Fragility of Democracy – How to balance between conflicting democratic rights when discussing controversy?

Teaching history or social sciences is a challenge nowadays. The world is polarized. We are confronted with terrorist attacks, pandemics and unstable global politics and all these events have great consequences for many. Uncertainty caused by these crises can lead to heightened distrust of others with different cultural or political backgrounds; it also can make people more conformist and people’s moral judgements can become harsher. 

In this workshop we will discuss how teachers can respond to polarizing narratives and can balance between essential democratic rights, such as: freedom of speech and the right not to be discriminated. We consider schools as labs for democracy in which students can learn to disagree and learn to deal and act with different opinions harmoniously. During discussions, students can learn how to express disagreement with each other, within the boundaries of respect and moral decency towards each other. As John Dewey said: “Democrats are made, not born”. For example: how to discuss confronting and discriminatory memes in the classroom?

About the workshop host

This workshop is given by dr. Bjorn Wansink (Utrecht University, Dynamics of Youth) and Maxine Herinx (Utrecht University).

Both trainers are part of the project TerInfo. TerInfo is a mobile web platform aimed to increase societal resilience against terrorism and other disruptive events in primary, secondary, and post-vocational education. The platform helps teachers to discuss controversial topics with groups of different ages in a clear, factual, responsible and engaging way. TerInfo is an initiative of Utrecht University and led by prof. Beatrice de Graaf.