Civic engagement

Civic engagement or civic participation, according to the American Psychological Association, is "individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern".^[1] It can be defined as citizens working together to make a change or difference in the community. Civic engagement includes communities working together in both political and non-political actions. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.^[2]

Forms

Civic engagement can take many forms—from individual volunteerism, community engagement efforts, organizational involvement and government work such as electoral participation. These engagements may include directly addressing a problem through personal work, community based, or worked through the institutions of representative democracy.^[3] Many individuals feel a sense personal responsibility to actively engage as a sense of obligation to their community. "Youth civic engagement" has similar aims to develop the community environment and cultivate relationships, although youth civic engagement places an emphasis on empowering youth.

A study published by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at Tufts University, divided civic engagement into three categories: civic, electoral, and political voice.^[4] Scholars of youth engagement online have called for a broader interpretation of civic engagement that focuses on the purpose behind current institutions and activities and include emerging institutions and activities that achieve the same purposes.^[5] These civic engagement researchers suggest that the reduction of civic life into small sets of explicitly electoral behaviors may be insufficient to describe the full spectrum of public involvement in civic life.

A Civic Engagement reform arose at the beginning of the 21st Century after Robert Putnam's provocative book, Bowling Alone, brought to light changes in civic participation patterns. Putnam argued that despite rapid increases in higher education opportunities that may foster civic engagement, Americans were dropping out of political and organized community life. A number of studies suggested that while more youth are volunteering, fewer are voting or becoming politically engaged.^[6]

Role of volunteerism in transforming governance

The State of the World's Volunteerism Report 2015, the first global review of the power of volunteer voices to help improve the way people are governed, draws on evidence from countries as diverse as Brazil, Kenya, Lebanon and Bangladesh. The UN report shows how ordinary people are volunteering their time, energies and skills to improve the way they are governed and engaged at local, national and global levels. Better governance at every level is a pre-requisite for the success of the new set of targets for future international development, the Sustainable Development Goals, which has been agreed upon by the United Nations in September 2015.^[7]

At the global level, for instance, a diverse group of 37 online volunteers from across the globe engaged in 4 months of intense collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs (UN DESA) to process 386 research surveys carried out across 193 UN Member States for the 2014 UN E-Government Survey. The diversity of nationalities and languages of the online volunteers^[8]—more than 65 languages, 15 nationalities, of which half are from developing countries—mirrors perfectly the mission of the survey.

Benefits

Civic engagement can foster community participation and government involvement.

According to ICMA: Leaders at the Core of Better Communities, these are the benefits of civic engagement:^[9]

• Achieving greater buy-in to decisions with fewer backlashes such as lawsuits, special elections, or a council recall.
• Engendering trust between citizens and government, which improves public behavior at council meetings.
• Attaining successful outcomes on toxic issues, which helps elected officials avoid choosing between equally unappealing solutions.
• Developing better and more creative ideas and solutions.
• Implementing ideas, programs, and policies faster and more easily.
• Creating involved citizens instead of demanding customers.
• Building community within a city.
• Making your job easier and more satisfying.

Local civic engagement

When those who serve listen to the citizens, they become better informed of what is needed by the community and generally make better decisions. Miriam Porter states that elected officials should communicate with their citizens to have this better understanding, "Without this, turmoil, suspicion, and reduction of public trust ensues".^[10]

Volunteering personal time to community projects is widely believed to support the growth of a community as a whole. Community engagement could be found at: Food pantries, community clean-up programs and the like can bolster efforts to create a strong community bond.

Community collaboration

Community collaboration includes democratic spaces where people are open to discuss concerns for particular issues regarding public interest and means to make the changes necessary. These spaces are often resource centers, such as neighborhood associations or school boards where citizens can obtain information regarding the community (upcoming changes, proposed solutions to existing problems, etc.).

Political participation is another key element that is practiced with regularity. Involvement in public council meeting sessions for discussions informs citizens of necessities and changes that need to be made. Casting an informed vote at the local level, can change many things that affect day-to-day life.

Online engagement gives citizens the opportunity to be involved in their local government that they would not have otherwise, by allowing them to voice themselves from the comfort of their own home. Online Engagement involves things such as online voting and public discussion forums that give citizens the opportunity to voice their opinions on topics and offer solutions as well as find others with common interests and creating the possibility of forming advocacy groups pertaining to particular interests. The use of the internet has allowed for people to have access to information easily and has resulted in a better informed public as well as creating a new sense of community for citizens.^[11]

In the role of state government

Civic engagement has an interrelated relationship within the various entities of the state. Through the values, knowledge, liberties, skills, ideas, attitudes and beliefs the population holds, civic engagement cultivates and shapes the state to be a representation of vast cultural, social, and economic identities.

Civic engagement applied within the state is not possible without local civic engagement. As in a democratic society, citizens are the source to give life to a representative democracy. Application of this principle can be found within programs and laws that states have implemented based in a variety of areas concerns for that particular state. Health, education, equality, immigration are a few examples of entities that civic engagement can shape within a state.

Application in health

States implement public health programs to better benefit the needs of the society. The State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), for example, is the largest public investment in child health care aiding over 11 million uninsured children in the United States. "This statewide health insurance program for low-income children was associated with improved access, utilization, and quality of care, suggesting that SCHIP has the potential to improve health care for low-income American children".^[12] States take part in the program and sculpt it to better fit the needs of that state's demographics, making their healthcare and the civic engagement process of individuals that take part in the program as well help reform and fix it apart of the state's identity.

In comparison with other countries

States practicing public involvement and implementing public health programs to better benefit the needs of the society is a concept that is also shared by other countries, such as England. A study conducted by Department of Primary Care, University of Liverpool, the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, the Department of Geography and Geology, McMaster Institute of Environment and Health, McMaster University, Avon Health Authority, the School of Journalism, Tom Hopkinson Centre for Media Research, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, and the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University stated that "There are a number of impulses towards public participation in health care decision making including instrumentalist, communitarian, educative and expressive impulses and the desire for increased accountability".^[13]

Their research included critical examination of the degree of involvement by the public in healthcare decision making. It is suggested that "public participation in decision making can promote goals, bind individuals or groups together, impart a sense of competence and responsibility and help express political or civic identity".^[13] The action of the citizens aimed at influencing decisions of representatives ultimately affects the state as a whole. Voting is a key component in civic engagement for the voice of the masses to be heard.

Importance of voter turnout

The goal for state government in elections is to promote civic engagement. Director Regina Lawrence of Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life states "Politics and all other forms of engagement are really about trying to make your community, your state, and your nation a better place to live."^[14] Voter Turnout ensures civic engagement among the state with incentives that promises volunteer organizations, charity, and political involvement with everyone in the community who will have a voice to be heard.

The state can help promote civic engagement by ensuring fair voter and redistricting processes; by building partnerships among government agencies, non-profit organizations, and private citizens; and by maintaining networks of information about volunteer and charitable opportunities.^[15]

One of the main factors that determine civic engagement among the people is voter turnout. Voter turnout gauges citizens' level of political involvement, an important component of civic engagement—and a prerequisite for maintaining public accountability.^[15]

Example of high voter turnout

• The state can help promote civic engagement by ensuring fair voter and redistricting processes; by building partnerships among government agencies, non-profit organizations, and private citizens; and by maintaining networks of information about volunteer and charitable opportunities.^[15]
• Access to information about government activities, decision-making, solicit and use public input, and encourage public employees to donate and serve.^[15]

Example of low voter turnout

• Low participation with politics in the state and local government can result in less community involvement such as a lack of funding and leadership directed towards that issue of community involvement.^[16]

In marginalized communities

According to Merriam-Webster, marginalized is defined as "to put or keep (someone) in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group".^[17] In diverse communities it is perceived that awareness and participation according to a study, using three different types of community service for the interaction between diverse individuals and understanding each other's perspective and enhancing relationships within the community.^[18] In addition, specifically Black Youth, there is an underlying gap of early civic education where there is lack of and where it thrives. According to Hope and Jagers, they studied civic engagement among Black youth using data acquired from the Youth Culture Survey from the Black Youth Project. The assumption is that Black youth who experience racial discrimination are fueled to be aware and participate in politics.^[19]

Another study by Chan describes the effect of the association of development and environmental factors among a group of at-risk youth such as African-Americans and Latino participants who come from low-income families that dwell in inner-city neighborhoods. Their research resulted in variations according to their participants as the racial minority youth were motivated and had aspiring goals for their futures due to early participation in civic engagement activities, but there was no sufficient evidence that this type of mindset will follow them into their adulthood.^[20] Looking into another oppressed group, Latinos, according to this report in the New York Times, states between 2000 and 2012 the number of Hispanics eligible to vote increased to an estimate of 10 million, but there is a lack of taking an active approach towards dealing with the issues such as immigration and causing a stir within the Latino community. The Hispanic demographic is becoming a potential influence of power within political polls.^[21] To expand on another group that are oppressed is immigrant parents and their children in Jensen's study their concentration is on Asia and Latin America. In their study they sampled a small group from a metropolitan area, the difference between both generations varies as the children who were in high school which is 87.5% were stated to be civically engaged. Whereas for the parents they were not civically engaged in issues but developed "bilcultural consciousness" such as sending money back their original country of origin and these participants saw it as their duty in their current state of opportunity to be civically engaged.^[22]

Technology

Civic engagement, interpersonal trust, and television use – Social capital has been on the decline for years and Putman looked into why this is. One of the areas the study covered was television and its effects on social and civic engagements. Shah writes that Putnam found the more TV a person watches, the less they are active in outside activities. This is shown with the rise of TV in the 60s and the fall of civic engagements. They found that though news and educational programming can actually aide in a citizen's knowledge, but the lack of engaging in outside activities and social events hurts civic engagement in general.^[23]

Nowadays, the internet has become the main social media outlet. Xenos and Moy found that the internet does help civic engagement but also give "unjustifiable euphoria, abrupt and equally unjustifiable skepticism, and gradual realization that web-based human interaction really does have unique and politically significant properties".^[24] We have all the information we want about and candidate at our fingertips, and the wealth of information is creating a more informed body. But with this comes misinformation and the two collide and do the opposite, creating a public with clashing opinions.^[25][25]

The Knight Foundation outlines four different ways technology can assist in civic engagement. The four different ways include upgrading and providing e-services, making information more transparent, allowing e-democracy, and a service they call co-production.^[26] E-services would allow digital technologies to improve the efficiency of urban services within a city. This would allow the services to become more effective as well as give the public a way to get involved. E-Democracy and Co-Production would work by allowing citizens to shape public policy by allowing them to partake in actions through technology. The Knight Foundation claims technology can make information more transparent, allowing the public to access the information and get involved.

Role of higher education

It can be argued that a fundamental step in creating a functioning society begins with the civic education of children within the community. According to Diann Cameron Kelly, "When our young children serve their communities through volunteerism, political participation or through vocal activism, they are more likely to emerge...voting and serving all aspects of society".^[27] Kelly argues that children should be taught how their community works and who chooses the rules we live by even before they enter school. Other voices maintain that civic education is a lifelong process, even for those who make decisions on behalf of the citizens they serve.

To answer this challenge, the incorporation of service-learning into collegiate course design has gained acceptance as a pedagogy that links curricular content with civic education. In a recent study, students who participated in service learning even one time appear to have made gains in knowledge of and commitment to civic engagement when compared to non-service learners.^[28] Campus Compact, a coalition of nearly 1200 college presidents (as of 2013) promotes the development of citizenship skills by creating community partnerships and providing resources to train faculty to integrate civic and community-based learning into the curriculum.^[29] Building on the acceptance of service learning and civic engagement in higher education, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement in Teaching created the Political Engagement Project in 2003 to develop the political knowledge and skills of college-aged students.^[30] The American Democracy Project (ADP) was launched in the same year by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).^[31] The American Democracy Project was joined by the American Democracy Commitment,^[32] a partnership of community colleges, to sponsor an annual national conference focused on higher education's role in preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens. The American Democracy Project also sponsors campus-based initiatives including voter registration, curriculum revision projects, and special days of action and reflection, such as the MLK Day of Service. In a report entitled, A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future issued in 2012 by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, a joint project of the U.S. Department of Education and the American Association of Colleges and Universities, the authors argue that higher education must serve as an intellectual incubator and socially responsible partner in advancing civic learning and democratic engagement.

The report recommends four basic steps to build civic minded institutions:

1. Foster a civic ethos across the campus culture.
2. Make civic literacy a core expectation for all students.
3. Practice civic inquiry across all fields of study.
4. Advance civic action through transformative partnerships.^[33]

These higher education-based initiatives endeavor to build in college students, a politically engaged identity while enhancing the capacity to evaluate the political landscape and make informed decisions about participation in our democracy.^[34] As evidenced by the growth in coalitions, professional development opportunities and civic education research, institutions of higher education and their association partners are committed to help prepare the next generation of citizens to become tomorrow's "Stewards of Place".^[31]

Many universities, like the University of Minnesota, have begun to focus on increasing the civic engagement of students and have mandated that educators begin incorporating it into several school activities. Edwin Fogelman, author of Civic Engagement at the University of Minnesota, states that true civic engagement can only be practiced by those living within a Democracy. According to Fogelman, civic engagement is largely shaped by schools. Education institutions have the skills to foster "civic competence, critical thinking, and Public Spirit, which empower citizens to become engaged". Many claim that civic engagement ought to become part of the curriculum and that higher education institutions should provide opportunities to become engaged such as internships, service-learning, and community based activities. Institutions also need to provide outlets where students can have open discussions over concerns and controversial issues.^[35]

Some schools such as Widener University, have made civic engagement a core goal of the university. The university strives to get students involved in the local community to become more aware and civically engaged. (Civic Engagement And Service Learning In A Metropolitan University: Multiple Approaches And Perspectives).^[36]

Civic learning

In January 2012, the U.S. Department of Education issued a road map and a call to action entitled Advancing Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy that offers nine steps to enhancing the Department of Education's commitment to civic learning and engagement in democracy.

These steps include:

1. Convene and catalyze schools and post-secondary institutions to increase and enhance high-quality civic learning and engagement
2. Identify additional civic indicators.
3. Identify promising practices in civic learning and democratic engagement—and encourage further research to learn what works.
4. Leverage federal investments and public-private partnerships.
5. Encourage community-based work-study placements.
6. Encourage public service careers among college students and graduates.
7. Support civic learning for a well-rounded K–12 curriculum.
8. Engage Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other Minority-Serving Institutions—including Hispanic Serving Institutions, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities-in a national dialogue to identify best practices.
9. Highlight and promote student and family participation in education programs and policies at the federal and local levels."^[37]

See also

References