into breakout sessions to share their work and engage in discussions about their topics. Faculty and community members moderate these discussions, share expert insight, and move students toward further development of their work. The Great Debate The Great Debate also uses public sphere pedagogy as its foundation. This event started at California State University, Chico in 2010 and has since been implemented at Butte College, Shasta College, and Chabot College. The Great Debate requires students from a variety of classes to research and write about a controversial theme. These themes have ranged from water and agriculture to mental health. The event is open to the public. Students give individual and group presentations, engage in formal debates, break out into discussion sessions, and display interactive poster presentations. Community members and public officials also participate as moderators, discussion leaders, and debaters. Unlike the Town Hall Meetings, which usually take place on campus property, the Great Debate is hosted in public spaces including City Council Chambers and public libraries. The Student Voices program Student Voices programs are a type of civic engagement initiative that have been implemented in several high schools in the United States. The curriculum has high school students research and complete classroom assignments on current issues in government and candidates in local elections. Students then connect with outside communities via the digital public sphere and engage in moderated "Speak Out" events. Student Voices programs have been successfully implemented in curricula in Seattle and Pennsylvania school districts. Critiques Public sphere pedagogy inherently is subject to many of the criticisms of Habermas' conception of the public sphere. Chief among them is the traditionally exclusionary nature. The bourgeois public sphere, as introduced by Habermas, has been characterized as highly patriarchal, and oblivious to the existence of female and plebeian styles of discourse. The concern here is that as a model of the bourgeois public sphere, applications of public sphere pedagogy might alienate students and community members unaccustomed to this type of dialectic experience. In addition to its exclusionary nature, attention has also been called to Habermas' privileging of a hegemonic public sphere. Michael Warner argues that the bourgeois public sphere was structured to be affable to those privileged few who made up the powerful upperclass. While students participating in public sphere pedagogy application receive special training in their classrooms, the same is not necessarily true of community members who participate. This specialized student