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Articles
Making Choices Together -- The Power Of Public Decision Making
Benefit Statement:
Example: Birmingham Schools
Example: Cincinnati and QRCA
Other Examples.
Using materials provided by the National Issues Forum (NIF), participants in training sessions learn how to moderate a deliberative forum, with the goal of helping the group find common ground. They participate in a deliberative forum, learn the concepts that support the value of deliberation, and practice moderating a forum. Finally, participants learn how to organize public deliberation in their own communities and to make use of the outcomes of the forums. National Issues Forums materials are available on a wide variety of topics.
Barbara Rugen trains in public deliberation, has consulted on public deliberation in Cincinnati for the Kettering Institute, and presented on the methodology at the national conference of the Community Development Society. She was the head moderator for the Cincinnati race relations public deliberation initiative and trains facilitators for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Barbara is founder and president of Audience Impact Research, a qualitative research consultancy since 1996.
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Sources: Making Choices Together by David Mathews and Noelle McAfee, published by the Kettering Foundation, 2001; and "QRCA Members' Skill Sets as Moderators: 'Invaluable,'" article by Jonathan Schneider in QRCA Connections, December 2002.
Public deliberation is a qualitative methodology that is applied to get people with conflicting or opposing points of view to join forces. Qualitative researchers can apply this methodology to situations of public division or to organizations where the client is caught in an "us vs. them" situation or where the issues are framed divisively. In public deliberation, people are challenged to face the consequences of various options and to work through the often volatile emotions that are a part of making public decisions.
Young people are at risk in most American cities. Each year, a number of 11 to 15 year olds are expelled for being involved in an assault or incident involving a weapon. The best these kids have to look forward to is returning to school the next fall already labeled as troublemakers, knowing they have to repeat a grade. "What are you going to do with that person?" asked Peggy Sparks, who convened public deliberation forums all over the city. The project moderators encouraged participants of all ages to weigh carefully a variety of approaches to dealing with a problem, not just one or two specific solutions. The goal was to create some common ground for action, some sense of direction, and an appreciation for the interdependence of different purposes.
In April 2001 Timothy Thomas, a 17-year-old unarmed black male, was shot and killed by the police. He was the 15th African-American in 6 years to die in confrontations with the predominantly white Cincinnati police force. For a community already divided along racial lines, the shooting was too much to bear. Riots erupted that resulted in looting and violence. The ensuing summer was a time of continued racial tension. An anxious Cincinnati police force all but withdrew from certain black neighborhoods, and unprecedented violence swept through the city. The city's main newspaper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, sensed an opportunity to help salvage the situation and assembled a team to convene forums throughout the city to bring blacks and whites together for frank discussion about the reasons for the racial division and possible solutions. Local members of the Qualitative Research Consultants Assn. took the training. Of the 107 moderators, over time the QRCA moderators proved most able to handle the tense dynamics of the interracial groups.
Public deliberation has been used on such topics as managing health care costs, controlling teen alcohol consumption, and welfare-to-work programs. In Cincinnati, it is currently being used by Cincinnati State Technical College to teach critical discourse in the classroom in several disciplines. It is also being applied at the UC Law School to train law students for public involvement in improving the justice system. It is now being adapted by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to reduce racial tensions and to help visitors to the more troubling exhibits at the Center to process their reactions.
Barbara Rugen, Ph.D.
Audience Impact Research
brugen@audienceimpact.com
8323 Woodbridge Lane
Cincinnati, OH 45039-9527
Phone. 513-583-5704
Fax. 513-583-5125
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