Kettering Foundation

Media Center

Videos

  • "The process of involving people, even if they have different points of view, maybe conflicting points of view, is very important."

    Svetlana Chernikova

  • Coping With the Cost of Health Care:

    What Is The Public Voice?

    Video Podcast

  • "We can improve the conversation and that directly impacts people's lives."

    Martin Carcasson

  • DDEX

  • Ibtesam, Rhanda Slim

    Mideast Network

  • "In our research, we look at what ideas community leaders have about the role of the public in deliberating issues and forming policy."

    Alberto Olivas

  • "When I'm working with the different Pacific Island communities, I must make sure that their way of being is always respected and regarded."

    Moerangi Falaoa

  • "You can't sustain an urban community without the voice of its citizens."

    Louise Spiegel

  • "Students have more of a sense that 'maybe we can do that, too.'"

    Katy Harriger

Podcasts

  • David Mathews discusses Education Research
  • Speaking of Politics Interview

Foundation Programs

Kettering's research seeks to identify and address the challenges to making democracy work as it should through six interrelated program areas. These programs, and Kettering’s research, are connected just as the practices needed for democracy to work are connected.

What the foundation learns in one program area contributes to what Kettering is trying to understand in another.

Citizens and Public Choice

Citizens can’t gain a greater degree of control over their collective future unless they can make decisions about what they should do and what policies are best for themselves and their communities. Public deliberation increases the chances that decisions will be sound. How can public decision making be more deliberative?

Community Politics

Citizens sense that they need to come together as a community to act on persistent, or “wicked,” problems that threaten their community. These problems can’t be solved without public action and work. How do citizens go about doing the work they must do to rule themselves? And what builds the capacity to do this work?

Public-Public Education

Citizens want to get greater control over their collective future, and nothing is more crucial than the future of their children. Unfortunately, people do not necessarily feel they have ownership of their public schools. School ties to their community may be weak. Yet, citizens often sense they can affect the education of young people even if they have minimal influence on schooling. Are there unrealized opportunities for the coproduction of education?

Public-Government Relationship

Even though citizens must act to rule themselves, government institutions must often act on their behalf. Yet, people fear the political system surrounding government is unduly influenced by special interests. They also have doubts that the government can deliver on the things citizens want done. Equally troubling, participatory requirements and accountability standards may exacerbate rather than ameliorate the concerns of citizens.

Institutions and Professions in the Public Realm

Kettering studies the role in a democracy of specialized, highly skilled, often very technical professionals and of the institutions and organizations in which they function. In a global, expert-driven world, can citizens really do anything that will make a significant difference?

Multinational Research

Democracy is not confined to the United States, and the notion that it can be exported from one country to another is problematic. Kettering seeks to learn from experiments in deliberative self-rule around the globe, including learning about the way democracies can respond to the threat of violent conflict.

Publications

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