You may be recovering from tense, divisive conversations with loved ones over the holidays. That's because the list of topics becoming controversial seems to be growing rapidly these days.
A class offered at the University of Florida aims to bridge that conversational divide.
The course called Partisanship in Agriculture and Natural Resources, taught by Sadie Hundemer, helps students identify why topics become partisan, and they learn to find common ground.
"Partisanship in itself isn't bad, but when it becomes polarization and keeps groups from working together, that can stand in the way of us being able to make progress towards mutually beneficial solutions," Hundemer said. "We can end up with ineffective policies."
People are getting entrenched in their political positions without understanding what the "other group" thinks, she said.
They're displaying "groupish behavior," which is the tendency to form tight-knit groups and show bias or hostility towards outside groups.
"We talk about these mental heuristics or shortcuts … the kind of cues that we put out that say, 'This is what you should believe,' or, 'Oh, I shouldn't believe that because of this cue that's being put out,'" she said.
Hundemer's students consider the framing and ethics of certain stances.
But most importantly, they investigate the point where topics get split: people's values — what's most important to them.
"What we learn in the course is how to speak to those values," Hundemer said.
Let's take graduate student Jennifer Morgenthal's project on vaccine mandates in schools.
"I honestly just thought it was a science communication problem," she said.
But after interviewing teachers and parents, she made a discovery.
"Parents want autonomy. They want the choice," Morgenthal said. "Teachers, more so, are caring about the greater group of students there and keeping them safe and keeping the school running."
She found that both stakeholder groups care about student health; they just look at it through different moral lenses.
AnaLiese Mitchell focused her study on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program–Education, or SNAP-Ed.
It's a federal program, providing nutrition and exercise information to people who receive or are eligible for food stamps.
Mitchell used the debate over SNAP-Ed's role in food security as a window into how partisan dynamics shape community-based policy.
"Initially, based on the theories in the work in the literature that I had read, it was a lot of neutral messaging, so don't pick a side. It's about perspectives, lay out the facts, and that should work. However, after engaging with stakeholders, that was completely flipped on its side," she said.
"It kind of changed from stats-neutral messaging, cut and dry, to tailoring these messages, and they need to be delivered by a trusted messenger. And data or stats alone will not speak to the values of the people who are going to make informed decisions on these types of policies," she continued.
This investigation was a stepping stone for Mitchell's career, she said.
"I think it plays a larger part into community development, quality of life, community engagement, extension, work leadership … all of these kind of nuanced topics that I'm super interested in. I was able to blend them really beautifully into this project," Mitchell said.
Jennifer Morgenthal's biggest takeaway from her experience was knowing that the future scientists, researchers, and communicators taking this course were going to be more open-minded.
"They're learning their own biases. They're learning how to have those conversations," she said. "We are very aware now of the different lenses that people can wear."
This class is only offered to graduate students for now, but Hundemer is considering opening it up to undergrads.
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