Recommended Readings on Civic Discourse Part I

This curated list of books supports instructors designing or revising courses that reflect the evolving landscape of civic discourse in higher education. These titles span critical theory, civic engagement, public humanities, digital culture, media literacy, and interdisciplinary pedagogy. Use this as a reference for course design, professional development, or the expansion of your scholarly toolkit.

Resources

Asen, R. (2015). Democracy, deliberation, and education. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Alger, J., & Goldberg, A. (2019). Renewing civil society: Madison’s living legacy. In W. V. Flores & R. S. Rogers (Eds.), Democracy, civic engagement, and citizenship in higher education: Reclaiming our civic purpose. Lexington Books.

Anderson, R., Baxter, L. A., & Cissna, K. N. (2004). Concluding voices, conversation fragments, and temporary synthesis. In R. Anderson, L. A. Baxter, & K. N. Cissna (Eds.), Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies (pp. 259–268). Sage.

Bächtiger, A., Dryzek, J. S., Mansbridge, J., & Warren, M. E.  (Eds.) (2018). The Oxford handbook of deliberative democracy. Oxford University Press.

Ben-Porath, S. R. (2023). Cancel wars: How universities can foster free speech, promote inclusion, and renew democracy. The University of Chicago Press.

Binder, A. J., & Kidder, J. L. (2022). The channels of student activism: How the left and right are winning (and losing) in campus politics today. The University of Chicago Press.

Bohm, D. (2013). On dialogue. Routledge.

Bohman, J. (1996). Public deliberation: Pluralism, complexity, and democracy. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

Bohman, J., & Rehg, W.  (Eds.). (1997). Deliberative democracy: Essays on reason and politics. MIT Press.

Britt, L. L., & Smithberger, L.K. (2018). Developing a civic identity by designing and facilitating public opportunities for deliberative dialogue. In T. D. Mitchell & K. M. Soria (Eds.), Educating for citizenship and social justice: Practices for community engagement at research universities (pp. 35–45). Palgrave Macmillan.

Brookfield, S. & Preskill, S. (2016). The discussion book: 50 great ways to get people talking. Jossey-Bass.

Carcasson, M. (2009). Beginning with the end in mind: A call for goal-driven deliberative practice. Public Agenda Center for Advances in Public Engagement. https://my.lwv.org/sites/default/files/carcasson.beginning_with_the_end_in_mind.pdf

Carcasson, M. (2019). From crisis to opportunity: Rethinking the civic role of universities in the face of wicked problems, hyper-partisanship, and truth decay. In W. V. Flores & K. S. Rogers (Eds.), Democracy, civic engagement, and citizenship in higher education: Reclaiming our civic purpose (pp. 319-348). Lexington Books.

Chapman, A. (2023). Social media for civic education: Engaging youth for democracy. Palgrave Macmillan.

Colby, A., Beaumont, E., Ehrlich, T., & Corngold, J. (2007). Educating for democracy: Preparing undergraduates for responsible political engagement. Jossey-Bass.

Colby, A., Ehrlich, T., Beaumont, E., & Stephens, J. (2003). Educating citizens: Preparing America’s undergraduates for lives of moral and civic responsibility. Jossey-Bass.

Coplin, W. B. (1997). Citizenship courses as life-changing experiences. In G. Reeher & J. Cammarano (Eds.), Educating for citizenship: Ideas and innovations in political learning (pp. 63-80). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Dewey, J. (1944). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. The Free Press.

Dewey, J. (1988). Creative democracy: The task before us. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The later works of John Dewey, 1925-1953 (Volume 14: 1939-1941, Essays, pp. 225-231). Southern Illinois University Press. (Original work published in 1939).

Deetz, S., & Simpson, J. (2004). Critical organizational dialogue: Open formation and the demand of ‘otherness’. In R. Anderson, L. Baxter, & K. Cissna (Eds.), Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies (pp. 141-158). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483328683.n9

Drury, S. A. M. (2019). Cultivating dialogue and deliberation through speech, silence, and synthesis. In Longo, N.V. & Shaffer, T.J. (Eds.) Creating space for democracy: A primer on dialogue and deliberation in higher education. (pp. 69-84). Stylus.

Drury, S. A. M., Brammer, L. R., & Doherty, J. (2017). Assessment through a deliberative pedagogy learning outcomes rubric. In T. J. Shaffer, N. V. Longo, I. Manosevitch, & M. S. Thomas (Eds.), Deliberative pedagogy: Teaching and learning for democratic engagement (pp. 191–201). Michigan State University.

Dryzek, J. (2000). Deliberative democracy and beyond: Liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford University Press.

Escobar, O. (2011). Facilitating D+D. In Public dialogue and deliberation: A communication perspective for public engagement practitioners (pp. 46-54). UK Beacons for Public Engagement.

Escobar, O. (2019). Facilitators: The micropolitics of public participation and deliberation. In Elstub, S. & Escobar, O. (Eds), Handbook of democratic innovation and governance (pp. 178-195). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786433862.00022

Estlund, D., & Landemore, H. (2018). Epistemic value of democratic deliberation. In A. Bächtiger, J. S. Dryzek, J. Mansbridge, & M. Warren (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of deliberative democracy (pp. 113-131). Oxford University Press.

Fishkin, J. (1995). The voice of the people. Yale University Press.

Fishkin, J. (2009). When the people speak: Deliberative democracy & public consultation. Oxford University Press.

Gastil, J., & Black, L. W. (2018). Deliberation in communication studies. In A. Bächtiger, J. S. Dryzek, J. Mansbridge, & M. E. Warren (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of deliberative democracy (pp. 502–517). Oxford University Press.

Gastil, J. (2008). Political communication and deliberation. Sage.

Guttman, A. (1987). Democratic education. Princeton University Press.

Hulbert, I. G. & Harkins, D. (2024, June). Assessing the civic campus: The link between higher education and democracy. Ithasak S+R. https://sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SR-AASCU-Report-assessing_the_civic_campus_20240604.pdf

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Bloomsbury.

Genette, J., Olson, C., & Linde, J. (2018). Hot topics, cool heads: A handbook for Civil Dialogue. Kendall Hunt.

Hart, R. P. (2018). Civic hope: How ordinary Americans keep democracy alive. Cambridge University Press.

Jacobs, L. R., Cook, F. L., & Delli Carpini, M. X. (2009). Talking together: Public deliberation and political participation in America. University of Chicago Press.

Kranich, N. (2019). Academic libraries as civic agents. In Longo, N.V. & Shaffer, T.J. (Eds.). Creating space for democracy: A primer on dialogue and deliberation in higher education. (pp. 199-208). Stylus. https://doi.org/10.7282/t3-zn3f-6a39

Kinder, D. R., & Kalmoe, N. P. (2017). Neither liberal nor conservative: Ideological innocence in the American public. University of Chicago Press.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall.

Longo, N. V., & Shaffer, T. J. (2019). Discussing democracy: Learning to talk together. In N. V. Longo & T. J. Shaffer (Eds.), Creating space for democracy (pp. 13-38). Stylus.

Macedo, S. (2000). Diversity and distrust: Civic education in a multicultural democracy. Harvard University Press.

Mansbridge, J., Bohman, J., Chambers, S., Christiano, T., Fung, A., J., P., Thompson, D. F., & Warren, M. E. (2012). A systemic approach to deliberative democracy. In J. Parkinson & J. Mansbridge (Eds.), Deliberative systems: Deliberative democracy at the large scale (pp. 1-26). Cambridge University Press.

Matthews, D. (2019). Democracy’s challenge for academe: From public good to consumer good and back? In W. V. Flores & R. S. Katrina (Eds.), Democracy, civic engagement, and citizenship in higher education: Reclaiming our civic purpose (pp. 55-67). Lexington Books.

McGowan-Kirsch, A.M. (Ed.). (2025). Encouraging college students’ democratic engagement in an era of political polarization. Lexington Books. (Available in Reed Library)

McNamee, S. (2013). The difference of dialogue: Toward a relational ethic. In A. Liegeois, R. Burggraeve, M. Riemslagh, & J. Corveleyn (Eds.), “After you!:” Dialogical ethics and the pastoral counselling process (pp. 3–13). Leuven University Press. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278023241_After_You_Dialogical_Ethics_and_the_Pastoral_Counselling_Process

Mendelberg, T. (2000). Research in micropolitics: Political decision making, deliberation, and participation (M. Carpini, L. Huddy, & R. Shapiro, Eds. Vol. 6). JAI Press.

Morrell, M. E. (2010). Empathy and democracy: Feeling, thinking and deliberation. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Mutz, D. C. (2006). Hearing the other side: Deliberative versus participatory democracy. Cambridge University Press.

Nabatchi, T. (2012). An introduction to deliberative civic engagement. In T. Nabatchi, J. Gasil, G. M. Weiksner, & M. Leighninger (Eds.), Democracy in motion: Evaluating the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement (pp. 3-17). Oxford University Press.

O’Connell, D. W. (1997). Teaching the art of public deliberation: National Issues Forums on campus. In G. Reeher & J. Cammarano (Eds.), Educating for citizenship: Ideas and innovations in political learning (pp. 135-151). Rowman Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Pincock, C. (2012). Does deliberation make better citizens? In Nabatchi, T., Gastil, J., Weiksner, G. M., & Leighninger, M. (Eds.), Democracy in motion: Evaluating the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement (pp. 135-162). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199899265.003.0007

Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster.

Ratcliffe, M., & Grace, M. (2003). Science education for citizenship. Open University Press.

Razzante, R. (2021). Torpefieds, intellectualizes, and cynics, oh my!: Complicating performances of whiteness. In C. Wang & L. Chaobenedict (Eds.), Communicating across differences: An anthology of intercultural communication (pp. 1-18). Cognella.

Razzante, R. J., Hanna, K. N., & Linde, J. A. (2020). Dialogic prudence: Promoting transformative conflict through Civil Dialogue®. In P. M. Kellett, S. L. Connaughton, & G. Cheney (Eds.), Transforming conflict and building peace: Community engagement strategies for communication scholarship and practice (pp. 221–242). Peter Lang Publishers.

Schoem, D., & Hurtado, S. (Eds.). (2001). Intergroup dialogue: Deliberative democracy in school, college, community, and workplace. University of Michigan Press.

Schudson, M. (1999). The good citizen: A history of American civic life. Harvard University Press.

Shaffer, T. J. (2017). (Striving for) democracy in small groups: Engaging politics in a communication studies course. In R. C. Minor & I. Marin (Eds.), Beyond politics as usual: Paths to engaging college students in politics (pp. 56–77). Kettering Foundation Press.

Shaffer, T. J., Longo, N. V., Manosevitch, I., & Thomas, M. S. (Eds.). (2017). Deliberative pedagogy: Teaching and learning for democratic engagement. Michigan State University Press.

Shaffer, T. J., & Longo, N. V. (2019). Creating space for democracy: A primer on dialogue and deliberation in higher education. Taylor & Francis.

The National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement. (2012). A crucible moment: College learning and democracy’s future. Association of American Colleges and Universities. https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/rschstat/research/pubs/college-learning-democracys-future/crucible-moment.pdf

Ulbig, S. G. (2020). Angry politics: Partisan hatred and political polarization among college students. University Press of Kansas.

Young, I. M. (1997). Difference as a resource for democratic communication. In J. Bohman & W. Rehg (Eds.), Deliberative democracy: Essays on reason and politics (pp. 383-406). MIT Press.

Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford University Press.