Are Classroom Discussions on Controversial Political Issues in Civic Education Lessons Cognitively Challenging? A Closer Look at Discussions with Assigned Positions

Dorothee Gronostay

doi:10.5817/sp2019-4-4

Abstract

Discussing controversial political issues in class provides rich opportunities for cognitively activating learning processes, i.e. in-depth processing of learning content and higher-order thinking processes. However, relating the features of a given argumentative design to specific learning outcomes is a tricky endeavor, as this theoretical paper aims to illustrate through the example of a discussion with assigned positions (for/against) in civic education classes. The potential of such discussion settings for cognitive activation was examined by considering the features of the overall argumentative design, task configurations, and learning activities. More concretely, it is argued that controversial discussions with assigned positions constitute three different task configurations depending on the relationship between a student's personal and assigned positions. Based on the ICAP framework (Chi & Wylie, 2014) for cognitive engagement, the paper further shows that students may take part in various modes of learning activities within a single instructional setting (although to different degrees). These findings point to the need to develop "more local" (Mandl & Renkl, 1992) or "middle-range" theories (Mutz, 2008) of learning through argumentation.

Highlights

Arguing about controversial political issues is an important cultural technique in pluralistic modern democracies
Given that it is not possible to go into all types here, the focus will be on student-centered classroom discussions with assigned positions because there has been little theory and evidence to date focusing on the effects of such instructional settings
Having dealt with the features of the overall argumentative design and specific task configurations due to position assignment, the following section will investigate modes of cognitive engagement according to the ICAP framework

Summary

Introduction

Arguing about controversial political issues is an important cultural technique in pluralistic modern democracies. Argumentative designs may vary regarding goal instruction (competitive vs cooperative), ideological diversity in the learning group (homogeneous vs heterogeneous), assigned positions (vs personal views), the need to speak up in stage-like settings (vs small-group discussions), and so on. The purpose of this theoretical paper is to closely examine the potential of controversial discussions with assigned positions to initiate cognitively activating learning processes.

Results

Conclusion