Page 275 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
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ate as an Educational Tool: 275
Is Polarization a Debate Side Effect?
Manuele De Conti, University of Padua
Summary
Competitive debate is a challenging educational tool for argumentation. As the em-
pirical research proves, debating improves learning, critical thinking and verbal and
non-verbal communication skills, among others. Nonetheless, many scholars crit-
icize it for one of its alleged and detrimental impacts: polarization. Indeed, listen-
ing to them, polarization would lead to bias assimilation, close-mindedness, dichot-
omization and disagreement and conflict escalating attitudes, polarization would
appear as a debate “side effect” and debate itself as a detrimental educational tool.
Therefore, the purposes of this survey will be (i) to show that polarization is neither
a necessary nor a likely consequence of debating, (ii) to argue that even when polar-
ization occurs bias assimilation, close-mindedness, dichotomization and disagree-
ment and conflict escalating attitudes, do not necessarily follow, and (iii) to stress
the mistakes these detractors commit. Finally, polarization will lose its “side effect”
color and debating will be recognized as an effective and organic tool for argumen-
tation education.
Key words: competitive debate, polarization, argumentation education
1. Debate and Competitive Debate: Framework
Dand Definition
ebate is a particular type of dialogue. Theoretically, dialogue
means a process of communication between at least two people
that occurs through a series of back and forth messages also con-
sidered as organized steps toward fulfilling a goal (Walton, 1992; 1998;
2006). A dialogue is genuinely communicative: the units of dialogue
are primarily speech acts, and these communicative acts are sent out by
Is Polarization a Debate Side Effect?
Manuele De Conti, University of Padua
Summary
Competitive debate is a challenging educational tool for argumentation. As the em-
pirical research proves, debating improves learning, critical thinking and verbal and
non-verbal communication skills, among others. Nonetheless, many scholars crit-
icize it for one of its alleged and detrimental impacts: polarization. Indeed, listen-
ing to them, polarization would lead to bias assimilation, close-mindedness, dichot-
omization and disagreement and conflict escalating attitudes, polarization would
appear as a debate “side effect” and debate itself as a detrimental educational tool.
Therefore, the purposes of this survey will be (i) to show that polarization is neither
a necessary nor a likely consequence of debating, (ii) to argue that even when polar-
ization occurs bias assimilation, close-mindedness, dichotomization and disagree-
ment and conflict escalating attitudes, do not necessarily follow, and (iii) to stress
the mistakes these detractors commit. Finally, polarization will lose its “side effect”
color and debating will be recognized as an effective and organic tool for argumen-
tation education.
Key words: competitive debate, polarization, argumentation education
1. Debate and Competitive Debate: Framework
Dand Definition
ebate is a particular type of dialogue. Theoretically, dialogue
means a process of communication between at least two people
that occurs through a series of back and forth messages also con-
sidered as organized steps toward fulfilling a goal (Walton, 1992; 1998;
2006). A dialogue is genuinely communicative: the units of dialogue
are primarily speech acts, and these communicative acts are sent out by
