of participatory democracy are easily detected in many studies that focus on
individual freedom of choice and the possibilities to pursue individual interests in education.
Important as these kinds of studies on educational democracy obviously have been and are in
policymaking on many central matters of educational interest, they share a critical
shortcoming in the specific context of practical pedagogy. Thus while they may provide
essential information on sociological and psychological aspects of democratic education, they
may have little to say about pedagogic democracy in the practical activities of teachers and
pupils. In effect they tend to evade questions like: What is in fact pedagogical democracy
within particular systems of education and after individuals have made their choices?
These kinds of questions seem more to the point within a third major conception of
democracy, which has been widely discussed during the last few decades, and I am referring
here to deliberative democracy. Some have even argued that there has been a "deliberative
turn" in theories of democracy (e g Dryzek, 2000). In deliberative democracy focus is placed
in possibilities of solving problems and making decisions by means of rational discussion and
exchange of well-grounded opinions. By sharing arguments in communication, democratic
intercourse is seen as a practical means of reaching agreement on matters of common
concern.2
It is not very difficult to justify the effort to translate the political terms of democratic
deliberation into educational ones. For instance, Amy Gutman in a well-known analysis in
this field points to several important issues concerning democratic education on the basis of a
widely accepted liberal perspective:
Deliberative decision making and accountability presuppose a citizenry whose education
prepares them to deliberate, and to evaluate the results of the deliberations of their
representatives. A primary aim of publicly mandated schooling is therefore to cultivate the
skills and virtues of deliberation (Gutman 1999, p xiii).
While few educationalists are likely to oppose to this aim of developing democracy in and by
deliberative processes of schooling, teaching and learning, the question of how this could
actually be done in practical terms is hardly settled by this positive attitude. And although
deliberative democracy certainly may seem especially interesting in the context of education
and schooling since is points our attention to the basic question of the very meaning of
democracy in the actual, practical, day-to-day activities, feasible pedagogical models may still
seem far from obvious. In many respects, the actual reality of schooling tends to appear
distant from even weak forms of deliberative intercourse. Perhaps some educationalists in
contemplating the possibilities of deliberation in that context would rather agree with Schauer
(1999, p 17) in that "the resistance of other members of the community to even our strongest
arguments is a continuing and puzzling frustration".
A project to assess democratic competence in schools
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Deliberative democracy has been discussed from various points of departure by for instance Bohman, J (2000),
Chambers, S (1996), Dryzek, J S (2000), Elster, J (1998).
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At the Department of Pedagogy at Växjö university in Sweden a project is under way in
which basic issues of democracy are raised in the context of social and cultural
transformations and with an ambition to maintain a clear relationship to pedagogic practice.
The project, which is financially supported by the National Agency for Education, addresses
questions like the following: How could the concept of democracy be defined and applied in
the concrete practice of comprehensive and upper secondary forms of schooling? How could
abstract aims as to ethical and moral development in general curricula find their way into the
practical everyday procedures of the classroom? Is it possible to establish fruitful and
legitimate criteria of "democratic competence" as a means of turning vague ideals into
tangible goals? How is it tenable from the standpoint of pedagogic theory to pursue a highly
value-laden aim like democracy in terms of educational competence? And is it at all possible
to assess "democratic competence" in pedagogically sound and reasonable ways? So what we
intend to do -in all modesty- is to try to analyse some implications of questions like these.
The theoretical basis is developed from considerations of pedagogic practice as a
communicative endeavour, of discourse ethics as a way towards principled moral reasoning,
and of deliberative democracy as a possible model of teaching and learning. Focussing on the
social philosophy and critical theory of Jürgen Habermas, pedagogical analysis is approached
as a basic matter of cultural reconstruction and individual autonomy. Step by step, very
abstract theses are subjected to pedagogic interpretation in order to approach more concrete
and practically tangible principles and criteria.
Thus our approach is discursive and deliberative. We presuppose that dialogue and
argumentation are always better than power and coercion, and that this distinction needs to be
made in educational contexts. Also, we presuppose that human beings, including children and
young people, can change their standpoints and priorities on account of qualified
conversations. We look upon democracy, like Dewey in the quotation above, as something
more than just a way of steering and influence, but at best as something shared and continuous
in our experiences. We also agree with Dewey in maintaining that there is still a need for a
deeper basis of public discourse in society at large:
The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of
debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public (Dewey, 1927/1991,
p 208).
To stress dialogue and consensus does not in our view presuppose some idealist vision of a
lack of conflict on basic issues of education. To the contrary, we grant that conflict as well as
deficits in knowledge and competence constitute the very points of departure of education, but
precisely as starting points of pedagogical processes of shared understanding. The question
does not concern the substance of consensus, but how a pedagogical dialogue is to be carried
out. We presuppose that in pedagogy there has to be an orientation towards shared
understanding, precisely in order to acknowledge and proceed from a state of actual
difference and lack of understanding, which may motivate the efforts in the first place. What
we are after are pedagogical ways of relating to each other in which the parties speak - and
listen- to each other in qualified ways, since
…deliberation is essentially intersubjective, not in the sense that all our moral principles must
acquire the consent of every other person but in the sense that our honest deliberations must
include what others could, would, or do say against our positions (Chambers, 1996, p 148).
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Three steps towards a theoretical model of pedagogic democracy
On the discursive road from abstract principles to concrete practice I would like to structure
my arguments in three steps. The first is concerned with the concept of pedagogy as such, and
the conviction that traditional and still influential conceptions need to be questioned from the
very basis of democratic learning. Dominant notions of pedagogy, and even more so
didactics, are steeped in conceptual frameworks of asymmetrical relationships in which
"influence" is the basic "telling term". Thus pedagogy is supposed to be about systematic
influence in accordance with established aims and objectives. It is interesting to take notice
here that democracy is also about influence, but there seem to be significant differences with
traditional notions of pedagogy as far as the actual agents of influence are concerned. Thus
while pupils and students are supposed to have a democratic right to influence, they are not
exactly the main source of influence in the context of pedagogy. Here they are rather to be
subjected to the influence that is in the hand of teachers. So while pupils are seen as the
pedagogical objects of influence, they are supposedly also democratic subjects of influence
from other points of departure. So here we have a variation of the classical Menons paradox
pointing to the need of conceptual clarifications with regard to basis notions of knowledge
and learning.
In our project approach pedagogy is at bottom something intersubjective taking place in
human relationships. Social-philosophically we place pedagogical phenomena at the heart of
the relationships between the individual and society. Methodologically we stress the
importance of observing the tension between the normative and the empirical in pedagogic
settings. Thus when we speak about "democratic competence" we refer to functional
relationships between individuals and socio-cultural settings, and we aim to study those
pedagogical activities in which democratic relations develop among pupils and teachers. We
refer to pedagogic practice as those structured and structuring social activities in which
functional relationships between individuals and their cultural surroundings are constituted,
changed and developed. We presume that aspects of the democratic structuring of pedagogic
practice relate to democratic learning and integration. We further presume that human
language is the prime medium of these processes, and that pedagogic interaction is primarily,
but certainly not exclusively, discursive.
Step 2 in the present model builds on the "linguistic turn" in social theory and takes advantage
of developments in conversational analysis and speech pragmatics. In particular, we relate to
the theory of communication and discourse that has been presented by Jürgen Habermas.3 So
the intention is to develop a frame of reference on this basis with an explicit view to the
pedagogic interests. We focus on the pragmatics of speech in the social and cultural exchange
of pedagogic interpretations. And we try to analyse pedagogic activities in terms of forms of
rationality, with specific reference to Habermas´s conception of communicative action:
…I call interactions "communicative" when the participants coordinate their plans of action
consensually, with the agreement reached at any point being evaluated in terms of the
intersubjective recognition of validity claims. …. Those claims are claims to truth, claims to
rightness, and claims to truthfulness, depending on whether the speaker refers to something in
the objective world (as the totality of existing states of affairs), to something in the shared
3
Central sources of inspiration are, as to theory of communication e g Habermas (1987) and, as to discourse
ethics e g Habermas (1995a). For a summary of central aspects see e g Habermas (1998).
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social world (as the totality of the legitimately regulated interpersonal relationships of a
social group), or to something in his own subjective world (as the totality of experiences to
which one has privileged access (Habermas, 1995b, p 63).
Of particular interest here is the meaning of communicative rationality in contradistinction to
forms of instrumental and strategic rationality. This distinction is inferred from differentiating
concepts of integration in society, basically social and system integration in Habermas's
terms, in their relationships to a two-sided conception of society as system and life world. We
maintain within the project that these basic distinctions are central to pedagogic analysis, in
relation to their dialectical interaction and to differentiated contents of teaching and learning.4
In his further elaborations of communications theory, Habermas has substantially contributed
to what has been known as "discourse ethics", where the development of social morality is
analysed from a number of different points of view. In the specific context of democracy a
conceptual connection can be made to one of the fundamental, and most controversial, aspects
of discourse ethics as discussed by Habermas, the so-called U-principle:
"Every valid norm must satisfy the condition that the consequences and side effects its general
observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of the interests of each could be
freely accepted by all affected (and be preferred to those of known alternative possibilities for
regulation" (Habermas, 1995a, p 32).
The philosophical focus of discourse ethics may be seen as geared towards the possibility of a
"moral standpoint" based in solidarity and impartiality. The just demands and needs of
everyone are to be taken into account in the pursuit of generalised norms. The principle does
not favour any particular norms except the ones related to the procedure of justification as
such. The moral standpoint involves a process of abstraction in which personal positions are
transgressed in a bid for an overall interest concerned with social and cultural values.
How far such ideals can be pursued in actual practice is an empirical question, pointing to the
contextual conditions of contingent discourses. On the background of the regulative ideals of
the U-principle, the actual situation as to possibilities of including relevant perspectives and
positions will have to be assessed. And, of course, in a practical setting valid norms may often
seem to contradict each other. In actual discursive practice such pragmatic conditions will
have to be taken seriously:
Only those norms can claim to be valid that meet (or could meet) with the approval of all
affected in their capacity as participants in a practical discourse (Habermas, 1995a, p 66).
So while the principles of discourse ethics seek moral impartiality and just norms in a
procedural orientation, morality is also seen as having a cognitive basis in so far as the
validity of norms is taken to be a matter of rational argumentation. Here, the criteria of
reversibility, universality and reciprocity of participants’ perspectives are supposed to hold
true (op cit, p 122).
Gutman and Thompson (1996) place the concept of reciprocity at the centre of their theory of
deliberative democracy. They refer to "the capacity to seek fair terms of cooperation for its
own sake"(op cit, p 52), and argue that the outcome of deliberation becomes binding for the
participants in and by its basis in mutually acceptable claims and agreements. That discursive
4
See Fritzell, 1996.
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exchange may have binding, or bonding, effects is also en essential aspect in Habermas's
theory of communication in that:
…speech act offers can develop an action-coordinating effect only because the binding and
bonding force of a speech act that is both understandable and has been accepted by the
hearer also extends to the consequences for the sequel of interaction that result from the
content of the utterance - whether asymmetrically for the hearer or the speaker or
symmetrically for both parties (Habermas, 1998, p 223).
This speaks for the pragmatic value of establishing and maintaining specific socio-moral
relationships in human communication. Gutman and Thompson (1990) ask how authenticity
can be approached in terms of the ways in which participants in deliberation present their own
moral position, and they suggest three indicators of respect and impartiality: The first is that
the position of the other must be given moral status even if it tends to contradict one’s own.
The second involves openness and a willingness to change opinion in view of good
arguments. The third indication is that debate is entered with an orientation to reach
agreement.
With similar pedagogical implications, Chambers (1996) considers the relationship between
"know-how", as a practical competence, and "know-that", as an aim within philosophy. She
argues convincingly that philosophy is needed to clarify the impartiality of the moral position
as described by Habermas. It seems that her picture of such "know-how", like Bohman´s
(2000) reflections on the principles of dialogue, point to important ways to justify the interest
in deliberative conversations from a pedagogical standpoint
In our project step 3 towards a useful model of practical democracy involves a more elaborate
effort to turn the general concept of deliberation into a pedagogic concept. The basic notions
of communication and discourse are to be further qualified and related to pedagogic concerns.
On the basis of discourse ethics and communication theory, as outlined above, notions of
deliberation in political theory are connected to a normative basis of pedagogic democracy.
In public discourse, it seems that the concept of deliberation is used to mean either a
thoughtful consideration of alternative views and possibilities when an individual makes up
his or her mind about something important, or a public, open and critical exchange of
standpoints and perspectives in the context of reasoned debate and collective will-formation.
It is the latter meaning, which is of interest in our project.
The overall position implies that deliberative communication entails that participants are
respectful and open to other positions than their own. There is a need for equality in such
communication as far as the condition of taking turns in speaking and listening is concerned.
Each and everyone should have his or her say, but should also be asked to provide proper
justifications for positions taken. Each contribution should be considered important on
rational grounds, and arguments are not to be discarded until adequately presented and
understood.5
5
Habermas analyses the concept of deliberation in relation to other important perspectives, eg the ones
presented by Joshua Cohen and Robert Dahl, in order to specify the procedural view on deliberation in terms of
rules of communication and social structuring (see in particular Habermas, 1999, ss 305-306, 316).
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However, in contradistinction to deliberation in general or in the particular context of political
theory, the task within pedagogy is not only or even primarily to find agreement in common
decisions, to persuade by strategic arguments in order to form common opinions, and so on.
Although such processes of collective will-formation and decision-making have their place
also in education, the pedagogic interest has another focus. Here the primary task is rather to
be seen as the promotion of learning. Pedagogy does not aim at mere consensus, but the
agreement will have to satisfy reasonable criteria of learning. Thus what is needed is some
kind of practical conception of the basic educational interest of what could be called
"deliberative learning".
From this point of departure we may consider how individuals in social discourse critically
test and strengthen their cultural convictions in ways that satisfy conditions of actual learning.
Learning in this sense implies that the "agreement" pursued in deliberative discourse will have
to be qualified as a principled conviction among the participants. It is not enough that an
individual agrees with others, by external influence or otherwise, but he or she should be
convinced that learning has actually taken place. This may appear as an unwillingness or
inability to return to previous positions and forms of understanding the matter at hand. Thus
learning in a cultural context manifests itself in person’s acknowledgement that there are good
grounds to assert that her or his present form or level of knowledge is better than the one
maintained before. In such a case it may also be possible to explain to someone else why the
present situation represents progress with regard to cognitive, instrumental, moral, expressive
positions and so on. Socio-moral competence may then develop in a pedagogic setting insofar
as moral and normative stances are discursively well founded. By engaging in structured
dialoque, implicitly or explicitly concerned with what is true, right, beautiful, authentic and so
on, pupils in discourse and of course by the participation of teachers and other knowledgeable
adults, may reach progressively better cognitive standpoints and moral positions. Or so we
would at least argue in the project under consideration here.
Turning normative theory into practice
The critical point in all of this is of course how more or less abstract principles could possibly
be turned into practical use in pedagogic settings. To supplement the conceptual analysis as
described above, the project has ventured to approach this task from a more practicecontingent, or contextual, point of departure as well. Thus groups of pupils and teachers have
been asked to provide input for the construction of authentic situations in schools where some
sort of moral dilemmas are involved. These situations are depicted in short video clips, in
which pupils and professional actors bring out the moral implications in very open-ended
ways. The filmed sequences are shown to groups of pupils who in subsequent discussions are
asked to find some kind of solution to the moral dilemmas. These discussions, in their turn,
are subjected to analysis on the basis of the theoretical principles and criteria as to deliberative
qualities and democratic competence. In this way theory and practice find their relationships
in what is supposed to be a meeting of general values and specific contextual conditions.
Thus democratic competence is not considered an individual accomplishment but a relational
phenomenon where competence presupposes corresponding social and cultural ramifications.
Democratic learning is considered in terms of socio-moral development among groups of
pedagogic actors, i e teachers and pupils. Our assessments will therefore focus on forms of
pedagogic practice and their actual and potential capacities to involve and promote
deliberative learning. In the contextualised presentations, we aim to picture pedagogic
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situations and activities, which tend to provoke socio-moral reasoning and an orientation
towards agreement concerning competence-based solutions.
To make assessments of democratic competence in this way, some kind of process-related
principles are needed with regard to the judgement of what is better or worse. No matter what
specific measurements are used, we need some sort of standards to evaluate different qualities
of socio-moral competence in these activities. Here we focus on procedural aspects of the
pedagogic implications of socialisation as to how moral development can be reconstructed as
a matter of such forms of learning that successively transcend the conditions of previous
forms.
To do this we have been inspired by the theory of moral development that has been presented
by Lawrence Kohlberg. 6Although explicitly departing from his positions concerning
ontogenetic and universal levels of human development, with their ideological and sociocultural complications, we maintain that his overall interpretation of moral development can
be put to practical use in our context. So when we try to extract a social-philosophical core in
his reasoning we end up with a simple picture of socio-moral development in what we call
three "quality levels":
At quality level 1 the participants base their actions on the unreflected following of rules and
strategic adjustment to contingent conditions in order to achieve personal gains or avoid
aversive results. Rules are seen as relevant due to the threat of punishment, and norms as
active only in and by their consequences. For example, the use of cell phones in the classroom
is taken as a mere matter of keeping it out of the teacher’s view.
At quality level 2 the social setting is important but mainly as a framework of behavioural
expectations and social sanction. Rules are supposed to be followed equally by all in the
adjustment to social roles and loyalty to established norms. Social justice and solidarity still
do not appear as guiding values. For example, the sound of a cell phone may be considered a
sign of someone’s poor respect for the rules.
At quality level 3 the interaction among the participants is based on the mutual recognition of
certain general rights and universal principles, which are taken to apply equally to all. Action
is supposed to be taken due to reflected insight and solidarity with basic values. Norms will
have to be justified in concrete contexts to support emancipated positions. For example, the
use of cell phones in the class is considered unacceptable on account of its potential disruption
of more essential pedagogic conditions of learning.
On this basis of quality levels we will further need some sort of observable criteria to indicate
the character of the pedagogic practice under scrutiny. If, for example, a group discussion is
proceeding towards quality level 3 we need to assess concrete manifestations of deliberative
learning. Then, how cound significant aspects of deliberation in pedagogic practice be
delineated?
In view of the arguments presented above we could say that a deliberative dialogue would
ideally involve the consideration of as many aspects of the issue at hand as possible, that
everyone is invited to freely have his or her say on the matter, to raise new questions and to
ask for justifications, and so on. Unfamiliar perspectives and points of view need to be taken
into account, and possible conflicts recognised and decided upon in an open and constructive
6
See e g Kohlberg (1981).
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way. Everyone concerned, even if not present, should be paid respect and foreign interests
taken seriously. Not least important, the personal integrity and honesty presupposed in
everyone’s talk will have to be countered by similar demands as to the active listening to the
contributions by all participants.
On such a basis we suggest that pedagogic deliberation, as a qualified dialogue focussing on
knowledge and meaning, involves the following aspects; -that "everybody" has a voice in
group deliberation among students and teachers, that everybody is allowed to participate, that
everybody is able to participate, that everybody is willing to participate, that departures from
the ideal model are understood by and acceptable to everybody, and that everyone is learning.
These are the criteria presently under consideration in the project. Together with teachers and
pupils they will be subjected to further elaboration towards a framework of deliberative
assessment that appear reasonable in the pedagogic contexts at issue.
Conclusion
In our effort to contribute to pedagogical practices in which deliberative democracy plays an
important part, we emphasise forms of dialogue that focus on critical analysis and a sociomoral orientation towards well-founded agreement based on individual convictions. Within
such communicative forms of rationality the question "why?" is constantly present, and the
pedagogical discourse is positively open-ended in that there are no "right answers" as in many
situations of traditional teaching.
Of course, as a matter of principle the choice of a deliberative model of interaction is not a
priori better than other forms of democracy. Sometimes there are perfectly good reasons to
settle for another, for instance majority rule. But on the other hand, there is a priori no way to
know in advance which model of democracy that matches a particular situation better than
another. What is to some a simple question of voting may be an important question of
principle to others. Perhaps the essential task is precisely to determine which kind of issue is
at hand, and which kind of democratic model that is proper in various pedagogical situations.
In any event, competence in this respect will include an appreciation of the possibility of a
deliberative approach, and to handle the pedagogic event as a matter of democratic principle
in the concrete situation at hand. Thus there is a meta-level to consider here in the sense that
the pros and cons of different approaches need to be acknowledged in the group in order to
proceed with the actual task.
This common ground might be an agreement on substantive generalizable interests, or it
might be an agreement to disagree, or an agreement to settle for a compromise, or an
agreement to allow a majority vote to decide the issue, or it might turn out that there simply is
no common ground. But even in cases where there is no common ground, especially in such
cases, we should keep our disputes within the bounds of fair communication. If we do not try
to persuade and reason with each other, then we are left with the option of forcing and
coercing each other (Chambers, 1996, pp 162-163).
While there are good grounds for assuming that many educational and pedagogical problems
cannot be solved by deliberative means among teachers and pupils, it seems reasonable to
suggest that some problems are best handled in this way, that deliberative democracy is the
best form in some situations and that this needs to be tested in practical action. In our project,
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we recognise two major issues to be further analyses and developed in this context. One is to
relate the topical concerns as to democratic and moral development to the actual teaching and
learning of subjects in schools, the other to pursue ways of assessing the activities and
outcome of schooling in ways that do justice to this dual nature of pedagogy.
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