Scottish and Slovak university student discussions about stigmatized persons: A challenge for education – moving towards democracy and inclusion

The paper compares discussions in 12 groups of university students (6 Slovak and 6 Scottish) equal in sex and age. The participants discussed the same problem - how to control the spread of HIV/AIDS and respect medical confidentiality (MC). Systematic comparisons revealed striking differences between the two national groups. The Scottish discussants were more cooperative than the Slovaks; they devoted more attention to analysing the problem and to creating a shared understanding of it. Although there was a temptation to contravene MC and the individual rights of those infected with HIV in both the Slovak and Scottish groups, only the Scottish discussants came to the conclusion, collaboratively and through argumentative exchange, that such proposals would be counterproductive in controlling the spread of HIV or in protecting public health. In the Slovak groups even participants who were opposed to discriminative proposals were not able to convince their fellow discussants that MC should not be contravened. Links are drawn between the findings and critical pedagogy and inclusion.