Socratic Circles Pedagogy : Dialogue About and Demonstration of Values

The chapter will focus on evidence of deep learning about and demonstration of values through the use of dialogic pedagogies in diverse cultural learning settings. Young people have an extraordinary role to play in bridging the divide between cultural groups, transcending the historical differences which have separated groups and created tensions. A renewed understanding of the congruence of an education in values with the enduring and evolving aims of education prompts consideration of how to build character and nurture active and responsible citizenship. Educators can choose pedagogies that provide dynamic scaffolds for critical thinking, communicative competence, and relationship building. Socratic Circles Pedagogy promotes the synthesis of divergent views and experiences by balancing existing tensions in safe spaces promoting respect and connection while seeking truth. Teachers play an essential role in nurturing these democratic microcosms of inclusive communities where critique and dissent are valued within a commitment to the common good. Socratic Circles Pedagogy is characteristically agentic, whereby the individual participant is both an agent of change and is changed, within the community of learners, by the agency of others. In light of the educational imperatives of deep learning related to social challenges and insights drawn from the case of the Melbourne Interfaith Intercultural Cluster (MIIC), the Socratic Circles Pedagogy Outcomes Framework provides an architecture for the key elements of Transformational Dialogue.

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