Do Service Learning and Active-Citizenship Learning Support Our Students to Live a Culture of Democracy?

Ingrid Geier,Ulla Hasager

doi:10.3389/feduc.2020.606326

Abstract

Civic thinking and civic attitude require values and norms for social togetherness and social engagement. Service learning and active-citizenship learning are high-impact pedagogies, well-documented as supporting civic-mindedness and a culture of democracy sustainably. Though our study is part of a broader research project, this brief research report already documents the impact of the two pedagogies on civic-mindedness and students' democratic awareness. Through a mixed-method design we implemented a quantitative survey (7 level Likert Scale) of undergraduate student learning outcomes of service learning with 55 students from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and 41 students practicing active-citizenship learning at Salzburg University of Teacher Education. We found that the two pedagogies significantly support students' democratic awareness and civic attitudes. In addition to the survey, a qualitative analysis is in progress based on 23 focus group discussions, conducted to detail how the students experience themselves when they take on social responsibility, e.g., when they actively participate in improving their society. Our mixed, but narrowly focused, approach combined with well-established measuring tools and scales is a first study of how to assess Attitudes, one of the four fundamental principles of the Council of Europe‘s Competency Model for a Democratic Culture.

Highlights

Growing populism and new challenges posed by an increasingly globalized world of refugee movements, climate change, pandemics, and other overwhelmingly important issues, make it necessary to focus on democratic action and make the value of democracy and social equity more tangible
In our research and analyses, we focus on the principle of Attitudes, which the model divides into six groups: (a) Openness to cultural otherness and to other beliefs, world views and practices, (b) respect, (c) civic-mindedness, (d) responsibility, (e) self-efficacy and (f) tolerance for ambiguity (Council of Europe, 2016, p. 11; Barrett et al, 2018)
Our overall study is designed as a focused mixed-methods research project, combining quantitative, and qualitative research and methods to strengthen conclusions (Creswell, 2008, 2015; Steinberg et al, 2013; Holzman et al, 2017), give students a voice, and understand their perspectives of the impact that the pedagogies of service learning (SL) and active-citizenship learning (ACL) have on a culture of democracy, especially regarding civic-mindedness and orientation to the common good

Summary

Introduction

Growing populism and new challenges posed by an increasingly globalized world of refugee movements, climate change, pandemics, and other overwhelmingly important issues, make it necessary to focus on democratic action and make the value of democracy and social equity more tangible. It is already a basic tenet of higher education that we teach discipline skills, and critical thinking and other civic skills. Finding viable ways of dealing with the need to solve global and local issues have led to an increased focus on this so-called “third mission” of higher education.

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