Learning to Disagree Differently: Comparing Agonistic and Controversial Issues Literatures to Expand Conceptual and Classroom Approaches to Democratic Disagreement

Educational research increasingly supports diversifying pedagogical approaches to the teaching and learning of controversial issues. This article engages with agonistic scholarship, that sees disagreement as a desirable force for democracy, to identify pathways for such expansion. It analyzes how agonistic literature (n = 203) conceptualizes disagreement and uses this as a lens to re-examine publications on controversial issues (n = 106). The perspective comparative review suggests that the field could be conceptually expanded by understanding disagreements as practices where different actors gather around public things, interacting through varied modes and tones of communication and different forms of knowledge for multiple purposes. Pedagogical approaches could be diversified by incorporating bodily, performative, and object-based practices such as music, clothes, humor, sports, and games. Distinguishing civic-literacy aims from efforts to cultivate responsive and respectful relations could enable further pluralization of knowledge and purpose, while enhancing inclusivity. The article concludes that defining democratic boundaries in classroom disagreements requires attention to controversial matters and processes as well as to the human and non-human actors, and purposes.