The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy (ICDD) invites K-State students to participate in a cross-national study. This study will focus on group conversations about challenges facing the new generation and solutions to those problems. These sessions will take place in person and online during March and April 2023.
Students will be placed in groups and during each 90-minute session, will discuss various challenges they are facing.
Topics may include:
- Exams/tests
- Financial affairs
- Mental health resources
- Class size
- College affordability
Groups will discuss how these challenges are affected by the current historical circumstances including the global pandemic, high-speed internet access, TikTok, digital currency, and more.
They will then be asked to contribute solutions to address these problems. These will think about possible ideas, evaluate them, and conceptualize projects they might enact as future leaders.
The deliberations are part of the Kettering Foundation’s project that aims to compare different modes of classroom deliberation. It looks at face-to-face forums, zoom-based forums, as well as forums held through a specialized text-based deliberation platform. The purpose is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each of these modes by considering the level of participation, types of argumentation involved, and the resulting quality of deliberative reasoning. As a result, the study hopes to speak to the relative benefits of various forms of deliberation in the classroom that can be informative for future policy making.
Use this link to sign up and choose your preferred time online or scan the QR code. For questions, email Keyhan Shams at keyhan@ksu.edu.
The Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy (ICDD) was formed in 2004 as an interdisciplinary, non-partisan organization in response to increasingly complex public issues that challenge democratic decision-making. ICDD engages in research, education, and facilitation of civic conversations to promote greater citizen participation.
