Teaching Democracy

In a global climate where authoritarian tendencies are on the rise, how do we create resilient societies that resist democratic erosion? How do we, as educators, teach people about democracy in a hyper-partisan environment? The beginning of August marked the advent of the 2022 Global Studies Outreach Conference (GSOC), a three-day event where roughly thirty educators came together to discuss the future of democracy, the dangers to it, and how educators can best engage with students to protect it. 

First launched in 2013, Global Studies Outreach at Harvard is a collaboration amongst regional and internationally focused centers and programs at Harvard that share a commitment to educational outreach. The primary goal of this collaboration is to help the general public, and especially K-12 and community college educators and students, better understand the complex world in which we live. GSOC is sponsored by the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University (GHELI) in partnership with the Asia Center, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and the Center for African Studies.

Over the course of the event, participants listened to lectures and were invited to partake in interactive Q&A sessions and workshops. As an activity, each person was encouraged to produce an artifact—something they might teach or use in the classroom to educate and engage students learning about democratic institutions.

A diverse range of participants attended the conference, from educators teaching middle school and high school, to those teaching immigrants taking the citizenship exam, to those teaching in indigenous communities. Each was passionate about empowering students with the tools to participate in liberal democracy.

Terry Aladjem, GHELI Senior Scholar in Residence and Social Studies Lecturer at Harvard College, participated in the planning committee that organized the event, developed the agenda, and arranged expert speakers. One of the invited speakers was GHELI Senior Scholar in Residence and Lecturer at the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Law School, Alicia Ely Yamin. In her session, Democracy, Human Rights and Public Health, Yamin discussed how both personal experience and scholarly research revealed the way access to healthcare depends on robust public institutions and trust in democratic systems.

A failure to think collectively, she said, is the main contributor to the unequal distribution of health care. “In America, the culture is very much about creating a story of me and not a story of us,” said Yamin. Yet when people come together from a place of cooperation and thinking about others, they can create moments of extraordinary change. 

Aladjem pointed out that creating participatory experiences is also a pedagogical technique that he hopes educators will bring back to their students. “If you are involving students—at any level—as citizens, if you give them agency in their own lives, then they are more interested in creating a society. They are more capable of producing a story of us.” 

Aladjem is teaching Law and American Society, an undergraduate honors course in Spring 2023, where students will learn about the nature of democracy and law as a vehicle for politics.
Yamin is teaching two reading groups, Comparative and International Legal Struggles Over Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (Fall 2022) and Health Rights in Latin America: Defending Dignity or Judicializing Politics? (Spring 2023), where students will learn about the intersection of policy, culture, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.