Promoting Students’ Multicultural Awareness through Debate
Saiful Batubara
1
and Irpan Apandi Batubara
2
1
Universitas Islam Sumatera Utara, Medan
2
Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al Washliyah, Medan
2
Keywords: Multicultural Awareness, Debate.
Abstract: Debate has been familiar to students in Medan. At least, 10 competitions are held in Medan every year since
2014. Debate Competitions involved students from inter-institutions. The competitions create interaction
among students (debaters) from different institutions. Furthermore, the motions that released in debate
competitions are also debatable upon minority and majority perspective (social and humanity motion).
Therefore, debate not only remains interaction among debaters, its social motion, but also contains the matter
of multiculturalism. This qualitative study is aimed at analyzing the effect of advanced interaction among the
debaters. The subject of the study is debaters from Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al Washliyah, Medan
Debaters Forum and Universitas Sumatera Utara. The study found that the students’ attention on
multiculturalism has been managed. The existence of understanding in their interactions is a form of
awareness among them. Other than that, the motion of multiculturalism constitutes one of the topics that is
always chosen by the debate committee as the debating topic.
1 INTRODUCTION
The Indonesian national motto, “Bhinneka Tunggal
Ika” which means “Unity in Diversity” is enough to
explain how society in Indonesia consists of hundred
of races and is multicultural. This study brings the
case of diversity in education and introduces a
multicultural education that developed in recent 4
years in Indonesia (Rachmawati, Yi-fong and Chen,
2014). The necessity of multicultural education in
Indonesia is a hot issue nowadays because of the
chaos that happened recently in the country. The
problem with the multicultural awareness was
assumed one of the causes; therefore, promoting it to
students is very important to be implemented. Do the
students even ever pay attention to multiculturalism?
Content integration is one of the dimensions of
multicultural education (Banks, 1995). Content here
deals with the material development that is
implemented at school. It is not fair merely to blame
the handbook writers related to some books that still
segmented to certain matter in exemplifying a case
study because actually teachers have role in
developing the material for the course such as giving
more example or presenting the newest data. Debate
makes students know more about minority case.
Empowering school culture and social culture is
another dimension of multicultural education (Banks,
1995). How school design a program where all
students from all backgrounds may join. Debate is a
sound reason for establishing school community that
concerns with practicing their public speaking and
critical thinking potential. Debate community open
doors for any university students who are willing to
improve their skills.
Both reasons led this study to the basic
assumption that the potentiality of indicating the
element of multicultural education in debating
practice is proper to investigate. Promoting
multicultural awareness could be postulated as an
initial step in growing students awareness, and debate
is one of the educational elements that supports the
platform.
English Language Teaching is moving to the next
level today. The availability of teaching resources has
brought a significant way on how students learn
English. More than just learning English as a
language, practicing debate allow students to practice
their speaking ability beyond standard competency.
Indeed, debaters are usually the highflyers in their
public speaking class.
Batubara, S. and Batubara, I.
Promoting Students’ Multicultural Awareness through Debate.
DOI: 10.5220/0008891706410644
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research (ICMR 2018) - , pages 641-644
ISBN: 978-989-758-437-4
Copyright
c
 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
641

A debater can play his or her role as researcher,
reader, writer, speaker and critical thinker. Case
building is the activity to build an acceptable case to
the house of debate; therefore, debaters are required
to research all the data and fact for their analysis. In
searching for accurate information, debaters must
have good reading ability to get the point of resources
they can refer such as book, journal, newspaper, and
internet resources. Debaters must play good writing
ability to construct their opinion on debate book. To
win the case, speaking ability is highly considered
because it represents how debaters convince people.
Critical thinking is prominent to make their analysis
acceptable even when the opponents rebut and give
some point of information to their arguments.
As a technique of teaching, debate has been noted
since 481 B.C (Freely and Steinberg, 2005). As a
dynamic learning activities, debate is preferable
because students learn more effectively by actively
analyzing, discussing, and applying content in
meaningful ways rather than by passively absorbing
information (Bonwell and Eison, 1991); therefore,
students benefit when instructors utilize instructional
strategies that promote active engagement. Bonwell
and Eison define active learning as “anything that
involves students doing things and thinking about the
things they are doing” also supports the spirit in
debate; moreover, Meyers and Jones (Meyers and
Jones, 1993) define active learning as anything that
“provides opportunities for students to talk and listen,
read, write, and reflect as they approach course
content” where all activities are part of a debate. So,
students learn best when applying what they are
learning and that teachers need to use a variety of
instructional strategies since students learn in
different ways.
Debate has become familiar with many students
in many universities in all around Indonesia,
including in North Sumatra. The existence of World
Universities Debating Championships is the proof of
the trend of debate globally. Most countries send their
delegation to compete in that prestigious
championship. However, this research focused on
how debate can be one of the ways of promoting
multicultural awareness.
Why debate? A simple debate is a discussion
about a matter on which people have different views
(Collins, 2003). Furthermore, debate is a formal
discussion usually found in a parliament or
institution, in which people express different opinions
about a particular subject. Different views from
different people are very potential to happen in the
classroom. The different view is derived from the
result of people research about a matter. The global
matter is possible to correspond to multi cultural
issues. Research references that a person referred to
is potential to be different from another one. In
practice, the ability to read comprehensively as well
as to write structurally could also result different
opinion. At last, to convince people about one’s
opinion, he/she must justify the case.
Now, specializing the case is needed to do. We
focus on who are involved in debate activity and what
motions they debate. As this study is aimed at
promoting multicultural awareness in education
fields through debate, the existence of debate in
education will be discussed too.
2 METHOD
The study applied qualitative method with debaters
from Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al Washliyah
(UMN), Medan Debaters Forum (MDF) and
Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) as the subject of
the study. The debaters are members of UMN
Chamber of Debate (UMN CODE), USU Society for
debating (USD), and MDF members. The instruments
of research was designed to identify the content of the
debates and the advanced interaction among debaters.
3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The UMN Chamber of Debate (UMN CODE) is the
community for English debating at Universitas
Muslim Nusantara Al Washliyah, The USU Society
for Debating (USD) is the community of debating in
University of Sumatera Utara, and Medan Debaters
Forum is the community for debate enthusiasts in
Medan. These three Communities contribute to this
study in case of identifying the motions (contents) of
the debate and the advanced interactions among
debaters.
As one of the dimensions of multicultural
education, content of lesson is prominent in
promoting the multicultural awareness to the
students. In 2017, there have been six competitions
that the debaters from the communities join. The
content they debate (motions) covers some motions
relating to multiculturalism. The related motions to
multiculturalism i.e
ICMR 2018 - International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research
642

Table 1: Motions of Debate.
No. Motion Content
Integration
1 This house believes that
development aid should be
made conditional on poor
countries aggressively
pursuing population control
in the pursuit of promoting
development
Rich Vs Poor
2 This house believes that
governments of conservative
societies should financially
incentivize men to be house-
husbands
Conservative
Vs Modern
3 This house would give
automatically grant refugees
citizenship; if the conflict
they are escaping from
continues for an equal
amount of time it takes for a
person to acquire citizenship
in the sheltering nation
International
Citizenship
4 This house would make
labour union membership
mandatory
Vocational
union
5 This house believes that the
state should pay reparations
to homosexuals after it
recognises marriage equality
LGBT as a
global issue
6 This house believes that
states should not allow
individuals with dual
citizenship to vote in either of
their national elections,
unless they give up one of
their citizenship status
Dual
Citizenship
7 This house believes that
Western governments should
cease their efforts to
universalise liberal values
Liberal Vs
Conventional
Debating is no longer a conventional class of
speech as we do in English Teaching i.e practicing a
speech delivery. The public speaking tools is here to
elaborate students’ critical argument about broader
content (matter). The content of debate that is called
motion turns students to be familiar to a various kinds
of motions. It focuses now on the content that
supports the multicultural awareness. The students
debate about poor countries which build their
awareness about the existence of poor and rich in
detail. The debate on conservative society has
promoted to them to understand how they justify
modern people. Further from discussion on local
society, students are also aware about the
circumstance of refugees who look for shelter in a
new country as international concern.
The issue of gender and LGBT are also in the list
of students’ concern. They debate about homosexual
marriage so that they must justify how normal couple
marriage in society is. In addition, the international
citizenship is more complex in their mind after
debating the issue of dual citizenship. Then, students
are aware that multicultural issue is not segmented to
races or ethnics. They now comprehend the life of
people with double citizenship in certain countries in
the world. The western and eastern culture is also
inside their horizon because they also debate the
liberal values.
The results now show how debate involved
students in a multicultural discussion. Students’
views on multiculturalism change because the
implementation of multicultural awareness through
the content happens there. They now open to
themselves for sharing and contributing their idea to
debating partners who are from different cultural
background.
Besides the contents, the community
empowerment also indicates a multicultural element
in education. Besides delivering the content, debate
also delivers students to a community where they can
express their idea and where they are accepted as a
critical thinker without any further cultural term and
condition. The study indicated several advanced
activities among debaters after the competitions. The
form of advanced activities are listed in the following
table.
Table 2: Form of Advanced Activities amongst Debaters.
No Advanced Activities Form of
Empowering
Multicultural
Awareness
1 Sparing Partner Debaters from
UMN CODE, USD,
and MDF practice
debating together
2 UMN CODE Recruiting a
Chinese mentor
UMN CODE with
Islamic institution
background
recruited a Chinese
debate coach who is
an alumni of USD
3 One panel with friends
from different institution
in adjudication
Debaters from the
three institutions
work together as
adjudicators
4 Hangout together Debaters from three
communities
hangout together in
their leisure times.
Promoting Students’ Multicultural Awareness through Debate
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5 Being good friend in
social media and real life
Debaters from the
three communities
makes friend in real
life as well as social
media as good
friends.
6 Joining voluntary
programs
Debaters from
UMN CODE and
USD joined
voluntary programs
that were conducted
by MDF
Universitas Muslim Nusantara (UMN), the
background of UMN CODE, as an Islamic based
university is dominated by moslem students. USU,
the basecamp of USD, has been a place for students
from all around Indonesia with much more various
ethnical background. MDF members are from
different institution and ethnical background.
However, they can collaborate in one spirit of
proliferating debate in Medan. The data at least
indicate that the debaters are aware about
multicultural matter now. Therefore, they can accept
every single person in their community by respecting
everybody background.
It is something where multicultural awareness
grows in Medan in which students from Islamic-
based university join together in a sparing partner
debate practice with students from other universities
who are different culturally with them. Even, it is not
a normal situation when Chinese students hang out
together with non-Chinese one, but debate bring
something different. They go to movie together and
they bring the name of North Sumatra together in
nation-wide competition.
Debaters from different cultural backgrounds also
work together in a team work in a voluntary program.
Debaters from UMN CODE and USD participate as
voluntary adjudicators in the competition that was
conducted by the MDF. More than that, they also
contribute in debate seminar and debate proliferation
program in Medan.
When the students’ cultural awareness is the ideal
situation, the result of this study has showed that the
awareness grows in debaters’ community. The idea of
promoting it through debate is reasonable. The
existence of “Unity in Diversity” is not only a motto
if the next generation is aware about the diversity
itself. The integration of English teaching and debate
is undeniable nowadays. A sustainable English
language teaching is the one that can bring students
to a better life. A multicultural education has been
there for years even though some students of religious
school (i.e Islamic or Christian-based) did not directly
involve. Debate content as well as debate community
has brought something new to students’ life.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Debate which has been familiar with students in
Medan is potential to promote the issue of
multiculturalism. The multicultural awareness is
initiated by the matter or the motion that the students
debate because the issue of minority and majority
society is one of the most important matters in debate.
The content that the students discuss includes the
issue of citizenship, western culture, conservative
society, and other motions that support the idea of
multiculturalism. The contents that the students
debate has brought a multicultural awareness. Indeed,
the interactions of students who join several debate
competitions are not only while they were competing
but also when they interact further in real life.
REFERENCES
Banks, J.A. 1995. Multicultural education: Historical
development, dimensions, & practice. New York:
Macmillan
Bonwel, and Eison. (1991). Active Learning: Creating
Excitement in the Classroom. Washington DC: Jossey-
Bass.
Freely, A., & Steinberg, D. (2005). Argumentation and
Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision
Making. Belmont: Wadsworth.
Meyers, C., & Jones, T. (1993). Promoting Active
Learning: Strategy for College Classroom. San
Francisco: Jssey-Bass.
Racmawati, Y., Pai, Y.F., & Chen, H. H. (2014). The
Necessity of Multicultural Education in Indonesia.
International Journal of Education and Research Vol 2
No.8.
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