Abstract:

Context:
European societies have become more diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture and religion in recent decades as a result of social processes such as globalization, labor migration and forced migration (OECD, 2016; Stevens et al., 2006). These processes are clearly visible in Brussels, with its central position within Europe (Janssens, 2014). It is clearly reflected in the Brussels educational landscape, where schools have more and more students from different ethnic-cultural backgrounds (Sacco, et al., 2016). Nowadays, more than half of the student population in Brussels schools has a migrant background (Marechal, 2014; Cops, et al., 2015; DEBEST, 2019). On the one hand, a diverse school context can contribute to a positive and powerful learning environment in which the identity of each individual is highlighted and embraced (Verhaeghe & Den Haese, 2020). On the other hand, the same context can become the breeding ground for ethnically-religiously inspired conflicts if it is left to run its course (Danielsen & Bendixsen, 2019). In 2015, the Erasmus Brussels University of Applied Sciences and Arts launched the initiative of Democratic Dialogue initiative in order to deal constructively with societal challenges in education (Göregen, 2019; Göregen & Van Raemdonck, 2020). The initiative was a response to the increasing tensions experienced in secondary schools in Flanders, but especially in Brussels. A multidisciplinary team of teachers (as experts and coaches) in disciplines such as communication; philosophy; pedagogy; ethics; psychology; de-radicalization and theology were compiled to meet this challenge.

Aim:
The aim of this research is to examine the assumptions of effectivity of dialogue coaching: What are the underlying assumptions of effectiveness regarding dialogue coaching deduced from the interviews with the coaches? This is also the research question.

Methods:
The project of Democratic Dialogue is a relatively new method for dealing with controversial topics in the classroom. Considering the lack of scientific data in order to evaluate this method, we opted for an explorative case study (Bryman, 2012). Conducting interviews is an essential research approach in order to gain insight about the experiences and developments of individuals in education (Seidman, 2013). Two expert interviews were conducted per dialogue coach (N=8) regarding their methods and effectiveness of dialogue coaching. Thus, a total of 16 expert interviews were conducted to understand the methods and assumptions of effectiveness regarding their dialogue coaching.

Results:
After an in-depth analysis of the conducted interviews, we can deduce several key assumptions for each used method i.e. nonviolent communication; intercultural communication; Socratic method; role-play in combination with intercultural communication; and the communication about theological knowledge when dealing with specific religion-inspired conflicts during dialogue coaching.

Conclusions:
Democratic Dialogue exhibits five different methods while each coach emphasized several assumptions and conditions for each method in order to succeed with facilitating the dialogue and coaching. In this paper we will briefly examine these assumptions.

Keywords:

Facilitating dialogue, controversial topics at school, conflict management methods, democratic dialogue, peacebuilding.