Civic Mindfulness via Consensus-Building Dialogue: The Interplay of Young Children's Stance and Performance

• In Event: 29.083 - New Directions in Research on Civic Knowledge and Practice

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger research project aimed at understanding and naming key constructs of children’s civic mindfulness as evidenced in performances within and across four distinct civic spaces: consensus-building dialogue sessions, bystander dilemmas, collaborative inquiry and group discussions. Naming these constructs will, we believe, serve as a powerful foundation upon which to build models for understanding young children’s civic learning and, eventually, for crafting more research-based pedagogical approaches to civic education.

We assume that civic maturity involves mindfulness, or movement away from egocentrism toward mutuality, and away from blind trust in external authorities toward the development of strong internal foundation. Like Baxter Magolda (2001), we believe that there are three dimensions of civic maturity: (1) cognitive sophistication involves resisting dualisms and embracing the complexity of knowledge and the contexts in which it is constructed; (2) interpersonal maturity involves perspective-taking, empathy, and understanding the inherent relationships one shares with others; and (3) intrapersonal sophistication involves a strong sense of oneself as a knowledgeable, capable agent.

Here, we focus on data collected in the consensus-building dialogue sessions – one context for understanding children’s civic performances along these three dimensions. Each child participated in three consensus-building dialogue tasks. Each task involved a real-life school-based problem that required student decision-making and action. Prior to their participation in the dialogue, students were asked to think about the problem and record their initial thoughts. Then, groups of three or four were given 30 minutes to work together to reach consensus about what to do. Students were interviewed before each task, dialogue sessions were videotaped, and these videotapes were used as prompts for follow-up interviews with individual students. In all, 15 consensus-building dialogue tasks were documented.

Our initial round of analysis allowed for the naming of specific interpersonal and cognitive skills employed by children in an effort to reach a decision; these include various efforts to understand others’ perspectives and to reason about the problem under discussion. Perhaps more importantly, however, we learned that children’s initial stances – toward the discussion itself, toward the topic, and toward one another – played a powerful role in shaping how they employed these skills, and were shaped by factors that often stood outside of the immediate context. The full paper details specific performances demonstrated by children and the complex interplay of the interpersonal, intrapersonal, and cognitive dimensions of their civic identities in each. In the end, we offer a conceptual map for understanding children’s participation in this unique civic space.

Author

• Jennifer H. James, University of Georgia