Diversity, Disagreement and Democracy

Dr. Vanessa Baird

Diversity and disagreement are unavoidable features of contemporary democratic life. Democracies are shared by people marked by racial, cultural, gender and sexual differences, and by people with divergent political, religious and moral views. Given all of these differences, how do we make democracy work? One idea is to teach people how to use dialogue to understand one another’s differences. This class will use the research on the political psychology of diversity to understand what works when we talk to one another about our perspectives in such a way that others can listen.