Civic Capacity and Urban Education

Abstract

In 1993, a team of political scientists launched an 11-city study of school reform, centering on the concept of civic capacity. In the field of urban education, the 11-city study found places ranging from those with low levels of civic capacity in which diffuse and scattered concerns never became focused and synergistic to those with relatively high levels of civic capacity in which key actors came together in concerted action. Community leaders develop civic capacity to respond to major community-wide problems with a high potential for controversy. An ever-present potential for conflict means that a spirit of cooperation can quickly erode, and civic capacity differs from micro versions of social capital. To be lasting, civic capacity needs an institutional foundation for interaction among elites and a "grassroots" base through which ordinary citizens are engaged.

A Strategic Framework for Building Civic Capacity

“…The cases of urban growth and transportation infrastructure in Seattle reflect the findings from existing research about the challenges of building civic capacity (Briggs 2008;Stone 2001;Stone et al 2001). In comparison, though, they also reveal strategic opportunities for leaders to shape learning and bargaining processes to foster shared understandings and joint commitments to address wicked problems.…”

“…Most research on civic capacity has measured or traced the development of shared problem definitions and joint commitments (Briggs 2008;Marschall and Shah 2005;Stone 2001;Stone et al 2001).…”

Yaffa: a school of their choice?

“…Since their parent role construction takes place in a different setting, the question of whether and how parents would act to change their children's educational opportunities is affected by their (marginalised) social location, by how far they are from the dominant culture, and by their (in)capacity to make a difference. Parents' involvement and entrepreneurship is thus understood by their positionality (Alcoff 1988) as a determinant of their 'civic capacity' (Stone 2001) to act and make a choice.…”

Deriving Theories of Change from Successful Community Development Partnerships for Youths: Implications for School Improvement

“…Fourth, community partnership leaders strive to engage schools as key partners, albeit with varying degrees of success (Anderson-Butcher et al 2006). Finally, successful partnerships both rely on and build social capital, that is, solid interpersonal and network relationships cemented by trust and norms of reciprocity (Warren 2001), and their achievements are indicative of civic capacity (Camino 2000;Stone 2001), that is, the abilities of democratic citizens to organize and mobilize for collective action and problem solving to achieve common goals. This fifth commonalty indicates the opportunity for school leaders to use youthrelated partnerships to advance their community engagement agendas.…”

“…In other words, partnerships can be mechanisms for civic capacity (Camino 2000;Stone 2001)-whereby people work together to solve important problems and achieve important goals. Developing these capacities is a related, but separate, agenda.…”