Conference session

Session Focus The roundtable is situated within the theme “Legitimacy at the Edge,” asking how educational institutions can rebuild trust, confront mis/disinformation, and strengthen democratic participation by expanding rather than restricting the modalities through which students learn to reason.  I examine whether dyslexic learners, whose learning profiles make print-dominant instruction challenging, have a right to visual modes of learning, especially in relation to critical thinking and argumentation.  Format The roundtable opens with a brief summary of empirical findings on dyslexia, visual modalities, and critical democratic participation. Participants then consider whether visual argumentation and multimodal reasoning as potential democratizing tools. Intended Outcomes: Rather than arriving at fixed conclusions, participants will co-create an open theoretical space. The session aims to: Question whether a democracy can claim legitimacy while withholding accessible entry points into critical reasoning. Consider multimodality as a democratic condition, reflecting on how visual forms of reasoning might not only accommodate dyslexic learners but expand civic possibility for all.