Civil Discourse Through the CASEL 5

Key Points

• If we want to restore civic culture and build a better future for a strong democracy, we must start by normalizing healthy habits of conversation as a core skill to implement in schools.
• Civil discourse depends on participants having honest and respectful conversations with others to share their perspectives.
• To practice civil discourse, students need a strong foundation of speaking and listening skills, which are supported by the five SEL competencies: the CASEL 5!

In the United States, polarization pervades the political and educational landscape. This increase in divisiveness has led to a breakdown in free speech and negative mental health outcomes in students nationally. In this 2022 Rand survey, district leaders noted a top concern was the mental health of students and staff, with political polarization being an additional issue. In 2024, a FIRE poll noted  only one in four Americans think free speech is secure.

If we want to restore civic culture and build a better future for a strong democracy, we must start by normalizing healthy habits of conversation as a core skill to implement in schools. The key to doing this: teaching civil discourse as a framework to help students converse productively with each other about sensitive and challenging topics.

What Is Civil Discourse? How Is it Different Than a Debate?

Civil discourse depends on participants having honest and respectful conversations with others to share their perspectives. It is not a competition or debate, but rather, an opportunity to lean in and listen to a different point of view. It is the responsibility of participants to engage in good faith and stay focused on not trying to sway another’s opinion but to build mutual understanding.

Essential Skills of Civil Discourse and Civility

To practice civil discourse, students need a strong foundation of speaking and listening skills.

Where does one start? In come the CASEL 5!

The CASEL 5 refers to the five broad and interrelated areas of competence (#SEL) that are important for students’ social and emotional learning (SEL). They include:

• Self-awareness
• Self-management
• Social awareness
• Relationship skills
• Responsible decision-making.

Each area of competency signifies an important aspect of preparing oneself to engage in civil discourse.

Educators can anchor these competencies through the following skills for students to practice:

1. Active listening
2. Connection with others
3. Reason and evidence for claims
4. Stating perspectives
5. Inclusion of all discussion members
6. Respect

These skills highlight the concept of civility with a focus on inclusion and respect for others. Remember, engaging in civil discourse and being civil are not merely about prioritizing politeness. They can lead to constructive disagreement, which is productive for sharing ideas.

Bringing Civil Discourse to Your Class

As a former social studies educator, I know how helpful it is to have an easy way to teach frameworks for learning new ways of thinking for students. Using the foundational competencies outlined by CASEL and tips by The American Psychological Association for managing disagreements, I defined the acronym AWARE in the Principles of Civil Discourse Primer I wrote for Sphere Education Initiatives:

Assert: Assert your viewpoint with intellectual honesty, using credible facts. Find possible
areas of agreement on the topic.

Wonder: Consider who the other participant is. Are they a colleague, friend, family member? What is their viewpoint and why do they have it? How have their identity, socialization, and experience influenced their perspective?

Accept: Accept that you may not be able to change the other participant’s viewpoint and
that yours might change. Acknowledge that this is an opportunity to share viewpoints rather than convince others you are correct. Remember, disagreement is okay and is part of civil discourse!

Respect: Respect the other participant. Do not use stereotypes, name-calling, bias, or
belittling to get your point across.

Establish: Establish outcomes and keep your conversation goal-oriented. Be proactive
if the discussion is escalating; move to a different topic. Reinforce that you and the other
participant(s) may still engage in conversation and maintain the present relationship.

Introducing this framework at the beginning of the school year or a unit that may have controversial, challenging, or sensitive content will be beneficial in grounding students’ thinking in the healthy habits of conversation.

Helpful Strategies

The following strategies are easy to implement in conjunction with the framework as part of an initial introduction to civil discourse with students, with reinforcement throughout the year:

1. Set class norms: Develop norms everyone agrees on and post them where students can see. This is also great to send parents so they can mirror these norms at home!
2. Set up your learning environment: Consider creating spaces for discussions with U-shaped or round table setup to encourage Socratic discussion when opportunities arise.
3. Use sentence frames: Provide students with a document to refer to with sentence frames to help them formulate their opinions into cohesive sentences to share. 
4. Employ welcoming rituals from the SEL 3 Signature Practices Playbook: Start routines that can be built into classroom and discussion norms.

We want students and teachers to feel they can bring their whole selves to the classroom and move beyond the notion of just a safe space to establish a brave space. By doing so, students can fully engage in building comprehension around the CASEL 5 competencies and healthy habits of conversation.

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Elyse Alter is the content development manager for Sphere Education Initiatives, a nonpartisan organization that brings together experts from across the ideological spectrum and from a wide diversity of experiences and backgrounds to engage educators on the most pressing topics of the day through classroom content and professional development. She is an experienced middle and high school social studies educator focused on applying her graduate degrees in instructional technology from Teachers College of Columbia University and education and human development from George Washington University to advance civic culture through civil discourse in the K-12 space.   

Related Posts:

• SEL Quick Start: The SEL 3 Signature Practices
• Are You Okay? Checking in With Students Using SEL Exit Tickets
• 5 Meaningful, Standards-Based SEL Activities for the Classroom

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