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Debating debating: a reflection

on the place of debate within
secondary schools
a a
Lee Jerome & Bhavini Algarra
a
Faculty of Education , Anglia Ruskin University , UK
Published online: 16 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Lee Jerome & Bhavini Algarra (2005) Debating debating: a
reflection on the place of debate within secondary schools, The Curriculum Journal,
16:4, 493-508, DOI: 10.1080/09585170500384610

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 The Curriculum Journal
Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2005, pp. 493 – 508

Debating debating: a reflection on the place

of debate within secondary schools

Lee Jerome* and Bhavini Algarra

Faculty of Education, Anglia Ruskin University, UK

This article is based on the authors’ reflections on observations and interviews with students and
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staff involved in a debate competition in London secondary schools. Taking the data we collected
as our starting point, we seek to draw on research from a range of perspectives, including political
education, political philosophy and debate as a teaching method, to clarify the role of debate
within a pedagogy for democracy. We consider the case for promoting debate in general terms,
and then go on to discuss the role and form debate should take in such a pedagogy. Here we
contrast models based on adversarial and deliberative democracy and consider the need for
teachers to be aware of the benefits and shortcomings of each. We then draw on the concept of
students’ public voice to discuss some of the issues that need to be borne in mind when
developing these strategies in class. Finally we pose a number of questions for future
investigation, which may help teachers reflect on their own practice as well as inform our own
ongoing research in this area.

Keywords: Debate; Discussion; Pedagogy; Citizenship education; Secondary education;

Democracy

Introduction
Debate and discussion of contemporary issues are now held by the government to be
sufficiently important components of good education that they have been made an
entitlement for all young people in England. The national curriculum for citizenship
sets out requirements that pupils should be taught to:

. justify orally and in writing a personal opinion about topical, political, spiritual,
moral and cultural issues, problems and events;
. contribute to group and exploratory class discussions, and take part in debates.
(QCA, 1999)

*Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, Anglia Ruskin University, Bishop Hall Lane,
Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, UK. Email: l.jerome@anglia.ac.uk

ISSN 0958-5176 (print)/ISSN 1469-3704 (online)/05/040493–16

ª 2005 British Curriculum Foundation
DOI: 10.1080/09585170500384610
 494 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

While there are strong arguments in favour of teaching through debate, as we shall see
in the rest of this article, the issue is far from uncontroversial. Some critics maintain
that the

critical discussions championed by devotees of citizenship education make students easily

liable to intellectual intoxication (plus, quite likely in its wake, political bias), and
stimulate an overly critical frame of mind which constantly questions, and gradually
erodes, traditionally proven forms of practice. (Kristjansson, 2004, p. 211)

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the Department for Education and Skills
(DfES) has followed up these curriculum regulations with additional funding to
promote debating. One way in which this commitment has been filtered into schools
is through the DfES’s support for a project to promote a culture of debating in every
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secondary school in London.1 In our roles as project evaluators for the London
Debate Challenge (LDC) we have met teachers and students from a variety of schools
to discuss their experiences of debating. During the evaluation of the first year of the
programme we observed debates in schools, both at a borough level and in a London-
wide event. We interviewed students and staff, and administered questionnaires to
collect data on participants’ attitudes towards debating. As the main focus of the year
1 evaluation was in relation to managerial and administrative aspects of the
programme, the research to date has not undertaken detailed analysis of strategies
adopted within debates. Rather, the process has provided some data on students’
motivation and experiences as well as some informal observations of their par-
ticipation in public debates.
This article is part of our taking stock of the first year and represents our attempt to
identify key issues to investigate over the next two years of the project. In doing so we
have looked fairly broadly to research on debate and discussion as pedagogical
strategies across a range of subjects, and we have also drawn on literature concerning
political education and political philosophy to help us clarify the implications of these
pedagogical decisions. We see our reflections as being part of an emerging dialogue
among teachers and other educationalists about the development of education for
democratic citizenship. We are seeking therefore to think about how debate and
discussion can be developed in school to support a pedagogy for democracy.
Specifically, we want to clarify and explore some of the questions that have arisen
about the use of debate in school, in particular the broader implications of schools
adopting competitive debate as a deliberate pedagogical strategy. The article seeks to
consider the following broad areas:

1. The case for promoting debate.

2. The role and form of debate in a pedagogy for democracy.
3. Teachers’ role in developing students’ public voice.

The first and third sections of the article provide us with an opportunity to link the
literature to our observations and data, while in the second section we adopt a more
 Debating in secondary schools 495

theoretical stance to try to clarify some of the conceptual issues that need to be
confronted in such an enquiry. We conclude by looking at some areas for further
investigation.

The case for promoting debate

One of the strongest arguments for supporting debate in schools is the contribution it
makes to the development of students’ skills. Patronis has written of the need for
‘pedagogical approaches to prepare our students to be critical citizens’ and goes on to
cite discussion, explanation, justification and the use of analogies as ‘elements of
argumentation in instances of social life’ which we need to develop in classroom
situations (Patronis et al., 1999, p. 752). While these skills are important in order to
understand public issues and participate in their resolution, research into this area
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indicates that many students find it difficult to move from exposition and recount to
well-constructed argument with sound justifications relating to evidence (Andrews,
1993; Martunnen, 1994). The restrictions of the debate format mean students have
to make decisions about what to include and what to exclude. This selection of
evidence is something that has not traditionally been explicitly taught to young
people but is important in enabling them to improve their argumentative skills
(Berrill, 1990, p. 88).
Simmoneaux (2001, p. 918) further strengthens the case for debate with his
experiment comparing students’ learning experiences in (a) debate and (b) role play
in relation to the same stimulus material. He concluded that debate had the greatest
impact on students’ opinions and their ability to construct justifications for those
opinions. In seeking to maximize the potential benefits of debates, several studies
have focused on the importance of teachers having a clear idea about their role and
the approaches they adopt in their teaching (Fisher, 1993; Sprod, 1997), but many
teachers find this challenging (Driver & Osborne, 1999). One of the most effective
approaches requires the teacher to adopt the role of impartial facilitator (such as
debate chair), rather than discussion leader. Students are then more likely to
experience an increase in self-esteem, become more confident in offering speculative
contributions, move on to higher levels of thinking and reasoning, and experiment
with different roles themselves (Harwood, 1998, pp. 164–165).
Billig extends the case for debate by arguing that the form of public debate both
reflects and models the thought process of citizens—‘our private thoughts have
the structure of public arguments . . . [they] may resemble the deliberative oratory of
the ancient rhetoricians’ (Billig, 1991, p. 148). Some psychological research also
supports such an interpretation and has been applied in the context of teaching
English to characterize the dialogue between a reader and a text as a debate (Kuhn,
discussed in Clarke, 1994, pp. 14–15). Such an approach certainly resonates with
some approaches to citizenship education, for example the Good Thinking series from
the Citizenship Foundation (Huddleston & Rowe, 1999). If the mode of debate
adopted within the classroom affects the models of thinking students develop, there
are profound implications for pedagogy in this area. Chomsky, however, advises
 496 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

caution in reading this analogy too far, as he argues that mere introspection reveals
that not all our thought is represented in language, which is why we sometimes
struggle to verbalize our thought processes in their full complexity (Chomsky, 2003,
p. 59). Whatever the precise nature of the relationship between thought and speech,
Fisher claims that at least teachers can use opportunities to listen to students talking
as an indicator, albeit a partial one, of the speaker’s thinking (Fisher, 1993, p. 254).
The focus on skills is also identifiable in the students’ own opinions about the
benefits of debate. The students (aged 12–15) who were interviewed all enjoyed the
competition and gave a number of reasons why they became so involved. Some had
one eye on their future, and saw that the skills they were developing through debate
would be useful in their chosen careers as lawyers or barristers because it helped build
confidence, forced them to master a lot of information in a short amount of time in
order to build a case, but also required them to identify with, and respond to, other
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people’s points of view.

Others enjoyed the challenge of researching a whole range of different topics,
thereby sharpening their research skills and becoming better informed than they had
been previously. One participant delighted in ‘the chance to get one up on adults who
don’t know everything about the topic’. Some were involved in debating because it
made a nice change from ‘nagging about exams—this is exciting’. This theme
emerged from talking with many of the students. Once they had overcome their initial
nerves about getting up and talking in public, it was fun: ‘What you really learn is how
to get on with other people—once you get into the flow of your speech there’s always
someone in the audience smiling at you’ (Jerome, 2004).
Teachers at English Speaking Union (ESU) events also expressed a variety of
reasons for becoming involved in debate. Some identified focused curriculum
objectives, and located debating within specific areas of the curriculum, for example
to enhance English teaching. Others identified a broader curriculum focus through
developing literacy and thinking skills in all subjects and in extra-curricular events.
Yet others talked of the value of competitive debate in broadening students’
experiences and enabling the school to link with other schools. Most teachers agreed
that debating can enhance the quality of learning, and is a valuable skill in itself to
develop for students (Jerome, 2004).
The value of such an approach appears evident from the foregoing and it seems that
teachers, students and a significant number of researchers have built a strong case for
debate in schools. This makes the negative findings of a recent survey of students’
citizenship knowledge and skills even more significant. The International Association
for Educational Achievement (IEA) Citizenship Education Study compared
standards across a diverse range of countries and concluded that schools which
encourage student discussion of political issues in the classroom are most effective in
promoting civic knowledge and engagement. The study also found that students in
England have had few opportunities to discuss such issues whether at school, at home
or with their peers (Kerr, 2003, p. 17). It is precisely because debate seems to have
such an important role in this newly emerging area of citizenship education that we
have been prompted to reflect more critically on the experience of the LDC project.
 Debating in secondary schools 497

Before moving on, however, we want to take some time to clarify our terminology.
In most of the literature mentioned so far, including Kerr’s summary of the IEA
study, the terms debate and discussion seem to be used almost interchangeably. While
some authors might specify the meaning adopted in their articles, there is no common
usage of the terms across the field. This confusion over terminology appears
significant given the influential role of these pedagogical approaches.
From this point onwards, we use the term deliberative debate to describe exchanges
and dialogue between students in which participants are encouraged to explore a
range of opinions on a common theme and, if possible, to consider how to reach a
compromise of some sort. In deliberative debate there are no predetermined
positions, and the tone of the discussion is open and exploratory. One of the main
features of this type of debate is the emphasis on providing all participants with the
freedom to explore the issue under discussion and to develop and express their own
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opinions. This is contrasted with adversarial debate in which students are invited to
respond to a motion or proposal and to argue for or against it. While it is possible, and
beneficial, to explore a range of different types of argument and a number of
perspectives, the outcome is narrower in that participants are grouped together by the
final vote, for or against the motion. The tone of adversarial debates is likely to be less
open, less exploratory and more tightly focused on promoting and defending a
particular argument. During an adversarial debate participants will be unlikely to
change their public position on the motion. The term debate is itself used to denote
any formal learning situation in which the students are encouraged to express and
respond orally to opinions on a specific issue. As clarified above, debate can be
adversarial or deliberative, but we will use it to convey a degree of formality. We will
limit our use of the term discussion to signify the informal, open-ended exchange of
views and ideas, in particular in relation to the public discussion of policy issues.
This need for clarity is more significant given the range of strong opinions that exist
about the particular forms debate and discussion should take. On the one hand there
are those who set out consciously to avoid the form of debate encouraged by the LDC:

we are not hoping for sharply polarized debate. The model of television controversy, of
demolishing one’s opponents’ arguments, is misleading. Students with this expectation
will ‘count heads’, and may finish a discussion prematurely saying ‘if we all agree, there is
nothing to talk about!’ (Solomon & Harrison, 1990, p. 19)

On the other hand, some citizenship educators have expressed a positive preference
for a more open discussion-based approach for students in the classroom. This latter
position is exemplified by Ord’s account of the contribution the Philosophy for
Children method can make to citizenship education, in which the ‘actual process of
learning is democratically guided both by the teacher (or facilitator) and the class (or
community of enquiry)’ (Ord, 2003, p. 10).
Such differences of opinion are not limited to educators and are certainly
not limited to the modern context. Socrates expressed concern that Protagoras
(often referred to as the father of debate) used debate to ‘make the weaker argument
 498 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

defeat the stronger one’ (Mercadente, 1988, p. 2). For Socrates, debate should really
be a dialectic process that aims to edge participants towards the truth, which leads us
to ask whether adversarial debates undermine this process in favour of Protagoras’s
games. Such differing views are explored in greater detail in the following section.

The role and form of debate in a pedagogy for democracy

In the first section, drawing on both the experiences of the participants in the LDC
project and research into classroom practice, we provided a brief outline of some of
the reasons why debate is a potentially valuable method for teaching. In this section
we will focus on the broader literature to begin to think about the theoretical
justification for the form of debate. We will return to the data from our student
observations and questionnaires in the following section, when we consider some
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further practical aspects of students’ participation in debate.

At face value there seems to be a rather obvious link between the nature of
democracy and learning to debate effectively. A healthy democracy requires citizens
who engage in rational discussion of public issues (Hess, 2002; Huddleston & Rowe,
2003) and schools have a role in promoting both the skills and attitudes to support
this (QCA, 1998, 1999). On this reading, one might argue that learning how to
debate is important because it introduces young people to the habit of participation in
discussions of public policy, trains their minds to consider issues from a variety of
perspectives, develops their ability to construct arguments and respond to them, and
generally inducts young people into a non-violent method of dealing with conflicting
viewpoints. Such virtues are identified by Kymlicka (2002, pp. 288–289) as being
particularly important for citizenship theorists seeking to explain the distinctiveness of
being a citizen in a liberal democracy.
In reflecting on that distinctiveness one should remember that the term democracy
is open to many interpretations, and is perhaps ‘the most promiscuous word in the
world of public affairs’ (Crick, 1986, p. 56). A democratic system which sets out to
avoid a simple majority rule and which genuinely respects the principle of political
equality must find mechanisms for hearing and respecting the opinions of all citizens.
It is the definition and implementation of these mechanisms which make any
consideration of debate within democracy more contentious than might first appear
to be the case. This section considers some recent attempts to explore the nature of
the relationship between democracy and debate. We draw out some of the issues that
need to be resolved before teachers can develop a full understanding of how to use
debate as part of a pedagogy for democracy.
An educational approach which adopted adversarial democracy as the dominant
model might be seen as empowering young people to understand the decision-
making process embodied in the UK parliamentary system. It might also encourage
them to participate in coalition building to achieve political outcomes that favoured
(at least in part) the individuals and the groups with which they identified. Levinson,
writing from an even more trenchantly two-party perspective in the USA, argues that
this adversarial approach characterizes most civic education she has experienced.
 Debating in secondary schools 499

She is concerned by the requirement here to privilege identity politics and the
managing of groups to deliver bloc votes (Levinson, 2003, p. 45). While there is a
place for the debate skills discussed above in such a system, participants find
themselves limited in the extent to which they can argue for their own case by the
restrictions imposed by the adversarial system. Levinson argues that the end result
will only undermine a common sense of citizenship and reinforce group identity,
thereby strengthening social divisions.
In short, it seems that the adversarial system of debate in schools might reproduce
some of the more general criticisms aimed at adversarial democracy at a societal level
(see, for example, Fung & Olin Wright, 2000). There is certainly a danger that young
people may be limited in their understanding if they are introduced to controversial
public issues through a process of debate which requires them to pick or be assigned
to one of two positions and to argue for or against a motion. In this respect the
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approach can be criticized for limiting young people’s understanding of the issue
under consideration as well as their understanding of the process of debate in a
democratic society.
In seeking to overcome the limitations of the adversarial model and define a form of
democracy which respects and incorporates the opinions and beliefs of all citizens, a
new branch of democratic theory has emerged. Deliberative democracy focuses on
creating mechanisms which ensure all citizens are heard and participate in decision-
making. Chambers characterizes such a system as one in which ‘voice rather than
votes is the vehicle of empowerment’ (Chambers, 2001, cited in Kymlicka, 2002,
p. 292). Such an approach is being championed in the UK by non-governmental
organizations, such as the Citizenship Foundation, which support citizens’ juries and
locally organized consultative forums, and is being adopted in government advice as a
consultation mechanism (Blunkett, 2001; Wakeford, 2002; Cabinet Office, 2003). By
seeking to avoid the stigma of simple majority decisions, which can be seen as
marginalizing the minority, this deliberative process may lead to consensus. This
consensus is, however, rarely expected to be achieved and, where it is, it is liable to
change over time (Huddleston & Rowe, 2003, p. 114). The point is that decisions
that are achieved have been tested against the broad spectrum of opinions and the
viewpoints of minority groups have been weighed in the final outcome. The position
of such theorists implies that by simply creating the space for voices to be heard the
likelihood that they will influence the outcomes is increased.
Activists and decision-makers are collaborating to take such approaches beyond the
realms of consultation and education, and they are being developed and trialled
around the world. Fung and Olin Wright (2000) describe the characteristics that such
political reforms embody as a practical orientation, bottom-up participation and a
deliberative approach. In explaining the latter feature they argue that

in deliberative decision-making participants listen to each other’s positions and generate

group choices. . . . The important feature of genuine deliberation is that participants find
reasons that they can accept in collective actions, not necessarily that they completely
endorse the action or find it maximally advantageous. (Fung & Olin Wright, 2000, p. 24)
 500 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

Such an approach to democracy has implications for the models of debate and
discussion teachers develop within schools and the pedagogical choices they make.
Looking beyond these few experiments in participatory democracy and applying
such models to more mainstream US politics, Kymlicka (2002, p. 292) cites the
recent advances of minority groups in the USA, such as lesbians and gay men, as
evidence that such an approach is viable. On this view lesbians and gay men have
transformed attitudes, and thus political decisions, through their participation in
public discussion. However, Levinson uses the same example to argue that such gains
can be won ‘not by convincing politicians of the reasonableness of their positions, but
by convincing those politicians that their positions must be treated as reasonable if
they want to earn the . . . gay vote’ (Levinson, 2003, p. 45). Furthermore, she argues
that the demands placed on schools in relation to traditionally disempowered
individuals (from minority groups) would be too great in a system influenced by these
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deliberative models of democracy. Levinson is most concerned that, to empower

outsider groups, teachers would need to help students crack the codes required to be
taken seriously in public deliberations, which would first entail teaching young people
that they are effectively outsiders of a civic community (p. 39). Additionally, while
students can be taught to speak in a certain code, this does not guarantee that they
will be heard and understood as they would wish.
This point echoes Bakhtin’s description of the difficulties inherent in all
communication. Effective communication requires the speaker to consider their
message in relation to the listener. This is a complex process which he describes in the
following terms:

The speaker strives to get a reading on his own word, and on his own conceptual system
that determines this word, within the alien conceptual system of the understanding
receiver. . . . The speaker breaks through the alien conceptual horizon of the listener,
constructs his own utterance on alien territory, against his, the listener’s apperceptive
background. (Bakhtin, in Berrill, 1990, p. 85)

This brings us more clearly back to the process of debate, as Levinson is exploring the
fundamental issue of how one ensures one’s message is interpreted correctly (that is
to say, according to one’s intentions) in a public forum. She argues that this promotes
a hypocritical stance, as shrewd citizens might be encouraged to misrepresent their
reasons for a particular outcome, to reflect the cultural assumptions of the majority
(Levinson, 2003, p. 43). On the other hand, it may also simply indicate that one has
to find a subtle way to connect with the perceptions of one’s audience without
necessarily pandering to them.
One student, observed during a debate on whether schools should tolerate religious
symbols being worn by students, referred to her own hijab and asked members of the
audience to think about their perceptions and the popular perceptions encouraged in
some of the press. The student pointed out to her audience that if she chose a path of
religiously inspired violence, she (rather than the fear-inspiring fabric that covered her
body) would bear responsibility. By referring to something that might otherwise have
 Debating in secondary schools 501

had an implicit influence on how people heard her argument, and also by introducing
humour, she made explicit connections to potentially influential factors and took
control of them for her own ends. Through this brief aside, she both acknowledged
the possibility that others’ perceptions of her appearance might influence the way they
heard her argument and acted to defuse this possibility, even turning it to her
advantage.
Levinson seems to give up any hope of finding a desirable educational path between
these two unattractive approaches (the hard-nosed bargaining of adversarial
democracy versus the uncomfortable practicalities of deliberative democracy).
Kymlicka, too, offers little practical guidance other than pointing out that for
deliberative democracy to work ‘it is even more urgent to attend to issues of civic
virtue’ (Kymlicka, 2002, p. 293). Here there seem to be no satisfactory formulations
of how democracy might work, upon which teachers can develop an effective
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pedagogy to support democratic debate.

An alternative solution focuses on the potential of schools to promote a debating or
discussion culture which functions both as an education in moral reasoning, and an
induction into a process which is likely to foster the attitudes of respect and mutual
understanding required in a deliberative democracy—‘the moral culture of group
discussion’ (Bridges, in Singh, 1997, p. 175). While Singh is more optimistic about
the value of the debate process itself, he does fall into the trap of assuming at times
that debating controversial issues will enable students to ‘work for their resolutions,
or where this is not possible, to work towards a value compromise’ (Singh, 1997,
p. 177). Refining this view later in the article, he explains:

where religious truths are perceived differently by different people and where no one
version of the truth would be accepted by everyone, it would be wrong for the teacher
or anyone else to impose any version of the truth on everyone. It may not even be
possible to work towards a compromise of what the truth should be. (Singh, 1997, p. 179,
italics added)

On one reading Singh’s assumption is worrying. Teachers could only set students up
for disappointment or exploitation if they taught them that participants in
democratic debates should both expect to negotiate on their own personal
convictions, that is their own beliefs about the truth in life, and can expect others
to do so. However, on another reading, Singh might be edging towards an important
insight, reflecting Bakhtin’s view that: ‘Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside
the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for
truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction’ (Bakhtin, in Skidmore, 2000,
p. 293). There is something in this view, and its very specific use of the term truth,
which reflects Fung and Olin Wright’s analysis of participative democracy
mentioned above. Perhaps there is some understanding that can emerge from a
public discussion that is more than a mere majority vote. If so, what might be the
implications for teachers, and how can they best use debate to support the moral
development identified by Singh?
 502 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

In her consideration of the distinction between private and public morality Warnock
provides one concept that might be helpful to teachers trying to negotiate a
meaningful path between the strengths and weaknesses of deliberative and adversarial
debate (Warnock, 2001). In her account of her work for the committee of enquiry
that led to the 1990 Embryology Bill, Mary Warnock describes how she came to
understand the significance of practical ways to resolve such fundamental disputes.
When faced with a solution which was said to be broadly acceptable, as opposed to a
generally agreed moral view, she ‘thought of it as a typical civil service cop-out’. But,
upon reflection, she:

came to see that [she] was here confusing private with public morality. In public issues
where there is a radical difference of moral opinion, and where no compromise is
possible, the concept of the acceptable is a useful and indeed indispensable one. (Warnock,
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2001, p. 70, italics added)

Warnock’s approach leaves room for elements of majority rule and deliberative
democracy, but it is located firmly within a realistic framework in which some groups
simply cannot be accommodated in some decisions. This seems to present an
important qualification to the deliberative democratic goal, and could be envisaged as
an important lesson in democratic debate—that sometimes people do not like the
outcome. Students need to be helped to understand that engaging in public
deliberation on divisive policy issues can often only be resolved by an outcome that
acknowledges the diversity of moral judgements, but may not always accommodate
them. The debate cited by Warnock, for example, led to an outcome that she admits
could not satisfy those who held human life sacred. This recognition is an important
step in thinking about incorporating debate in a pedagogy for democracy. It seeks to
resolve some of the problems involved in a simple majoritarian form of adversarial
debate while also recognizing that achieving a consensus is not always possible through
deliberation. Warnock provides teachers with a concept that can be made explicit in
the classroom to try to find an outcome or resolution to the issues under discussion
without asking participants to compromise on their personal convictions. If students
could understand and work with a concept of public morality rather than simply and
simplistically trying to apply their own personal morality to social group or society-
wide problems, they could be given an insight into how such issues are likely to be
brought to a resolution.

Teachers’ role in developing students’ public voice

The preceding section was essentially about the form of classroom debate most
suitable to a pedagogy for democracy. We have suggested that the realistic route is to
adopt a variety of approaches to fostering debate and discussion within school. This is
partly a pragmatic response to the problems highlighted above, but there are two
additional reasons supporting such a mixed approach. First, because the nature of our
own democracy is neither absolutely adversarial nor deliberative, it would be
 Debating in secondary schools 503

inappropriate for schools to adopt one or other method to the exclusion of others.
Second, young people need experience of different forms of debate and discussion
because one of the functions of active citizens is to help define and shape the nature of
their participation, and young citizens would be at a disadvantage if they did not
understand the range of approaches available. If young people in schools experience
formal adversarial debate, they should also experience deliberative discussions. If they
experience the thrill or disappointment of an outright victory or defeat in the formal
vote that follows an adversarial debate, they should also experience the satisfaction or
frustration that accompanies the process of trying to reach a resolution that
accommodates, or at least values, the range of opinions in the class on a public
issue. In a political system such as the UK, where the types of elections are multiplying
and where people are as likely to be involved in proportional voting as well as first past
the post systems, and where consultation is becoming a political mantra, young people
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need to be flexible enough to adapt their debate and discussion skills to any forum.
So far we have looked at issues in a fairly generic way but, in this final section, we
want to consider some of the practicalities and specific issues that arise from
considering the real classroom and the power relations that affect teaching and
learning. In the limited space available we will confine ourselves to a brief
consideration of gender within the classroom. By reflecting on the existing research
and on our own data we illustrate how factors, other than teacher decisions about the
form of debate, may affect the outcomes of lessons and therefore have implications for
promoting a pedagogy for democracy.
Wilkinson discusses how different models of oracy have developed in the English
National Curriculum. He defines the preferred model in the early 1990s as one in
which the following dimensions are valued:

Take turns; don’t interrupt; don’t overtalk; share out the talk time; don’t allow silence; don’t
speak at too great a length; listen to others; respect their point of view . . . be co-operative; try
to arrive at a mutually satisfying conclusion. (Wilkinson et al., 1990, pp. 76–77)

This model seems to fit more readily into the form of deliberative debate, but it is also
a gendered issue. In collaborative talk, which is often built into group work, girls tend
to do better than boys and to value the experience more (Boylan et al., 2001, p. 206).
By contrast, in more formal adversarial debates where individuals hold the floor
and make demands on others’ time and attention, boys tend to do better (Baxter,
1999, p. 87).
In addressing these inequalities, Baxter argues against simply accepting that such
gender differences are somehow natural or inevitable and therefore suggests that
schools should not simply adopt models of oracy, such as that described above by
Wilkinson, on the grounds that these value girls’ contributions. Nor should schools
adopt a deficit model in which girls receive extra support or help, for example through
assertiveness training. Instead, she argues that educators need to consider the
development of public voice as a focus for educational projects for all students. While
she is clear that this is ‘not intended to lead to an endorsement of the normative voice
 504 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

of public authority . . . so frequently identified in feminist discourse as valorizing

masculine or patriarchal values’ she nevertheless insists that teachers should aim to
develop young people’s public voice. It is important because: ‘girls may be personally,
socially, educationally and professionally empowered in their lives if they learn to
speak out—to have the agency to speak persuasively and powerfully in a range of
unfamiliar, formal and public contexts’ (Baxter, 1999, p. 83). In seeking to help
students develop an effective public voice, Baxter argues that teachers do not simply
have to accept the normative male voice of public authority as the only model of
effectiveness. Instead, through a more nuanced and reflexive approach, teachers can
help young people to ‘utilize a spectrum of discursive positions according to context,
which can draw on multiple and perhaps competing ways of talking’ (Baxter, 1999, p.
95). In a later paper she reflects on some of the discursive practices that help ensure
some speakers are effective:
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. speaking out and holding the floor;

. using a range of case-making skills;
. applying parallel processing skills;
. being an ‘agent provocateur’. (Baxter, 2002, p. 86)

While she notes that boys adopt other specific tactics to achieve dominance and
effectiveness, such as the use of humour and a side-kick (Baxter, 2002, pp. 87–93),
she also notes that these discursive practices were used in the classroom by both boys
and girls (p. 86).
The concept of a public voice helps to explain some of the information gathered
during the LDC which, as discussed above, promotes a formal, adversarial and
competitive model of debating. Data were collected during the evaluation through a
number of mechanisms, including questionnaires for participating students (47 were
completed) and a number of group interviews with debating teams during the public
events. In addition, we were able to observe students during training events and
competitive debates. Girls were in the majority in the borough events observed by the
project evaluators and this was also the case in the London final. All the girls
interviewed mentioned the improvement in their confidence as one of the major
benefits of their involvement in formal debates of this nature. Some were more aware
than others of the need to project confidence and had developed strategies to create a
confident façade even where they personally felt very scared; such strategies ranged
from the deliberate adoption of specific body language to imagining opponents as the
‘baddy in Harry Potter’ (Jerome, 2004). The concern with confidence is hardly
surprising given the findings of previous research which highlights the risk of public
shame as one of the main experiences of participating in any kind of discussion in
front of peers (Stewart, 1988; Boylan et al., 2001).
While boys and girls all drew on a wide range of discursive practices and strategies in
their debates, the questionnaire responses indicated some differences between their
concerns at the outset. Boys were more concerned about their factual knowledge of the
topic being debated and girls focused more on aspects of the actual performance, such
 Debating in secondary schools 505

as their ability to deliver a coherent case without resorting to reading or to formulate

probing questions as one’s opponent was talking. Although this reflects Baxter’s
assertion that boys are generally more comfortable with conceptualizing themselves
as public speakers (Baxter, 2002, p. 81), one also has to exercise caution in that the
girls tended to be slightly older and more experienced in debating than the boys. While
it is possible to read the results as indicating a certain gung-ho quality to boys’
attitudes, it is equally possible that they were simply less experienced and therefore less
aware of the finer points about which the more experienced girls were concerned.
Interestingly, despite the initial difference in their concerns about debating, when
the participants were asked to reflect on their progress during the competition there
were no significant gender differences. First, students mentioned improvements in
their level of confidence—affecting their basic ability to stand up and address an
audience. Second, students mentioned their growing ability to think on their feet and
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respond immediately, either putting opponents on the spot with questions, or

responding to questions and points of information directed at them. The second
point is important because it helps students move beyond simply conquering their
fear of public speaking and empowers them ‘to make a convincing case to a group of
peers, to persuade people of [their] point of view, to resist and challenge the spurious
arguments of others and to make an impact on public opinion’ (Baxter, 2002, p. 81).
Crucially, boys and girls identified areas that were concerned with aspects of their
public performance or, following Baxter, developing a more effective public voice.

Conclusion
During the evaluation project for the ESU it was evident that young people enjoyed
the process of participation in formal adversarial debate and saw great value in it. The
value they placed upon the process ranged from seeing participation as a preparation
for a variety of roles in future to viewing it as a means of boosting their confidence.
They thought it led them to find out more about contemporary issues and to examine
them from different perspectives. Prompted by colleagues, and by words of caution
from other educators, we have set out in this article to explore whether the concerns
over this form of debate are well founded. While we maintain that there are strong
reasons for continuing to pursue such an approach to debate in schools (not least
because of the students’ own endorsement), we have begun to clarify several points
for further investigation with teachers and students:

. Given the variety of forums and approaches to debate and discussion of public
issues in democracies, what balance of approaches are adopted in schools to
develop young people’s public voice?
. How do students experience this variety of approaches in school? And are there
differences between boys and girls?
. How can teachers operationalize the notion of public morality in activities based on
discussion of public issues? Are such notions used implicitly in teacher-mediated
discussions or would this concept be new to most teachers?
 506 L. Jerome and B. Algarra

By investigating these issues, and the others considered above, educators should be
able to theorize debate as part of a pedagogy for democracy. In doing so we need to
build on the foundations established by existing forms of debate and recognize the
experiences of young people themselves:

Before I started debating I was unable to get up and to argue clearly or speak at all due to
the lack of confidence in myself. Learning how to debate from the ESU’s training
programme has now given me the confidence to speak in front of a large audience as well
as talking to individual people. It has also allowed me to become interested in current
affairs, in modern controversies and issues affecting our world. (Lewis Iwu, student at
St Bonaventure’s School)
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Harold Raitt at the English Speaking Union for comments on
the article and support through the project. We would also like to thank colleagues at
Anglia Ruskin, Professor Graham Badley, Stephen Harris, Paulette Luff, Daniela
Mangione and Elena Zezlina-Phillips who commented on an earlier draft.

Note
1. The English Speaking Union is an international educational charity founded in 1918 to
promote ‘international understanding and friendship through the use of the English language’.
The ESU’s London Debate Challenge (2003–6) aims to ensure that all 415 secondary schools
in London have the opportunity to develop an active debating tradition, accessible to any
pupil.
The London Debate Challenge incorporates three main strands of activity: (a) direct
teaching for young people through non-competitive debate workshop days. These are led by
ESU staff and university debaters who volunteer as mentors; (b) in-service training (INSET)
for teachers; (c) a competition, including championships in each borough and a pan-London
finals day.
The main focus of the project is to develop debate in the classroom and as an extra-
curricular activity in schools. Additional information is available from the website: www.
londondebatechallenge.org or by contacting Harold Raitt on 020 7529 1550 or at
harold_raitt@ esu.org.uk

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