Teaching inclusion and discourse: A classroom demonstration from Nepal

Abstract

While a cornerstone of any democracy, efficacious civic discourse and the ability to come to reasonable compromise seem to occur rarely today. This paper suggests that higher education may be a place to teach such skills, describes a two-fold approach of lecture and class exercise, and reports on student results from a case example. Lecture on concepts based on Habermas' lifeworld and ideal speech situation, with an emphasis on the relationship of these two terms to that of deliberative justice, was provided to graduate students in Nepal before engaging them in a class exercise deliberating about a social issue relevant to the local context. Both quantitative and qualitative results indicated that students understanding of the material significantly improved through the method of presentation. This pedagogy may be one way to increase civic discourse and engagement in society.