In this book, authors Katy J. Harriger and Jill J. McMillan follow the "Democracy Fellows," a group of 30 college students, during their 4 years at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to discover whether their experiences in learning and practicing deliberation might counteract the alienation from public life that has overtaken so many young Americans today. Their research design included classroom learning and practical experiences in organizing and conducting deliberative forums both on campus and in the Winston-Salem community. Observations gleaned from interviews, focus groups, and surveys of a comparison group and the larger student population indicate that, upon graduation, the Democracy Fellows had the skills and the interests needed to become more involved and responsible citizens than their fellow students. Harriger, professor of political science, and McMillan, professor emerita of communication, offer some prescriptions for how deliberative practices might be adopted at other institutions of higher education as at least one important antidote to political disaffection among young people. The book includes a foreword by David Mathews, president of the Kettering Foundation.
This report is a follow-up to Harriger and McMillan's Speaking of Politics: Preparing College Students for Democratic Citizenship through Deliberative Dialogue (Kettering Foundation Press, 2007). That book described a four-year study at Wake Forest University in which students, called Democracy Fellows, were exposed to the process of deliberative dialogue both inside and outside of the classroom. The focus of this report is an alumni study of the Democracy Fellows 10 years after their graduation. For purposes of comparison, they are matched with a class cohort that did not participate in the Democracy Fellows study. The authors describe differences in the ways that the Democracy Fellows and their classmates understand citizenship. They found that the Democracy Fellows have a more "complex and nuanced understanding of citizenship and its responsibilities." Ten years later, they are more likely to be politically active and express more eagerness "to engage with people who hold different beliefs." Their classmates' concepts of citizenship are "more legalistic and less complex than those of the Democracy Fellows." The authors of this follow-up study bring together research insights from the literature on political socialization, political participation, and deliberative democracy, with a particular focus on whether and how interventions during the college experience might shape subsequent civic engagement. Their work demonstrates the enduring impact of learning to deliberate.
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