Does Dialogue Work?: Approaches to Using Dialogue for Civic Understanding and Social Movement Building
Does talking about differences, commonalities, and problems improve society? Many public officials, educators, religious leaders, and even ordinary citizens claim that if Americans just talked to each other more our nation could overcome division. Dialogue might just be the medicine our democracy needs. Yet, many Americans feel left out of such conversations. And research suggests that dialogue can increase prejudice or even produce apathy. If dialogue continues to be part of our social and political lives, the urgent question is how to do it well. How can dialogue be a tool for building an equitable, inclusive democracy?
Join four experts—two researchers, a nationally-recognized community organizer, and a Penn State dialogue facilitator—to examine the potential of dialogue for democratic social change.
- Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology, University of California-Irvine. Author of Inventing the Ties that Bind
- Ana Garcia-Ashley, Executive Director, the Gamaliel National Network
- Laurie Mulvey, Executive Director, Penn State’s World in Conversation
- John Gastil, Distinguished Professor in Communication Arts & Sciences, Penn State. Author of Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back Into Politics
Event co-sponsors include the Department of Sociology and Criminology; College of Liberal Arts; McCourtney Institute for Democracy, and Department of Communication Arts and Sciences in the Pennsylvania State University
