Global Perspectives on Dialogue in the Classroom

Reviews / Votes

A book that takes seriously the moment we are in and the global nature of the imperatives for dialogue. For those interested in expanding the work of dialogue, social change and social justice, this will become required reading. An essential guide for change makers who seek to delve deeply into the new ways we have now come to understand the varieties of human experience and expression.-Kazi Joshua, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, Whitman College, USA A wonderful text that expands understanding of dialogue to include categories of people often given less attention, with chapters focusing on people who hail from multiple national communities as they pursue diverse goals. This collection offers readers fresh ways to understand and appreciate others whose lives are different from their own. -Karen Tracy, Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, University of Colorado Boulder, USA Ashmi Desai and Hoa Nguyen have called together a room full of scholar-activist-educators who openly and vulnerably share both their discontents with a perspective of dialogue rooted in colonial, oppressive structures and their efforts to reconcile their training in dialogue with a more culturally resonant practice. Reading this edited volume is an invitation into that room -- a unique opportunity to listen to nuanced conversations about dialogue, conversations that question how foundational practices in dialogue might actually exclude and further marginalize cultural ways that have liberatory potential. The authors in this volume speak and write from communities often unseen, unacknowledged or silenced in discussions about dialogue; ironically, white, European men are often centered in dialogic origin stories. Global Perspectives on Dialogue in the Classroom rectifies this and, in doing so, challenges readers to rethink how we came to learn about dialogue, what we believe constitutes dialogue and, most importantly, the purposes of dialogue. The authors included in this volume provide a vision for dialogue as community engagement, as organizing, as protest and as activism. This book was born from a wondering about a standard practice in dialogue, one I've used many times myself, and blossomed into this lovely, challenging, insightful text that unseats assumptions in the field and challenges practitioners to see the potential of dialogue for social change. -Colette Cann, Associate Dean and Professor in International and Multicultural Education School of Education, University of San Francisco, USA This important text about intergroup dialogue decenters U.S. and eurocentric epistemologies of race and decolonization to focus on perspectives from the global south that are often marginal and underrepresented. To center healing and non-western ways of knowing as part of intergroup dialogue pedagogy is to move beyond how we have come to know each other racially and spatially. This text creates space for other ways of knowing and learning about race, racism and the functions of whiteness globally from which we can begin to create new pathways for dialoguing across differences. It is a must read! -Kimberly N. Williams Brown, Assistant Professor of Education, Vassar College, USA This book answers the urgent call to apply dialogue aligned to social justice in our polarized communities. It not only advocates but also shows how to interrupt conflict with dialogue, in the voices of grounded practitioners drawing on Reflective Structured Dialogue, Intergroup Dialogue and other approaches. Through well told stories from classrooms to conflict zones, and across various identities, including Chicanx and Indigenous, this book invites readers to interrogate their own notions of power and privilege in a globalized world. -John Sarrouf, Co-executive Director andDirector of Program Development, Essential Partners, USA