2021 Faculty Courses Liberal arts and basic science courses Humanities and social science courses
Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences42:Consensus Building
- Academic unit or major
- Humanities and social science courses
- Instructor(s)
- Takehiro Inohara / Tatsurou Sakano / Shigeo Nishikizawa / Mitsuyo Toyoda / Tomoki Takada
- Class Format
- Lecture
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Wed
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- LAH.S437
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2021
- Offered quarter
- 3Q
- Syllabus updated
- Jul 10, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
The theme of this course is “Consensus Building.” This course deals with various topics and knowledge on consensus building through lectures. Specifically, this course takes up: “consensus building management for environmental conservation projects,” “practice of social experiment of “Deliberative Poll”, “ legitimacy issues surrounding consensus building processes,” and “participatory approach and consensus building."
This course aims to cultivate the students’ abilities to understand the knowledge structure on consensus building and to convey them to others concisely.
Course description and aims
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
1) State the definitions of “consensus” and “consensus building;” and
2) Explain to others the knowledge structure on consensus building by using the concepts such as consensus building, environmental conservation, nature restoration, community management, “Deliberative Poll,” inclusive design, public participation and public engagement,
Keywords
consensus building, environmental conservation, nature restoration, community management, “Deliberative Poll,” public participation and public engagement, inclusive design
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
One class deals with one topic. Each topic is lectured by an expert of the topic.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Guidance and introduction | State the definitions of “consensus” and “consensus building.” |
| Class 2 | Consensus Building Management for Environmental Conservation Projects: Through the case studies of several environmental conservation projects, we will discuss and understand the management techniques to achieve a creative consensus building process among various stakeholders. | Understand the theories and techniques of consensus building management in environmental conservation. |
| Class 3 | Practice of Social Experiment of “Deliberative Poll”: Based on the design principles and the examples of practices of “Deliberative Poll,” we see that deliberation by randomly sampled citizen is an effective way to overcome the trade-off problem between the number of participants and the quality of their deliberation, and a key factor to realize deliberative democracy. | Understand the design principles and the properties of “Deliberative Poll.” |
| Class 4 | Legitimacy of Participatory Processes: What is the inclusive design of consensus building processes? We examine this question through case studies and deepen our understanding of the issue of legitimacy in consensus building processes. | Students can explain the legitimacy issues surrounding consensus building processes and articulate their thoughts on how inclusive design can be implemented. |
| Class 5 | Participatory Approach and Consensus Building: Principles, methods and challenges of public participation are explained in terms of consensus building with some case studies. | Understand how to develop the process both of public participation and consensus building among multi-stakeholders. |
| Class 6 | Group work for consensus building: students experience consensus building. | Explain the difficulty and significance of consensus building. |
| Class 7 | Review | Explain the outline of the knowledge structure on consensus building to others. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
None specified.
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Course materials will be provided via T2SCHOLA and other means.
Reference book (in Japanese):
“Consensus Building,” (Keiso-syobo, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-4326301966)
Evaluation methods and criteria
Assessment will be based on assignments submitted every week.
Each week’s assignment consists of a short summary of what you learned in the class and a report on the theme presented by the lecturer (about 800 characters).
The deadline of submission is 5 pm on Monday the week after.
There are no make-up assignments for any absence from classes, regardless of the reason.
Read the course materials posted on T2SCHOLA to find out the content of the class you missed.
Related courses
- UDE.D409 ： Planning Theory
- UDE.D471 ： Principles of Public Systems Design
- GEG.S401 ： Environmental Policy
- GEG.E501 ： Environmental Impact Assessment
- SHS.M461 ： Graduate Methodologies in Cognition, Mathematics and Information S1
Prerequisites
Prospective students should have interests in consensus building.
Contact information (e-mail and phone) Notice : Please replace from ”[at]” to ”@”(half-width character).
Prof. Takehiro Inohara, inostaff[at]shs.ens.titech.ac.jp
When inquiring by emails, include the course title in the subject, and your student ID and name in the body of the email.