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Civic Engagement (civic + engagement)
Selected AbstractsCommunity Storytelling Network, Neighborhood Context, and Civic Engagement: A Multilevel ApproachHUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006Yong-Chan Kim From a communication infrastructure theory perspective, the current study examined individuals' civic engagement (neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation) as influenced by 2 multilevel components of the communication infrastructure,an integrated connectedness to a storytelling network (ICSN) and the residential context,focusing on ethnic heterogeneity and residential stability. Our multilevel analyses show that ICSN is the most important individual-level factor in civic engagement,neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation,after controlling for other individual-level and neighborhood-level factors. In both ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous areas and in both stable and unstable areas, ICSN is an important factor in civic engagement. As contextual factors, residential stability positively affects neighborhood belonging and collective efficacy, and ethnic heterogeneity is negatively related to collective efficacy. Our data do not show any direct contextual effects of residential stability or ethnic heterogeneity on civic participation. However, our HLM analysis showed that the relative importance of ICSN for the likelihood of participation in civic activities is significantly higher in unstable or ethnically heterogeneous areas than in stable or ethnically homogeneous areas. [source] Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic EngagementHYPATIA, Issue 4 2007THERESA MAN LING LEE The slogan "the personal is political" captures the distinctive challenge to the public-private divide posed by contemporary feminists. As such, feminist activism is not necessarily congruent with civic engagement, which is predicated on the paradoxical need to both bridge and sustain the public-private divide. Lee argues that rather than subverting the divide, the politics of the personal offers an alternative understanding of civic engagement that aims to reinstate individuals' dignity and agency. [source] Religion and Civic Engagement in Canada and the United StatesJOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION, Issue 2 2002Eric M. Uslaner First page of article [source] Fostering Civic Engagement by Building a Virtual CityJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2006Marina Umaschi Bers This article focuses on the design and use of networked technologies to create learning environments to foster the civic engagement of youth. First, we briefly describe the Zora three-dimensional multiuser environment that engages children in the design of a graphical virtual city and its social organization. Anecdotal data are then used to help define different aspects of civic engagement, namely civic actions and civic discourse. Finally, we present descriptive results from a pilot study of young people using Zora in the context of a multicultural summer camp for youth. During this experience, children developed a virtual community that became a safe space for experimenting with decision-making, self-organization, and civic conversations, as well as for testing democratic values, behaviors, and attitudes. Using Zora as a case study, this article shows the potential of networked technologies to facilitate different aspects of young people's civic development. [source] Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement by Barbara J. Little and Paul A. Shackel, eds.MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2009JON DAEHNKE [source] Linking Civic Engagement and Community Improvement: A Practitioner Perspective on the Communities MovementNATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2001David Swain [source] The Politics of E-Gov: The Upcoming Struggle for Redefining Civic EngagementNATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2001Costis Toregas First page of article [source] Civic Engagement and Education: An Empirical Test of the Sorting ModelAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2009David E. Campbell According to the sorting model of education, the impact of education on civic engagement is relative, rather than absolute. Education correlates with greater engagement because it is a marker of social status; the degree of status conferred by your level of education is determined by the average level of education within your environment. This article tests the sorting model by paying strict heed to its assumptions. The analysis confirms the model, but considerably narrows its reach. Sorting applies only to one particular type (electoral activity), only when the educational environment accounts for variation across age and place, and only when one models the interactive relationship between education at the individual and environmental levels. Furthermore, sorting applies more to men than women. The same analytical framework demonstrates that being in a more highly educated environment amplifies the relationship between education and democratic enlightenment (political knowledge and tolerance). [source] Environment and Citizenship: Integrating Justice, Responsibility and Civic Engagement , By Mark J Smith and Piya PangsapaTHE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2009Sebastien Nobert No abstract is available for this article. [source] Civic Engagement From a Communication Infrastructure PerspectiveCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 2 2006Yong-Chan Kim The purpose of this study is to articulate the concepts and assumptions of communication infrastructure theory (CIT) in its present stage of development and validation. As an ecological approach to communication and community, CIT claims that access to storytelling community resources is a critical factor in civic engagement. When embedded in a neighborhood environment where key community storytellers encourage each other to talk about the neighborhood, individual residents are more likely to belong to their community, to have a strong sense of collective efficacy, and to participate in civic actions. CIT framework offers a way to examine the ecological processes that concern the effects of communication resources on civic community. [source] Civic Engagements: Resolute Partisanship or Reflective DeliberationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010Michael MacKuen Why do people practice citizenship in a partisan rather than in a deliberative fashion? We argue that they are not intractably disposed to one type of citizenship, but instead adopt one of two different modes depending on the strategic character of current circumstances. While some situations prompt partisan solidarity, other situations encourage people to engage in open-minded deliberation. We argue that the type of citizenship practiced depends on the engagement of the emotions of anxiety and aversion. Recurring conflict with familiar foes over familiar issues evokes aversion. These angry reactions prepare people for the defense of convictions, solidarity with allies, and opposition to accommodation. Unfamiliar circumstances generate anxiety. Rather than defend priors, this anxiety promotes the consideration of opposing viewpoints and a willingness to compromise. In this way, emotions help people negotiate politics and regulate the kinds of citizenship they practice. [source] Rethinking civic education in the age of biotechnologyEDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 1 2005Huey-li Li In this paper, I first examine the three justifications most often provided for differentiating, discounting, or even disclaiming the present generation's moral responsibility to future generations. I then discuss ideological critiques of, and educational solutions to, the complicity of formal educational institutions in propagating these justifications. Finally, I inquire into the ethical postulates by which prefigurative democratic civic and citizenship education could facilitate civic engagement in deliberating about intergenerational relations. I argue that, by challenging such hegemonic cultural values as atomistic individualism, contractual social relations, the pursuit of progress, and the sharp division between ethics and epistemology, prefigurative civic education serves as the first step toward egalitarian intergenerational relations. [source] Civic Engagement Among Low-Income and Low-Wealth Families: In Their WordsFAMILY RELATIONS, Issue 2 2006Amanda Moore McBride Abstract: Using in-depth interviews, we explored civic engagement that included volunteering through religious organizations, neighboring, involvement in children's activities, and contributing. The sample consisted of 84 low-income, low-wealth families. Findings indicate that although people of limited resources may be engaged, they face substantial challenges to active engagement. Data are suggestive of a modified life cycle theory, a resource or "stakeholding" theory, and institutional theories regarding challenges to engagement. In the context of the study's limitations, implications are discussed for measurement, research, and interventions. [source] Marginalized for a lifetime: The everyday experiences of gulag survivors in post-Soviet MagadanGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 1 2006John Round Abstract Over the past decade notions of social capital have become embedded in the social development lexicon, often presented as the ,missing link' within development theory. Much social capital-based research takes Robert Putnam's theorization of the subject as its starting point. Putnam's work argues that social capital can be measured by a region's levels of trust and civic engagement. While its use, and conceptualization, has undergone much academic debate, often formal institutions still employ this very narrow, and arguably Western-centric, reading of the subject. This paper argues that while at the micro-level social capital has little to do with the civic engagement and trust theories posited by Putnam, it still has relevance to the lives of marginalized individuals and is an important factor in their continued survival. To explore this, drawing on extensive qualitative research conducted in Magadan, Moscow and St Petersburg, I critically examine the construction of everyday survival strategies among Gulag survivors living in Russia's far northeast city of Magadan. Denied a return to their ,homeland' upon their release, this group experienced considerable marginalization in the post-Stalin period. This was exacerbated when the collapse of the Soviet Union saw pensions in the far northeast of Russia fall to below 50% of the state-set subsistence minimum. The paper demonstrates the importance of social capital to this group by showing how their survival is based on far more than interactions with formal and informal organizations. [source] Community Storytelling Network, Neighborhood Context, and Civic Engagement: A Multilevel ApproachHUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, Issue 4 2006Yong-Chan Kim From a communication infrastructure theory perspective, the current study examined individuals' civic engagement (neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation) as influenced by 2 multilevel components of the communication infrastructure,an integrated connectedness to a storytelling network (ICSN) and the residential context,focusing on ethnic heterogeneity and residential stability. Our multilevel analyses show that ICSN is the most important individual-level factor in civic engagement,neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation,after controlling for other individual-level and neighborhood-level factors. In both ethnically homogeneous and heterogeneous areas and in both stable and unstable areas, ICSN is an important factor in civic engagement. As contextual factors, residential stability positively affects neighborhood belonging and collective efficacy, and ethnic heterogeneity is negatively related to collective efficacy. Our data do not show any direct contextual effects of residential stability or ethnic heterogeneity on civic participation. However, our HLM analysis showed that the relative importance of ICSN for the likelihood of participation in civic activities is significantly higher in unstable or ethnically heterogeneous areas than in stable or ethnically homogeneous areas. [source] Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic EngagementHYPATIA, Issue 4 2007THERESA MAN LING LEE The slogan "the personal is political" captures the distinctive challenge to the public-private divide posed by contemporary feminists. As such, feminist activism is not necessarily congruent with civic engagement, which is predicated on the paradoxical need to both bridge and sustain the public-private divide. Lee argues that rather than subverting the divide, the politics of the personal offers an alternative understanding of civic engagement that aims to reinstate individuals' dignity and agency. [source] Growing cohesive communities one favour at a time: social exclusion, active citizenship and time banksINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003Gill Seyfang Community currencies have been put forward as a grassroots tool to promote social inclusion through community self-help and active citizenship. ,Time banks' are a new form of community currency in the UK which are receiving government support. Time credits are earned for each hour of voluntary service given, and can be used to purchase services from other members in return. This article discusses new findings from the first national study of time banks to assess their impacts and potential. An evaluative framework is employed which describes social inclusion as comprising effective economic, social and political citizenship rights. Evidence is presented from a national survey of time banks and from an in-depth case study of Rushey Green Time Bank, situated in a health care setting in a deprived area of south London. Time banks are found to be successful at engaging socially excluded and vulnerable groups of people in community activities , many for the first time , boosting their confidence, social networks, skills and well-being, as well as opening up possibilities for challenging inequitable social institutions and creating spaces where different values prevail. Their potential as tools for democratic renewal, promoting civic engagement and active citizenship is discussed. Les ,unités de valeur' communautaires sont considérées comme des outils essentiels pour encourager l'inclusion sociale grâce à une entraide communautaire et une citoyenneté active. Les ,banques de temps' constituent une nouvelle forme d'unité de valeur communautaire au Royaume-Uni, avec le soutien du gouvernement. Des crédits de temps, acquis pour chaque heure de bénévolat donnée, peuvent servir à acheter en retour des prestations auprès d'autres membres. L'article examine les résultats de la première étude nationale sur les banques de temps afin d'en estimer l'impact et le potentiel. Un cadre d'évaluation est appliqué, définissant l'inclusion sociale comme un ensemble de droits effectifs, à la fois économiques, sociaux et de citoyenneté politique. Des indications sont fournies par une enquête nationale sur les banques de temps, et par une étude de cas approfondie de la Rushey Green Time Bank portant sur les services médicaux dans une zone défavorisée du sud de Londres. Ces banques réussissent à impliquer dans des activités communautaires des groupes de population , souvent pour la première fois , socialement exclus et vulnérables, renforçant leurs réseaux sociaux, confiance, compétences et bien-être, tout en leur offrant des possibilités d'affronter des institutions sociales inéquitables et en créant des espaces où prévalent d'autres valeurs. L'article traite aussi du potentiel des banques de temps comme outil de renouveau démocratique, stimulant engagement civique et citoyenneté active. [source] Public involvement: How to encourage citizen participationJOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2010Terri Mannarini Abstract The study was aimed at identifying the impact of a pool of variables on the willingness of the participants in five consultative arenas (Open Space Technology) to become involved in future experiences of civic engagement. The study also intended to verify whether such willingness varied among subgroups of participants. In total, 194 participants (49.5% men, 50.5% women; mean age,=,37.04) were recruited during five OSTs held in Italy between May and November 2008 and asked to fill in a questionnaire composed of the following measures: perceived costs and benefits, emotions, sense of community, trust in institutions and need for cognitive closure. Findings suggested that the setting-related variables,namely the perception of costs and benefits and the arousal of positive feelings,were more influential than the community-related variables, such as sense of community and trust in institutions. Indications and suggestions for the design, implementation and evaluation of participatory settings were discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Sense of community, civic engagement and social well-being in Italian adolescents,JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY & APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 5 2007Cinzia Albanesi Abstract This study investigates the relationship between sense of community, civic engagement and social well-being in a sample of Italian adolescents. Participants were 14,19 year-old high school students (N,=,566) from two demographically distinct cities. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing sense of community, social well-being (Keyes, 1998), involvement in structured group activities (group membership) and civic engagement. Results showed that involvement in formal groups is associated with increased civic involvement and increased sense of community. Sense of community predicts social well-being and explains some of the association between civic engagement and social well-being. Findings suggest that, to increase social well-being, it is important to provide adolescents with more opportunities to experience a sense of belonging to the peers' group and promote prosocial behaviours in the community context. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Fostering Civic Engagement by Building a Virtual CityJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2006Marina Umaschi Bers This article focuses on the design and use of networked technologies to create learning environments to foster the civic engagement of youth. First, we briefly describe the Zora three-dimensional multiuser environment that engages children in the design of a graphical virtual city and its social organization. Anecdotal data are then used to help define different aspects of civic engagement, namely civic actions and civic discourse. Finally, we present descriptive results from a pilot study of young people using Zora in the context of a multicultural summer camp for youth. During this experience, children developed a virtual community that became a safe space for experimenting with decision-making, self-organization, and civic conversations, as well as for testing democratic values, behaviors, and attitudes. Using Zora as a case study, this article shows the potential of networked technologies to facilitate different aspects of young people's civic development. [source] CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP AND URBAN PROBLEM SOLVING: THE CHANGING CIVIC ROLE OF BUSINESS LEADERS IN AMERICAN CITIESJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 1 2010ROYCE HANSON ABSTRACT:,Our concern in this article is corporate civic elite organizations and their role in social production and urban policy in the United States. Recent urban literature has suggested that the power and influence of CEO organizations has declined and that there has been some disengagement of corporate elites from civic efforts in many urban areas. Yet while these trends and their likely consequences are generally acknowledged, relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the nature and extent of the shifts in corporate civic leadership and on how these shifts have affected the civic agendas of central cities and metropolitan regions. In this study we obtain data from 19 large metropolitan areas in order to more systematically examine shifts in corporate civic leadership and their consequences. Our results suggest that the institutional autonomy, time, and personal connections to the central cities of many CEOs have diminished and that the civic organizations though which CEOs work appear to have experienced lowered capacity for sustained action. These trends suggest that while many CEOs and their firms will continue to commit their time and their firms' slack resources to civic enterprises, the problems they address will differ from those tackled in the past. We discuss the important implications these shifts have for the future of corporate civic engagement in urban problem solving and for the practice of urban governance. [source] Developing a Service-Learning Curriculum for LinguisticsLINGUISTICS & LANGUAGE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2010Colleen M. Fitzgerald Service-learning integrates community service into a credit-earning course to enrich the learning experience and pair practice with theory in some content area. Linguistics courses offer tremendous potential for service-learning because there are a variety of ways in which language-related theory can be put into practice. This paper outlines the development of a service-learning curriculum for linguistics courses. While examples come from a project where students tutored adult second language learners of English, the activities in this paper extend well to other linguistics courses. Reflection is essential to service-learning, so necessary background and examples of it as a structured learning tool appear here. A second assessment tool, an anonymous online survey taken before and after tutoring, was used to explore any impact on language and diversity attitudes. More generally, service-learning has the potential to positively affect career development, to generate a sense of civic engagement, to facilitate greater understanding of other cultures and races and to make a difference in local communities. [source] Latino outreach strategies for civic engagementNATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2008Greg Keidan First page of article [source] Respecting, listening, and empowering: Three vital factors for increasing civic engagement in American teenagersNATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Joe Miklosi First page of article [source] Moral knowledge and responsibilities in evaluation implementation: When critical theory and responsive evaluation collideNEW DIRECTIONS FOR EVALUATION, Issue 127 2010Melissa Freeman An external evaluation documented what occurred in an inaugural summer camp to teach high school students how to preserve religious freedom by learning about and acting on the history and current state of church,state separation and other first amendment issues. Camp designers hoped to promote religious diversity values and civic engagement in youth. An analytic vignette grounded in an inductive analysis of observations, interviews, and document collection represents the competing demands of responsive and critical approaches to evaluation. Balancing obligations to promote the social well-being of society with responsibilities to clients and other stakeholders presents challenges that can be met only by identifying priorities with clients in ongoing dialogue. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association. [source] Moving ahead or falling behind?NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP, Issue 3 2006Volunteer promotion, data collection Substantial efforts have been expended to promote civic engagement during the 1990s and early 2000s. Yet as significant as volunteerism is economically, socially, and philosophically to the United States, surprisingly little in the way of longitudinal research has been carried out to assess the impact of these promotional activities. Few areas of civic engagement offer reliable trend data. We examine the available data in three areas: individual volunteering, volunteering to stipended government programs, and employee volunteering. We find modest but steady increases in volunteer numbers in all three areas, but point out numerous methodological problems that limit the reliability of present longitudinal data. We conclude by calling for a renewed financial investment in national volunteering surveys with a broader focus than current efforts. [source] Big Business and Community WelfareAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 5 2006Melville Ulmer, Revisiting a Classic Study by C. Wright Mills Building on research published by C. Wright Mills and Melville Ulmer in 1946, the relationships among community welfare and civic engagement, the independent middle class, and big business are examined. Manufacturing-dependent counties are the units of analysis. Partial correlation analysis is used to identify the effects of the independent and mediated effects of big business, civic engagement, and the independent middle class on community welfare. Results show that a local economy organized around smaller-scale, diversified enterprises has more favorable outcomes than one dominated by one or more large corporations. [source] The Political Theory of ReinventionPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2 2000Linda DeLeon In this article, we examine the implications of the reinvention movement for democratic governance, broadly defined. The most basic premise of the reinvention movement is a belief that the accumulation of the narrowly defined self-interests of many individuals can adequately approximate the public interest. By "narrowly defined," we mean the interests of individuals as they privately apprehend them, unmediated by participation in a process of civic discourse. To illustrate the centrality of this assumption to the implicit theory of reinvention, we consider three of its elements,its use of the market model, its emphasis on customers rather than citizens, and its glorification of entrepreneurial management. We then examine the implications of the self-interest assumption, which entails a rejection of democratic citizenship, civic engagement, and the public interest, broadly conceived. [source] Civic Engagement and Education: An Empirical Test of the Sorting ModelAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 4 2009David E. Campbell According to the sorting model of education, the impact of education on civic engagement is relative, rather than absolute. Education correlates with greater engagement because it is a marker of social status; the degree of status conferred by your level of education is determined by the average level of education within your environment. This article tests the sorting model by paying strict heed to its assumptions. The analysis confirms the model, but considerably narrows its reach. Sorting applies only to one particular type (electoral activity), only when the educational environment accounts for variation across age and place, and only when one models the interactive relationship between education at the individual and environmental levels. Furthermore, sorting applies more to men than women. The same analytical framework demonstrates that being in a more highly educated environment amplifies the relationship between education and democratic enlightenment (political knowledge and tolerance). [source] Social mobility and social capital in contemporary BritainTHE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2008Yaojun Li Abstract This paper seeks to contribute to social capital research by linking measures of formal and informal forms of social capital to social mobility trajectories and assessing their impact on social trust. Drawing on data from a recent national survey ,Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion (2003/2004) , we analyse formal civic engagement and informal social connections. The latter data are obtained using, for the first time in a study in Britain, Lin's (2001) ,Position Generator' approach as a means to identify the volume, range and position of individuals' informal social contacts. The pattern of contacts suggests that access to social ties is strongly conditioned by mobility trajectory. We also show that civic engagement in formal associations is especially high among second-generation members of the service class. It is also shown that both class trajectory and possession of two types of social capital have significant impacts on trust. Among the social groups disadvantaged in terms of bridging social ties are not only those in lower classes but also women and members of minority ethnic groups. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||