Teaching Civic Engagement Across The Disciplines

For democracy to function effectively, citizens must engage together and compromise. Although these skills are critical for a vibrant society, civic engagement education is lacking in America today. This book evaluates the goals, challenges, and rewards of integrating civic education into K-12 and higher education, highlighting best practices.

Teaching Civic Engagement provides an exploration of key theoretical discussions, innovative ideas, and best practices in educating citizens in the 21st century. The book addresses theoretical debates over the place of civic engagement education in Political Science. It offers pedagogical examples in several sub-fields, including evidence of their effectiveness and models of appropriate assessment. Written by political scientists from a range of institutions and subfields, Teaching Civic Engagement makes the case that civic and political engagement should be a central part of our mission as a discipline.

A thriving and peaceful democracy requires an informed and engaged citizenry, but such citizenship must be learned. Educators around the globe are facing challenges in teaching politics in an era in which populist values are on the rise, authoritarian governance is legitimized, and core democratic tenets are regularly undermined by leaders and citizens alike. To combat anti-democratic outcomes and citizens' apathy, Teaching Civic Engagement Globally provides a wide range of pedagogical tools to help the current generation learn to effectively navigate debates and lead changes in local, national, and global politics. Contributors discuss key theoretical discussions and challenges regarding global civic engagement education, highlight successful evidence-based pedagogical approaches, and review effective ways to reach across disciplines and the global education community. Most importantly, the book provides tangible steps to link democratic education research with action that reflects contemporary global circumstances.

Civic Education Across the Curriculum offers faculty in all disciplines rationales and resources for connecting their service-learning efforts to the broader goals of civic engagement. Campuses promoting engagement are beginning to tie service-learning practices to their civic mission of preparing students for participation in a diverse, democratic society. There are, however, few resources for faculty—especially those in fields not traditionally linked with civic education—to think about how civic engagement might be incorporated into their own disciplinary perspectives and course goals. This volume distills a wide range of disciplinary perspectives on citizenship into usable conceptual frameworks. It provides concrete examples of course materials, exercises, and assignments that can be used in service-learning courses to develop students’ civic capacities, regardless of disciplinary area. This volume will assist faculty in their own curricular work as well as enable them to combine their individual initiatives with others across their campus.

This substantially expanded new edition of this widely-used and acclaimed text maintains the objectives and tenets of the first. It is designed to help students understand and reflect on their community service experiences both as individuals and as citizens of communities in need of their compassionate expertise. It is designed to assist faculty in facilitating student development of compassionate expertise through the context of service in applying disciplinary knowledge to community issues and challenges. In sum, the book is about how to make academic sense of civic service in preparing for roles as future citizen leaders. Each chapter has been developed to be read and reviewed, in sequence, over the term of a service-learning course. Students in a semester course might read just one chapter each week, while those in a quarter-term course might need to read one to two chapters per week. The chapters are intentionally short, averaging 8 to 14 pages, so they do not interfere with other course content reading. This edition presents four new chapters on Mentoring, Leadership, Becoming a Change Agent, and Short-Term Immersive and Global Service-Learning experiences. The authors have also revised the original chapters to more fully address issues of social justice, privilege/power, diversity, intercultural communication, and technology; have added more disciplinary examples; incorporated additional academic content for understanding service-learning issues (e.g., attribution theory); and cover issues related to students with disabilities, and international students. This text is a student-friendly, self-directed guide to service-learning that: Develops the skills needed to succeed Clearly links service-learning to the learning goals of the course Combines self-study and peer-study workbook formats with activities that can be incorporated in class, to give teachers maximum flexibility in structuring their service-learning courses Promotes independent and collaborative learning Equally suitable for courses of a few weeks’ or a few months’ duration Shows students how to assess progress and communicate end-results Written for students participating in service learning as a class, but also suitable for students working individually on a project. Instructor's Manual This Instructor Manual discusses the following six key areas for aligning your course with use of Learning through Serving, whether you teach a senior-level high school class, freshman studies course, or a college capstone class: 1. Course and syllabus design 2. Community-partner collaboration 3. Creating class community 4. Strategic teaching techniques 5. Developing intercultural competence 6. Impact assessment

This book is a reference for administrators and educators at institutions of higher learning who are thinking about taking serious steps to link their educational mission to helping their surrounding communities. Various research findings across the disciplines in higher education about integrating community engagement in traditional coursework are presented. This book provides a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach to both incorporating and studying the effects of community engagement (service learning) in the curriculum. Multiple departments, from Kinesiology to Sociology, as well as various types of classes (undergraduate, graduate, online, face-to-face, traditional, international) are represented here. Both qualitative and quantitative work is included. Methods involved include interviews, case studies, reflections, and surveys. One chapter also uses longitudinal data collection to address the overall effect of engaging in community engagement during the undergraduate college experience. If you are not sure how to study the effects of community engagement on students at your university, this book is for you.

Numerous studies have chronicled students lack of trust in large social institutions, declining interest in politics, and decreasing civic skills. This book is a comprehensive guide to developing high-quality civic engagement experiences for college students. The book defines civic engagement and explains why it is central to a college education. It describes the state of the art of education for civic engagement and provides guidelines for designing programs that encourage desired learning outcomes. In addition, the book guides leaders in organizing their institutions to create a campus-wide culture of civic engagement.

Educating for Empathy presents a compelling framework for thinking about the purpose and practice of literacy education in a politically polarized world. Mirra proposes a model of critical civic empathy that encourages secondary ELA teachers to consider how issues of power and inequity play out in the literacy classroom and how to envision literacy practices as a means of civic engagement. The book reviews core elements of ELA instruction—response to literature, classroom discussion, research, and digital literacy—and demonstrates how these activities can be adapted to foster critical thinking and empathetic perspectives among students. Chapters depict teachers and students engaging in this transformative learning, offer concrete strategies for the classroom, and pose questions to guide school communities in collaborative reflection. “If educators were to follow Mirra’s model, we will have come a long way toward educating and motivating young people to become involved, engaged, and caring citizens.” —Sonia Nieto, professor emerita, University of Massachusetts, Amherst “Grounded in respectful research partnerships with youth and teachers, this is a book that will resonate with and inspire educators in these precarious times.” —Gerald Campano, University of Pennsylvania “If ever there were a time for a book on empathy in education, the moment is now.” —Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University