Promoting Civic Engagement Competence through Emotional Geography-Based Spatial Story Making in Community Participation Projects

Abstract

This study examined whether an emotional geography-based community participation project enhanced students’ civic engagement competence. The participants identified community problems based on emotional geographies, created their own spatial stories using spatial analysis and emotional mapping, and finally proposed spatial development strategies. A civic engagement competence questionnaire and reflective journals were used to examine the project’s pedagogical effects. The results showed that civic engagement competence scores increased statistically significantly after the activities. The themes extracted via thematic analysis included the cultivation and manifestation of civic engagement competence, as well as emotional geography activities for civic engagement competence in educational contexts.