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Many Voices in the Classroom:
The Role of Classroom Talk in Education for Democracy
Patricia Bloem, David J. Klooster, and Alison Preece
The most basic form of school communication— classroom talk—can also be an essential feature of education for democracy. If the classroom is a laboratory for democratic life, and schooling is an essential preparation for participation in democratic culture, then the quantity and the quality of talk in the classroom is an important part of preparing citizens to find and use their voices in the myriad responsibilities of democratic life.
In the following essay, we look carefully at what democracy scholars and theorists teach us about the role of talk in the classroom, and analyze the three most important components of productive democratic communication: exploratory, reflective, and deliberative talk. We then examine what we believe are the most common obstacles for the classroom teacher in implementing a democratic theory of classroom talk: providing access to all students, encouraging equity during class participation, and managing conflict. We conclude with an extended illustration from an Austrian classroom where a teacher encourages her students to use multiple forms of rich talk to help them understand their own place in democratic culture.
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Many Voices in the Classroom