ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how our decision to define and articulate a theoretical and pedagogical framework led to the transformation of course and the institution. It discusses what we chose to include in the framework and why, and how students spoke about, experienced, and critiqued the framework. The chapter explains about democracy both in the classroom and in society. The role of the faculty in a democratic classroom and in the teaching community needed to be articulated with great clarity because a democratic classroom often gets interpreted as a teacherless classroom where students gather to express their individual opinions. Dialogue was the central pedagogy that sustained the course. Serious and sustained dialogue focused on the co-construction of new knowledge necessary for social and political change requires a cohesive community of students and teachers. Students then linked their political autobiographies with projects of change, where each person examined either a project already undertaken or one that was planned.
