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Enable reason-giving
Ability to facilitate mutual understanding and reason-giving, including by supporting the development of critical thinking skills and preferences in individuals.
How this is performed now...
- Process organizers Process organizers design workflows that allow for structured individual reflection between moments of discussion or learning.
- Citizens' assembly organizers Citizens' assemblies organizers design workflows that build social bonds between participants, before they've exchanged perspectives on the issue at hand, to help tackle cognitive biases or assumptions. They design individual reflection sessions and sometimes recommend asynchronous journaling to develop an individual's views further. They often facilitate epistemic skills-building exercises focused on identifying unconscious biases or training critical thinking, and reinforcing these exercises with reminders throughout the process. They also have a range of facilitation methods that create different settings or modes for expression, allowing participants to find a mode that suits them.
Related Resources
Experimental Practice
DemocracyNext and MIT CCC deliberation monitoring
A two-year initiative by DemocracyNext and MIT's Center for Constructive Communication leveraging technology across three assembly phases: preparation (capturing diverse community voices and AI synthesis), during deliberation (supporting group bonding, enhancing learning, AI-powered sensemaking a...
Practice
MosaicLab Critical Thinking Overview
A MosaicLab overview card introducing six core critical thinking skills - clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logic - with guiding questions for each, intended as a practical reference for deliberative processes.
Practice
newDemocracy Critical Thinking Video
Video resource for developing critical thinking skills.
Practice
newDemocracy Unconscious Biases Video
Video resource on unconscious biases
Practice
Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics
Book documenting Augusto Boal's experimental practice of "Legislative Theatre" where he, elected as a city legislator in Rio de Janeiro (1993-1996), used Forum Theatre techniques with community groups to develop policy proposals that citizens could directly transform into legislation.
Research
The Graphic Facilitators Guide How To Use Your Listening - Thinking and Drawing Skills To Make Meaning
Guidebook on graphic facilitation, teaching practitioners how to use real-time visual note-taking and drawing to map ideas and conversations during meetings and group processes.
Research
Game Storming
A playbook for generating new ideas using games
Research
Convivial Toolbox
A practical guide to generative design research by Elizabeth Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers, teaching how to bring people directly into the design process to ensure their needs and aspirations are met. Structured in three parts covering foundational principles, real-world case studies, and actio...
Related Product gaps
Opinion Mapper
Urgent AI/ML
Tool that connects to recording devices and data sources to instantly analyze participant contributions, creating real-time visualizations of views, consensus areas, and divisions on any topic throughout deliberative processes.
Personal Deliberation Partner
Personalized chatbot available to each participant before, during, and after deliberative processes, designed to guide them through the process, ask probing questions, provide relevant information, and help participants explore their own thoughts and understand diverse perspectives.
Related goals and research questions
Goal: Participants from all backgrounds who are supported to effectively express their views
How can we track the perspectives offered and ensure that they all receive appropriate engagement?
Urgent
What techniques can help citizens effectively surface, reflect on, and convey their perspective to others?
Urgent
How to help participants recognize and constructively engage with emotional dimensions, especially on highly-sensitive topics?
Urgent
How to rotate groups/route comments to provide an optimal exposure and testing of different reasons?
Urgent