Catalyzing Political Engagement: Lessons for Civic Educators from the Voices of Students

Longo, Nicholas V.; Drury, C. M.; Battistoni, Richard M.

doi:10.1080/15512160600840483

Cited by 38 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Presidential elections, which provide information-rich events for the discussion of politics with parents, friends, and teachers, have consistently been shown to shape political actions and viewpoints among young people (Longo, Drury, & Battistoni, 2006; Sears & Valentino, 1997; Seongyi & Woo-Young, 2011; Wong & Tseng, 2008). As young people come to conceive of themselves as civic actors in the context of political elections, therefore, our study can provide insights into how youthful critical consciousness may be developed and expressed in catalyzing political moments.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Adolescent Critical Consciousness Development in the Age of Trump

Kennedy

Matyasic

Clark

et al. 2019

Journal of Adolescent Research

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Political elections have been shown to influence youth civic development. The election of Donald Trump is historic and has elevated precarity for people of color and immigrants, yet we know little about how young people with these identities experienced this potentially catalytic event. Using ethnographic methods, we examined youth and adult discussions that occurred during youth participatory action research in four sites of one after-school program between October 2016 and May 2017, to investigate how the development of critical consciousness occurs among early adolescent youth of color in the context of catalyzing political events. We identified emergent patterns in how young people (a) engaged in critical reflection, (b) weighed political efficacy, and (c) considered engagement in critical action in the wake of Trump’s election. The data revealed that young people’s critical consciousness development ranged from basic to advanced levels. This research highlights the ways that politically catalytic events shape critical consciousness development among early adolescents of color.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Adolescent Critical Consciousness Development in the Age of Trump

Kennedy

Matyasic

Clark

et al. 2019

Journal of Adolescent Research

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“…Political engagement is reasonably understood to be multidimensional, but the distinction between political skills and engagement on one hand and general social skills and citizen activism on the other is frequently blurred. For example, the abilities of students to engage in a local community civic project, to reach a group decision about a class grading procedure, or to organize group meetings and to speak in public are casually construed as the development of important ''political'' skills (Beaumont et al 2006;Longo, Drury, and Battistoni 2006). Some of the ''positive'' findings obtained may result from stretching the meaning of political engagement as much or more than from actual changes in behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is therefore not surprising that attempts to promote civic engagement in higher education have also tended to produce modest and=or narrowly focused effects, and those approaches that do appear to produce some significant impacts are typically intensive in labor, resources, and=or content. In addition to the extended engagement projects already discussed, examples include extended field experiences such as participation in primaries and elections (e.g., Elder, Seligson, and Hofrenning 2007), school-wide or nation-wide exercises in dialogue or civic action (Longo, Drury, and Battistoni 2006), or enhanced class reading and analysis approaches, such as the New York Times project at Texas A&M (Huerta and Jozwiak 2008). While education in general has been associated with increased political interest and participation, there is some evidence that political science and policy-related courses are associated with larger changes; although difficulty establishing experimental controls has made it hard to measure the effects of self-selection among the students (e.g., Beaumont et al 2006;Furlong and Scheberle 2006).…”

Section: Civic and Political Engagement: Conceptual And Measurement Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating Better Citizens? Effects of a Model Citizens' Assembly on Student Political Attitudes and Behavior

Gershtenson

Rainey

2010

Journal of Political Science Education

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Perceiving political engagement to be dangerously low among American citizens, many political science professors in recent years have attempted to promote engagement and ''healthier'' political attitudes. The effectiveness of these efforts appears variable and generally quite modest. Following the model of Canadian citizens' assemblies, we taught a course called Citizens' Assembly on Critical Thinking about the United States (CACTUS) in spring 2008 in which students considered the question: ''Is it time to change the way we elect the President of the United States?'' Because the course employs a form of deliberative democracy CACTUS might be anticipated to encourage engagement. We use a pre-post survey design to measure attitudes of both CACTUS (treatment group) and other (comparison groups) students to examine this. We find that both CACTUS and students enrolled in other political science courses experienced modest growth in their political engagement. More notably, CACTUS students became more extreme in their party identification, ideology, and issue positions and became more supportive of the existing electoral system. We suspect these findings are attributable to the nature and content of CACTUS. Our findings have important implications for future efforts to promote political engagement and for measuring the effects of those efforts. Keywords citizens' assemblies, civic engagement, deliberative democracy, political engagement Masses make noise, citizens deliberate; masses behave, citizens act; masses collide and intersect, citizens engage, share and contribute. At the moment when masses start deliberating, acting, sharing, and contributing, they cease to be masses and become citizens. Only then do they ''participate.'' (Barber 1984, 155) How to transform masses into citizens in an age of declining political engagement is widely discussed by both politicians and political scientists. Among the proposed solutions is deliberative democracy both as means and end: Masses become citizens by learning how to deliberate and practice deliberation as a part of political life. Advocates of deliberative democracy assume that by participating in such

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“…There is in fact some evidence showing that course work involving civic engagement leads to improved civic engagement skills of students (Bennion and Nickerson 2013). Others indicated the importance of including a student-centered approach (Longo, Drury, and Battistoni 2006). However, other research shows that single events, even active, participatory ones such as deliberative democracy forums, fail to increase levels of internal political efficacy (Morrell 2005) and, in some cases, may decrease such efficacy (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002).…”

Section: Political and Civic Engagement On Campus 265mentioning

confidence: 99%