Service Learning and Civic Engagement

Outside work can complement what goes on in the classroom in ways that benefit both the community and students. Of course, AQ readers may have heard of tendentious programs and faculty ideologues, who channel student enthusiasm into partisan activism. Still, statistical survey analysis presented here by Mary Prentice suggests that participation in service learning can increase students’ civic engagement, when civic engagement is defined as more than just political action.Outside work can complement what goes on in the classroom in ways that benefit both the community and students. Of course, AQ readers may have heard of tendentious programs and faculty ideologues, who channel student enthusiasm into partisan activism. Still, statistical survey analysis presented here by Mary Prentice suggests that participation in service learning can increase students' civic engagement, when civic engagement is defined as more than just political action.     

Integrating Aging and Civic Engagement into the Curriculum

This conceptual paper is based on interdisciplinary work the authors have participated in as part of the renewed push for civic engagement, the various forms it takes, and the multiple constituencies involved in its promotion. We focus on what theoretical and empirical content could be incorporated into courses on aging so that students can be prepared to critically think about, understand, and analyze both practice and policy aspects of civic engagement and aging. We provide three learning cases that can be used as classroom exercises, suggest sample assignments, and examine implications of engagement for older adults. We append a sample syllabus that can be used as a framework to convey this content in an elective course or as a module of a social gerontology course. The call for civic engagement is being heard throughout the United States across sectors and across population groups. In this article, we begin with background information on the renewed push for civic engagement, the various forms it takes, and the multiple constituencies involved in its promotion. Following a brief contextual background, we focus on theoretical and empirical content that could be incorporated into courses on aging so that students can be prepared to understand and critically analyze the implications of civic engagement for older adults. Four units that could constitute a one-credit module or become part of an existing gerontology course are provided, complete with discussion questions, learning cases that can be used in classroom exercises, as well as sample assignments. We conclude with a sample course syllabus around which this module could be constructed in order to convey this content.     

Rearticulating Civic Engagement Through Cultural Studies and Service-Learning

Although service-learning has the potential to infuse technical communication pedagogy with civic goals, it can easily be co-opted by a hyperpragmatism that limits ethical critique and civic engagement. Service-learning's component of reflection, in particular, can become an uncritical, narrow invention or project management tool. Integrating cultural studies and service-learning can help position students as critical citizens who produce effective and ethical discourse and who create more inclusive forms of power. Rather than being tacked on, cultural studies approaches should be incorporated into core service-learning assignments.     

Positioning Civic Engagement on the Higher Education Landscape: Insights from a civically engaged pedagogy

The significance of competing conceptions of civic engagement is increasingly apparent as efforts are made to respond to the measurement imperative that characterises contemporary higher education. The importance of devising appropriate means of recognising and incentivising civic engagement is asserted in this paper and the potential offered by emerging measurement and mapping methodologies is considered. The empirical basis for the argument derives from a multi-site case study of the process of embedding community-based learning within Irish higher education. Analysis of interview data from four cases, drawn from the university and extra-university sector, yielded, inter alia, a typology of orientations to civic engagement. Findings are discussed, including those relating to orientations, ambivalence, scepticism, and legitimisation strategies. The case is made that these themes and the factors which impact on sustainability are mirrored within the wider domain of civic engagement—hence the opportunity to learn from a civically engaged pedagogy.

     

公民道德能力与公民道德教育

公民道德能力是现代型社会公民应该具有的一种理性地参与公共政治活动,合理地规划自己生活的能力。公民道德教育应该以培养公民道德能力为重要内容,关心道德生活、道德实践,塑造好公民。     

更新公民教育

本文认为,现在到了恢复美国高等教育丢失的使命的关键时刻。在简要回顾了公民教育三要素——思想、道德和行动后,本文详细描述了公民教育在美国大学的衰落和针对公民教育真空的四种反应,最后提供了若干建议作为把思想、道德和行动等不同角色结合起来的对话框架。     

Civic Engagement Among Community College Students Through Service Learning

Higher education has been called upon to prepare its graduates to be civically engaged community members. Since the 1980s, faculty have taken up this call. Service learning is a common strategy that educators have adopted to stimulate civic engagement in students. In this study, service learning students and nonservice learning students from eight community colleges were given precourse and postcourse surveys on civic engagement. Results revealed a statistically significant increase in service learners’ civic engagement when compared to nonservice learners. The findings are consistent with other higher education studies that use an expanded definition of civic engagement.     

Democracy Plaza: A Campus Space for Civic Engagement

This article examines “Democracy Plaza,” a campus space dedicated to written and spoken communication about issues of public concern. The Plaza gives students opportunities to become civically engaged through self-expression and the exchange of ideas. A series of chalkboards on the Plaza allows them to write their thoughts and read the comments of others, and events where students can speak and deliberate about important civic matters are hosted in this space. This article discusses the concept of Democracy Plaza and its development, maintenance, and utilization as a campus space for civic engagement. Johnny Goldfinger is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. He received a B.S.Ch.E. and B.A. from the University of South Alabama, the M.A. in political science from the University of New Orleans, and the Ph.D. in political science from Duke University. His research interests include political deliberation, democratic decision-making, and civic engagement.     

Protest Reconsidered: Identifying Democratic and Civic Engagement Learning Outcomes

Using a case study approach, the authors examine the democratic and civic engagement learning outcomes of a campus protest. The conceptual framework is built on the ideas outlined in Learning Reconsidered (Keeling 2004) and modeled in its pragmatic follow-up, Learning Reconsidered 2 (Keeling 2006). Results suggest student and campus administrator actions during a campus protest support democratic aims, student development, and digital age democracy. Recommendations for campus educators are included. This study extends previous discussion on activism’s journey from detrimental to developmental (Astin 1999; Chambers & Phelps 1993; Hamrick 1998; Hunter 1988) by mapping the learning environment through the interaction of protestor and university and by incorporating new forms of activism. J. Patrick Biddix  received his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with specialization in Higher Education from the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He is currently Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Research Methodology in the Department of Curriculum, Leadership, and Technology at Valdosta State University. His primary research interests include college student uses of technology outside the classroom, career pathways in student affairs, and research methodology. Patricia A. Somers  received her Ph.D. in Educational Administration with specialization in Higher Education from the University of New Orleans. She is currently an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Her primary research interests include college access, student persistence, student development theory, and two-year colleges. Joseph L. Polman  received his Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Technology in the Division of Teaching and Learning at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. His primary research interests include inquiry-based learning involving computers and the Internet as tools, viewed from a sociocultural perspective.     

Civic Respect, Civic Education, and the Family

We formulate a distinctly 'political liberal' conception of mutual respect, which we call 'civic respect', appropriate for governing the public political relations of citizens in pluralist democratic societies. A political liberal account of education should aim at ensuring that students, as future citizens, learn to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect. While children should be required to attend educational institutions that will inculcate in them the skills and concepts necessary for them to be free and equal citizens, parents should be granted as much freedom as is compatible with the requirements of civic respect to raise their children in accordance with their respective 'comprehensive doctrines' (systems of beliefs and values, including religious doctrines). We consider an objection to our position drawn from the account of upbringing recently advanced by Matthew Clayton, namely, that the conception of civic respect that we advance rests on an implausible view about the limited scope of the requirements of political justice. We develop an account of the 'basic structure of society' as the appropriate subject of political justice that can overcome this objection.     

论自由教育与公民教育

在西方教育思想史上,自由教育与公民教育的关系错综复杂,理论内容相互交织.自由教育中的公民教育强调以“自由”的方式培养理性自由的公民;公民教育中的自由教育强调培育公民如何“自由”地选择和追求一种善好的生活.作为自由人的公民,是两种教育理念在现代大学通识教育中再次融合的重要根基.     

Youth Voice,Civic Engagement and Failure in Participatory Action Research

In this article, we tell the story of a changing urban landscape through the eyes of the youth we work with in an ongoing after-school program and community-based research project rooted in Photovoice methodology. In particular, we focus on the work that, over the 6 years of our time with youth, has “ended up on the cutting room floor” (Paris and Winn (eds) Humanizing research: decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, 2014, p. xix). This attention to the work that has fallen through the cracks is a move to engage the central tenets of Humanizing Research, but it’s also a call to think critically with and through the failures that emerge in work with youth. We attend specifically to an ongoing failure in our work as a way to think about the kinds of promises that are often made and broken in participatory action research. In doing so, we tease out the implications of our work with youth and the steps community-based researchers can take to navigate the challenges that can impede the goals of fostering meaningful change.     

社群主义的公民教育观

社群主义作为当代西方主要的理论流派,对公民教育产生了巨大影响。其理想的公民是具有社群价值认同和德性的人,这种公民主要通过社群文化的探索和社区服务来培养。     

学校的本质与公民教育

学校的本质与公民教育密切相连。学校理当是培养公民的场所,也就是具有爱、社群意识和民主特征的共同体。学校应是爱的家园,关爱学生并被学生理解和接纳,这样才能让学生成为有能力关爱他人、充满爱和可爱的人,具备创造民主正义世界的内在动力;学校应是一个道德的、关心每一个人需要的和分享其传统的社群,唯其如此,才能培养学生的公民美德;学校实施民主管理,尽可能地为所有学生提供发展潜能的条件,让学生协商与对话,积极参与改善学校和周边社区环境,才能让学生获得参与民主的经验与能力,成长为民主社会的未来主体。     

公民教育与社会和谐

"加强公民意识教育,树立社会主义民主法治、自由平等、公平正义理念."胡锦涛总书记在十七大报告中发出的这个指示,吹响了我国振兴公民教育、推进社会和谐的号角.