Conducted by Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago (CRFC), Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF) and StreetLaw, Inc., Deliberating in a Democracy (DID), is a major six year international initiative designed to improve student understanding of democratic principles and the skills of civic deliberation.

Funded by grants (#Q304A040003 and #Q304A070005) from the U.S. Department of Education, Deliberating in a Democracy’s overall goal is to increase the knowledge, ability and dispositions of teachers and students to effectively participate in deliberations related to democratic principles as applied in their countries. The emphasis is on a direct person-to-person exchange of ideas and experiences to give people a much clearer picture of democracy in action.

In 2007–2008 over 200 teachers engaged more than 5,000 secondary students in authentic civic deliberations across the United States and in Eastern Europe, Russia and Azerbaijan. For more information about the success of this exciting project, please visit DID’s web site and read the evaluation reports prepared by Professor Pat G. Avery at the University of Minnesota.

 The main components of DID are:

Lessons on Controversial Public Issues
Classroom Civic Deliberations
Staff Development Sessions
Online Polling and Discussion Boards
Exchanges between U.S. and Partner Countries
Student Conferences
Evaluation

For more information please visit the Deliberating in a Democracy web site.