The relational conditions of democratic education through dialogue
(2026) Dialogue in Democratic Education — Location: Oulu, Finlande (9.June.2026)
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- Abstract
- In democratic education, dialogue is often treated as a technique for cultivating deliberative skills and habits. This paper argues that such a framing overlooks a crucial layer: the relational conditions that allow dialogue to do its deeper work. By outlining the barriers that hinder dialogue from fulfilling its democratic promise, I show that meaningful dialogical transformation depends not just on protocols or content, but on the affective and normative climate in which encounters unfold. I propose a triadic account of relational qualities that enable dialogue to reach its democratic potential: affection, authority, and attentiveness. These qualities help students remain open to otherness, navigate conflict without collapse into antagonism, and treat perspectives as transformable rather than fixed. Yet such qualities cannot be legislated or measured into existence; they must be cultivated through pedagogical relationships and sustained through institutional affordances. The paper ends by arguing that relational conditions are not a soft supplement to democratic dialogue but its very infrastructure — the invisible architecture that allows difference to matter.
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Cuneen, N. (2026). The relational conditions of democratic education through dialogue. Dialogue in Democratic Education, Oulu, Finlande. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/277384