English articles
All the lonely people – the epidemic of loneliness and its consequences
As we walk the streets of our cities and pass by a stranger heading in the opposite direction, we often avert our eyes, turn slightly to the side, glance down, or pull out our phones...
Was will eine Frau eigentlich? On discussing Gender Equality in Germany.
Gender equality is a pivotal topic in many of the deliberative workshops we have implemented in the last couple of years in Germany. Originally, German authorities considered it important to discuss the rights of women...
Angry, but not bad people on the Brandenburg countryside
We are in a small town in rural Brandenburg and talk for two days with 32 long-term unemployed people. Most of them are older than 50. They opted to become a part of a reintegration-program...
Talking straight to youngsters in Hamburg
We are in a less affluent part from Hamburg for a two-day Workshop. About 70% of our 32 participants have a migration background. We talk for about 10 hours with two different groups of about...
Emotions and Political Deliberation
Reading the title of this article might evoke pictures of people violently shouting at each other or bursting out into tears while pleading their cause in front of an audience. Whereas the first case will...
“People have to work!” A Deliberation at a Secondary School in Brandenburg
This “Schule mit Courage” in a town East of Berlin has in total 330 pupils. About a third are first generation migrants or refugees (mostly from Syria or Afghanistan). The school works with a refugee...
A Deliberative Workshop with Chechen
Since 2016 Social Science Works has implemented more than forty rows of workshops with refugees and natives in which we discuss, among others, ethical and political pluralism, democracy, civic society, freedom (of expression, association and...
Deliberating Homosexuality: Empirical Observations and Analyses
Like many other western countries, Germany still has medical doctors, therapists and priests that believe that homosexuality is an illness that can be cured. For instance, the weekly Der Spiegel recently reported on Gero Winkelmann...
The Rewards from Deliberation: Researching the Feedback of our Workshops
by Hans Blokland and Raíssa Silveira Since 2016 Social Science Works has organized and implemented almost forty rows of deliberative workshops with refugees and German natives. Together with the participants, in our workshops we try...
Countering Radicalization: What the Research on Deliberation and Radicalization Teaches us
Could radicalization be prevented or reversed by bringing together those that have seemingly entered this path, with other not (yet) radicalized citizens, to discuss fundamental issues like: democracy, pluralism, freedom, autonomy, respect and gender? The...
“Super Volunteerism”: A Grass-Roots Solution to Global Prejudice
An Anecdotal Foreword: The Case for Solution-Based Research and Inductive Reasoning By Christina Pao (Yale University ’20) In summer 2017, I had the opportunity to volunteer for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) as a...
Robert A. Dahl on Pluralism, Democracy and Deliberation
Robert Dahl (1915 – 2014) is one of the most influential political scholars of the last century. His ideas on political scholarship, pluralism, democracy and deliberation also influenced Social Science Works. On Dahl, Hans Blokland...