Standing With the Public: The Humanities and Democratic Practice

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Kettering Foundation

Li Shenzhi (1923-2003), a leading Chinese statesman and academic, was a premier architect of China's liberal intellectual revival in the late 1990's and an uncompromising campaigner for political reform and democracy in China. Son of merchant family, Li received a Western-style education from Benching University in Beijing, graduation with a degree in economics before joining Mao's Communist movement in 1948. In the early 1950's, Li was foreign policy advisor to Premier Zhou Enlai contributing to and promoting the moderate "Bandung Line" then being pursued. In 1957, his appeal to the government leadership for policies leading to "greater democracy" and liberalism led to his being labeled a "rightest" ( one who criticized the Chinese Communist Party). His exile from the academic and political worlds lasted until the late 1970's, when he again served as foreign policy advisor, this time to Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang, traveling to the United States with Deng on his historic 1979 trip. Long a proponent for China's engagement with the United States, Li was the founding father of American studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1981 and founding the Chinese Association for American Studies in 1988.

Selected Writings of Li Shenzhi

Li Shenzhi

Beyond Politics as Usual: Paths for Engaging College Students in Politics sheds light on the political learning, thinking, and acting of college students today. The book, edited by Kettering program officers Ileana Marin and Ray Minor, endeavors to reveal the current practices and approaches that faculty and staff at institutions of higher learning and other nonprofits employ to instill democratic concepts, values, and skills in students. Chapters in this volume include: • Introduction, Ileana Marin and Ray C. Minor • Political Learning Opportunities in College: What Is the Research Evidence?, Constance Flanagan • Deliberation as Communicative Politics: Building Civic Engagement in College Students, Elizabeth Hudson • (Striving for) Democracy in Small Groups: Engaging Politics in a Communication Studies Course, Timothy J. Shaffer • Practicing Deliberative Democracy at Gulf Coast State College, Elizabeth Trentanelli • Political Participation Exercises as a Means of Teaching Civic and Networking Skills, Lindsey Lupo and Rebecca Brandy Griffin • The Potential of Living-Learning Communities as Civic Engagement Incubators, Mark Small • Civic Outcomes of Student Engagement in Sustained Dialogue, Rhonda Fitzgerald, Jo Constanz, and Darby Lacey • Campus Network: Galvanizing a New Generation to Participate in Making Public Policy, Joelle Gamble with Lydia Bowers, Taylor Jo Isenberg, and Madeleine McNally • Reengaging Students in Our Democracy: Lessons from the CSU Center for Public Deliberation and Its Student Associate Program, Martín Carcasson • Lessons Learned from College Student Moderators, Lisa-Marie Napoli • Learning to Deliberate: Implications for Political Participation after College, Katy Harriger, Jill McMillan, Christy Buchanan, and Stephanie Gusler • Afterthoughts: Democracy and Higher Education, David Mathews

Beyond Politics As Usual: Paths for Engaging College Students in Politics

Education & Teaching

Schools & Teaching

This report is a follow-up to Harriger and McMillan's Speaking of Politics: Preparing College Students for Democratic Citizenship through Deliberative Dialogue (Kettering Foundation Press, 2007). That book described a four-year study at Wake Forest University in which students, called Democracy Fellows, were exposed to the process of deliberative dialogue both inside and outside of the classroom. The focus of this report is an alumni study of the Democracy Fellows 10 years after their graduation. For purposes of comparison, they are matched with a class cohort that did not participate in the Democracy Fellows study. The authors describe differences in the ways that the Democracy Fellows and their classmates understand citizenship. They found that the Democracy Fellows have a more "complex and nuanced understanding of citizenship and its responsibilities." Ten years later, they are more likely to be politically active and express more eagerness "to engage with people who hold different beliefs." Their classmates' concepts of citizenship are "more legalistic and less complex than those of the Democracy Fellows." The authors of this follow-up study bring together research insights from the literature on political socialization, political participation, and deliberative democracy, with a particular focus on whether and how interventions during the college experience might shape subsequent civic engagement. Their work demonstrates the enduring impact of learning to deliberate.

The Long-Term Impact of Learning to Deliberate

Harriger, Katy

Buchanan, Christy

McMillan, Jill

Gusler, Stephanie

Social Sciences

From the first appearance of the National Issues Forums in 1982, teachers have recognized the usefulness of both the NIF issue guides and the process of framing issues for deliberation as models for the role and work of citizens in a democracy. In 2006, the foundation began a series of learning exchanges―known as Teaching with Deliberation―with teachers interested in using deliberation with their students. Those learning exchanges, and the reports teachers and administrators produced over the past ten years, helped identify the key benefits and challenges teachers experienced when introducing deliberative practices into their classrooms and documented teachers' observations about the impact deliberation had on their students' sense of themselves as democratic citizens. Deliberation in the Classroom, by Kettering research deputy Stacie Molnar-Main, is the product of that research. The book's insights, presented in terms that resonate with educators, support both the wider use of deliberative practices and the goal of growing the number of students who recognize a role for themselves as citizens in a democracy. It highlights the work of educators who place civic education at the heart of their work by choosing to teach their students an alternative to the divisive, zero-sum politics advanced by interest groups and portrayed in the media. These educators embrace participatory models of learning and decision making and work hard to expose students to difficult issues and varied perspectives, including unpopular and marginalized points of view. They understand that critical thinking and community building are not mutually exclusive terms, and that citizens need to learn how to talk, listen, and work with others so they can tackle complex issues that affect their communities.

Deliberation in the Classroom: Fostering Critical Thinking, Community, and Citizenship in Schools

Molnar-Main, Dr. Stacie

When it comes to the task of making democracy work as it should in everyday ways and places, professionals who are employed by institutions of many kinds can be a problem. All too often, they use their technical knowledge and expertise in ways that dominate, disable, and sideline neighborhood and community members who aren't employed as credentialed experts. Or they stay out of public work in the messy, contentious realm of civic life altogether because they see it as an inappropriate activity for professionals to engage in, they don't know what to do, they aren't welcome, or they are afraid of losing their jobs. Through eight richly detailed oral histories, this book helps to open our imagination to the possibilities for professionals to make constructive contributions to the task of making democracy work as it should. The firsthand stories of public work in these oral histories are told by professionals from six different states who either chose or were invited to jump into civic life as active participants. They help us see what it means and takes to be a “citizen professional” who respects and supports the capacities, intelligence, expertise, and agency of others. The book's editors are Scott J. Peters, professor in the Department of Development Sociology at Cornell University; Theodore R. Alter, professor of agricultural, environmental, and regional economics and codirector of the Center for Economic and Community Development at Penn State; and Timothy J. Shaffer, assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the assistant director of the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University.

Jumping into Civic Life: Stories of Public Work from Extension Professionals

The first meeting of what would come to be known as the Dartmouth Conference took place in 1960 at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Despite the volatile stand-off between the two superpowers, the meeting of citizens from both countries was held with the explicit support of both President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev. Sixty years later, the Dartmouth Conference is established as the longest continuous bilateral dialogue between citizens of the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States. Over the course of six decades, the Dartmouth Conference has brought together leading citizens from the two countries to candidly discuss a full range of issues affecting the US-Russia relationship, from political and economic considerations to arms control and the role of the two countries in regional conflicts. Philip Stewart has participated in 120 of the 148 sessions of the Dartmouth Conference. In this book, he recounts how the Dartmouth talks have expanded international policy options, weathered world crises, and evolved into an ambitious exploration of how relations between civil societies in the United States and Russia might help build a more peaceful world.

Breaking Barriers in United States-Russia Relations: The Power and Promise of Citizen Diplomacy

Stewart, Philip D.

How can we unleash the innate potential of people, institutions and groups in communities to address our common challenges? And how can we do this by creating a civic culture in which people come together to shape their own lives and gain real hope? In Unleashed, Richard C. Harwood draws on his 30 years of experience working with communities to answer these two critical questions. Harwood shows us that: -Change ripples out in communities through an interaction of highly intentional actions and serendipity. -The change then cascades and spreads through a chain of events over time. -These interactions often occur in unexpected ways, in unimaginable combinations of people and partners, and with unforeseen results. -This chain reaction can be proactively catalyzed and nurtured. -Through these interactions, people can restore a belief that we can get things done together. Americans yearn to create a society that reflects the best of us, the best in us. In Unleashed, Harwood helps us see how we can create a more equitable, fair, inclusive and hopeful path forward.

Unleashed: A Proven Way Communities Can Spread Change and Make Hope Real for All

Harwood, Richard

The Dartmouth Conference was born in the turmoil of the Cold War between the two major powers left standing after World War II: the US and the SovietUnion. While government officials from the US and (now) Russia occupy thepublic stage, Dartmouth is a distinct and innovative form of citizen diplomacythat takes place--more quietly and often successfully--behind the scenes,between highly experienced, influential citizens from both nations. This briefbook highlights the stories of Dartmouth's work during its first 60 years andsuggests an agenda for its future efforts.

Six Decades of US-Russia Citizen Dialogue: Past Lessons, Future Hopes

History

Stewart, Philip

Americas

Together: Building Better, Stronger Communities is about our communities and how we need them to work at their best in today's political environment. This environment is extremely challenging and is likely to remain so for some time. In meeting these challenges, communities that work democratically work best, and they become stronger because a democracy engages the energies of everyone, and everyone is needed to combat today's problems. Many books are to be read in the comfort of an easy chair or at a desk. Together isn't. It was written to be read one chapter at a time and then discussed by any group of people who want to understand how they can contribute to making their community a better place to live, raise a family, and work. Communities where people are learning together are better able to adapt to changes in circumstances that they can't control. Reading this book together can be the first step to creating such a learning community.

Together: Building Better, Stronger Communities

Mathews, David

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