Page 431 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

environment. One must be willing to listen and engage with an open mind and heart for this

process to work. Feeling welcomed in this environment is a critical factor for open engagement.

For the purposes of this research, dialogue is a process used to expound and explore

everyday challenges that may be addressed concerning wide-ranging social issues confronting

society collectively on both the macro and micro level. Positively, this sort of deliberation and

freely exchanged dialogue fosters the opportunity to gain clarification of thoughts, ideas,

opinions, exploration of potentials, solutions, choice making among various alternatives, and

integrative decisions for action. A facilitator typically will assist members of the group

throughout the dialogue and gently guides or nudges the process protective of time elements,

theme and fair sharing opportunities. The roles of participants and facilitators are essential to

successful dialogue and deliberation. While the desired outcome of public dialogue and

deliberative conversation is the generation of new insights and understandings about the topic

at hand, the path to arrival can be challenging. The free-flowing quality of dialogue among

participants has the potential to become tense and difficult as members of the group offer

diverse opinions.

I am expressly interested in understanding how participants and facilitators experience and

process tensions and engage with each other while Community Conversations take place.

Understanding these experiences from the perspective of dialogue participants and facilitators is

critical to understanding the dynamics that give rise to feelings that encounter self-validation,

identity tension, disagreement, and conflict. Cultivating a deeper understanding of the dialogue

experience is integral to advancing deliberative dialogue as an approach that allows individuals

to lean into controversial and difficult topics of conversation. The ultimate value and promise of

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