Beyond Pro and Con: Critical Performance Debate and the Reimagining of Civic Reasoning

• In Event: Whose Knowledge Is Valued in Public? Taking a Critical Intersectional Approach to Youth Civic Reasoning

Abstract

Debate is a classroom practice and extracurricular activity that is often heralded as a model for democratic dialogue and decision-making; its focus on evidence-based argumentation and reasoned deliberation contribute to its status as a best practice of civic education (Gould, 2011). Yet many of the structures of debate – taking sides, absenting identity from discussions of policy, and valuing only credentialed sources – represent a narrow view of civic dialogue and reasoning that precludes many voices (particularly those from minoritized communities) from participating in public conversations (Reid-Brinkley, 2012). This paper examines how a group of 10 middle school debaters from New York City are using an expansive repertoire of expressive practices – including personal testimonials, spoken word poetry, and trans-languaging – to advocate for more inclusive forms of civic dialogue oriented toward honoring diverse subjectivities and pursuing equity.

This paper documents these students’ journey toward a critical performance debate praxis to address the research question: How does critical debate enable young people to re-negotiate the ground rules of democratic conversation?

Presenters utilize a theoretical framework of feminist standpoint theory to challenge the ways that knowledge claims and rhetorical styles are often validated only when they conform to the worldviews of those with societal power (e.g. white middle class male perspectives), in the process rejecting the embodied ways of knowing in communities of color (Collins, 1990). Black and Chicana feminists assert the need to center the experiences and expressive forms of marginalized groups in ways that question objectivity, universality, and Western dichotomies (Anzaldúa, 1987; Delgado Bernal, 1998).

Critical ethnography (Carspecken, 1996) and youth participatory action research (Mirra, Garcia & Morrell, 2015) became integrated into the research design as the student debaters worked with the researchers on the study in a joint process of data collection, analysis, and representation. Data was collected during the 2018-2019 school year. Observational data included field notes from observations of 15 debate practices (2 hours each), as well as audio recordings of selected discussions and practice rounds (5 hours). Interviews were conducted with the three adult mentors (30-60 minutes each) and two focus groups were conducted with the students (60 minutes each). Artifacts including student reflections/notes, debate case materials, and poetry.

Findings indicated that student debaters altered the structure and function of traditional policy debate structures during debates about immigration (the national 2018-2019 policy debate topic) in order to claim their right to public space and re-define the terms of persuasion from policy wins to ontological affirmations of their humanity. First, the study found that rules associated with civic dialogue are never objective or neutral but are in fact sociocultural constructs that can be reified or challenged. Second, young people possess the expertise needed to help educators cross and perhaps eventually dismantle the borders that they consciously and unconsciously erect in civic education. Finally, the study provides a pathway forward for imagining models of democratic dialogue, reasoning, and community-building that stretch beyond the narratives of division and polarization that fill our current civic moment.

Authors

• Jenna Shumsky, New York City Department of Education

• Nicole Mirra, Rutgers University