In the midst of Tea Party protests, party politics, and political programming which marked the recent mid-term elections, one question kept returning to me: What would it look like if dialogue, a sense of mutual listening and response, was the norm and not the exception. What would it mean to engage in political issues, but to do with a sense of collaboration, cooperation?
This issue of Reflections will hardly change national political debate. It does, however, offer a series of dialogues focused on how to expand our sense of what traditions should inform our community work; how expanding our definition of literacy will provide us with new ways to understand old oppressions; and, how expanding our sense of the student in the classroom can open up new pedagogical practices. With this issue then, we hope to model how academic dialogue can lead to insight, then practice, then partnership.