Understanding Adolescents’ Civic Identity From a Narrative Perspective

The article deals with the problem of transformation of the concept of ‘civic identity' in the contemporary reality. The article is aimed at presenting the results of a fundamental research conducted in general education institutions of the Chechen Republic. The article characterises the extent to which the problem has been developed in foreign and Russian pedagogy and presents the author's view of the problem of formation and development of teacher's civic identity. The author substantiates the choice of methodological approaches to form and develop the civic identity of a future teacher. According to the author of the article, there is no single idea about the essence of the concept of ‘civic identity' in modern science. Most often this concept is identified with patriotism, but in fact its content is much deeper and more extensive. The specifics and technologies of the teacher's civic identity formation as a specialist, who is responsible to society for preparing young people for life and activity, are not given enough attention. Based on the presented methodological approaches, the author proposes the structure of the concept under consideration, substantiates the specificity of teacher's civic identity, which includes a special role and high authority of a teacher; a deeper awareness of responsibility for the fate of young people; deeper knowledge in this direction, and so on. The author cites the stages of formation and development of civic identity in a future teacher at a pedagogical university which are as follows: adaptational, educational, methodological. The article formulates the principles of formation of civic identity of a future teacher; the principle of interdisciplinarity, the need to create a special educational environment for the formation of civic identity in a future teacher, individualisation, scientific basis in the formation of civic identity, systematicity, which means that civic identity should be formed and developed systematically, not spontaneously.

The formation and development of civic identity are one of the important tasks of the education system and upbringing of youth. Modern education in general faces serious challenges and problems in the formation of social and civic identities among the younger generation. The purpose of this article is to conduct a theoretical analysis of the methodological foundations of the formation of civil identity and present the main directions and stages of its development in the educational and extracurricular educational process in higher education. The content of the article substantiates the need for scientific development of the phenomenon being studied on the basis of psychological and pedagogical methodology. The problems of the formation of civic identity in Russian and foreign studies are considered. The authors present a theoretical analysis of the concepts of “civic education” and “civic identity” as polyscientific and interdisciplinary categories, on the basis of which the structure of a person’s civic identity is constructed, consisting of cognitive, emotional, value and behavioral components. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that, based on the theoretical analysis carried out, the work identifies and illustrates in the form of a model the main markers of the formation of civic identity, focusing on which allows us to develop and introduce into the educational process educational technologies to support the development of civic identity among modern youth. The content of the article highlights and substantiates the main stages and forms of development of students' civic identity at different stages of education. In conclusion, it is noted that the process of civil self-determination of young people is a strategically important goal in shaping the security of the Russian state. A special role and mission for the implementation of the technology for the formation of civil identity is assigned to the teacher. Of course, to implement educational technologies, it is necessary, first of all, to work with the teaching corps of representatives of higher education, with the civic consciousness of the teaching staff, who form and develop the human capital of the country’s future generations.

This study focuses on the role of online civic participation in the civic development of adolescents. We build on the assumption that online civic participation differs from more traditional offline civic participation in several key characteristics, namely lacking proximity to other actors, possible disconnection between civic actions and their outcomes, and a reduced hierarchy within the online environment. Considering these specifics, the study examined the longitudinal effect of online participation on the development of civic identity, political self-efficacy, and attitudes toward social authorities. Concurrently, we contrasted the impact of online participation with the impact of offline civic participation. Data from a survey-based two-wave panel study conducted in Spring 2014 and Autumn 2015 in the Czech Republic were utilized. The sample comprised 768 adolescents (aged 14-17 in T1; 54% females). The results showed that online participation predicted increased challenging attitudes towards social authorities, while offline participation had the opposite effect. Furthermore, online participation had no effect on political self-efficacy or civic development, but offline participation positively predicted civic identity. The findings are discussed with regard to the specific benefits and limits of online civic participation.

Introduction. The article examines the problem of productive cooperation between family and school aimed at the development of civic identity and patriotism in Kumandin adolescents as representatives of indigenous small-numbered people, taking into account their ethno-cultural characteristics. The purpose of this article is to identify the conditions enhancing productive cooperation between family and school in solving the problems of forming civic identity and patriotism in Kumandin adolescents. Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of this study includes scientific works by leading experts devoted to the formation of civic identity and patriotism. The empirical data were obtained in Altai Krai in 2023-2023. The study used ‘My Ethnicity’ sociological questionnaire, which enabled the authors to identify cognitive and affective aspects of adolescents’ ethnic identity. Using the scale of civic consciousness as patriotism and nationalism of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) allowed to assess constructive and non-constructive manifestations of adolescents’ civic identity. Also, the authors used D. J. Finney’s Ethnic Identity Scale for assessing adolescents’ ethnic identity. In order to identify factors determining the formation of civic identity and patriotism in Kumandin adolescents, a survey of school teachers was conducted and moral education curricula were analyzed. The study involved 90 Kumandin adolescents. Results. The article presents a theoretical analysis of approaches to the formation of civic identity and patriotism. The results of the study showed that the majority of Kumandin adolescents demonstrated a high level of ethnic identification. Based on research data obtained by means of D. J. Finney’s inventory, the authors identified high internal consistency in the manifestations of cognitive and emotional components of adolescents’ ethnic identity. The authors revealed significant features in the intensity of various components of civic and ethnic identity among Kumandin adolescents compared to representatives of other nationalities. In particular, statistically significant strong (d from 0.65 to 0.92) differences were found for all indicators of ethnic identity according to D. J. Finney’s method, with average values higher among Kumandin adolescents. At the same time, it has been found that Kumandin adolescents have a poor understanding of the culture and traditions of their ethnic group, practically do not speak the Kumandin language, and do not strive to demonstrate their belonging to the indigenous people. The study showed the need for schools to organize conditions for productive cooperation between family and school aimed at the formation of civil identity and patriotism in Kumandin adolescents: targeted and systematic educational work on studying Kumandin culture and preserving the language in classes attended by Kumandin students, involving the family as part of civic and patriotic education by means of social projects, engaging Kumandin teenagers to participate in civic and patriotic events related to their ethnic characteristics, developing recommendations for teacher. Conclusions. Based on the data obtained, the authors identified the conditions for productive cooperation between family and school aimed at developing civic identity and patriotism in Kumandin adolescents.

The main purpose of the study is to identify the significance of civic identity for young people and its impact on modern socio-cultural processes in Kyrgyzstan. The methodology of the research is represented by systematic, socio- cultural, comparative, semiotic analyses, as well as the synthesis method. A survey of 117 university students was conducted to provide additional data on the civic identity of Kyrgyz youth. In addition, the development of civic identity among young people in China and Turkey was analysed for comparison. Despite differences in historical and cultural contexts, factors like education, media, and government policies impacted youth civic identity in all three countries. The study results showed that the civic identity of young people is one of the key factors in modern socio-cultural transformations of society, determining the lifestyle and value orientations of young people, influencing their perception of public roles and responsibility. It is determined that periods of social transformations, civic identity is able to take on a variety of manifestations, influencing the processes of socialisation among young people, and, ultimately, their ability to perceive and join the values prevailing in a particular society. In addition, the findings indicate that it is important to understand the level of influence of the cultural and historical context on the development of the civil identity of certain countries. The results emphasise the importance of adapting policies and government programmes to current socio-cultural realities. The significance of the findings is expressed in the actualisation of the issue under study. The results obtained enrich the theoretical understanding of civic identity and its role in the modern socio-cultural processes of Kyrgyzstan and the world, contributing to the field of socio-cultural transformations and the study of youth identity

The relevance of the research problem is due to the happening socio-cultural changes in the world, when in the conditions of polyethnicity and multiculturalism of the countries there are difficulties with the consolidation of citizens and establishing the dialogue on the principles of equality and mutual respect. The purpose of this article is to clarify the content of civic personal identity, and based on the analysis of the existing world experience of civic education of students, to present own program of forming civic identity among schoolchildren. This paper presents the content of each of the components of the civic identity of a person (cognitive, value-oriented, emotionally-evaluative, behavioral) in three aspects: ethnic (regional), civil (national) and general cultural (universal human), the author’s program of the students’ civic identity formation is presented. The contents of the article can be useful for school teachers and instructors of teacher education universities in preparing the relevant classes for the students. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s3p57

Civic identity is presented as a key construct for understanding adolescent development. We argue that high-poverty, urban neighborhoods make it difficult for youth to develop civic identities. Hypotheses regarding the effects of poverty and urbanicity on the development of civic identity are tested in analyses of the National Household Education Survey of 1999. Results from the analyses demonstrate that youth from urban neighborhoods are less likely than their suburban and rural counterparts to participate in community service. In addition, youth in poor neighborhoods have lower levels of civic knowledge and are less politically tolerant than youth in affluent neighborhoods.

There is increasing urgency to broaden access to inclusive and culturally sustaining K-12 civic education. Civic education can foster young people’s development of their civic identity, which can support a functioning American democracy. Civic education often includes opportunities for learners to develop civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions, but not all learners may see themselves represented in traditional forms of civic education. In this essay, we propose reframing approaches to developing knowledge, skills, and dispositions by focusing on how they can be brought together to support the development of civic identity. First, we describe relevant literature on civic education. We then explain how three aspects of civic education inform learners’ development of a civic identity: personal identity and values, mastery of civic knowledge, and creative capacity for civic action. We close with recommendations for how to support civic identity development in K-12 education.

Narrative identity theorists have long held that individuals construct identities as a coherent tale of their past, present, and future selves. These life stories are structured along predictable scripts borrowed from cultural master narratives. Heretofore, legitimacy theorists have relied on social identity theory to explain legitimation processes. I propose integrating elements of narrative identity theory with social identity for a more complete legitimation theory. I analyze 92 in-depth interviews with individuals who encountered the police departments of Newark, New Jersey, and Cleveland, Ohio. Respondents’ narratives followed common narrative scripts, suggesting a shared master narrative guiding interpretations of police encounters. A significant proportion of the sample interpreted their views of the police from a group-based lens, while an equally significant proportion used alternative narratives. An integration of social identity, narrative identity, and current legitimacy theory holds promise for a more comprehensive model of legitimation and a more complete theory of self.

Analysis of the Newcomb Scholars program at Tulane University offers a case study in the development of civic identity through participation in a four-year curricular program with community engagement and service-learning grounded in feminist pedagogies and theories. Each year, twenty intellectually curious and ambitious undergraduates are selected to participate in an academically rigorous interdisciplinary learning experience centering feminist leadership. Using data from a recently completed 10-year evaluation of the Newcomb Scholars program, this article considers how these students’ civic identity is forged because of curricular and co-curricular experiences and persists in post-graduation settings. Evaluation data includes longitudinal survey responses, participant grade data, and demographic information of program participants. Our analysis examines how the components of the Scholars program adhere to the five building blocks for developing a healthy civic identity and shares results from the program’s 10-year assessment (Schnaubelt, et al 2022). Special focus is placed on participants' commitment to feminism as a political issue, a defining element of a healthy civic identity. Significantly, the study found nearly 77% of respondents to the alumnae survey agreeing that they are currently engaged in some level of feminist work and 95% of respondents identifying as a feminist. The cohort structure is also a focus. It keeps the Newcomb Scholars together for curricular and co-curricular experiences across four years, allowing them to practice the building blocks of a healthy civic identity in the context of an enduring community. Further, we discuss the challenges the program has experienced due to institutional and organizational constraints. Finally, we offer thoughts on how to address these concerns within a context of national democratic threat and decreased trust in higher education.

Student perceptions of support for civic identity development and identity exploration in a discussion-based U.S. government course

The current concepts of identity widespread throughout social sciences are basically linked to two historical models. One is connected to psychology, while the other is related to sociology. In psychology, the concept of identity is traditionally considered to come from the work of Erik Erikson, who considers that identity is to be found in the deep structure of personality. Erikson studies the development of identity. He attributes central importance to the question of man’s inner unity. In sociology, the concept of identity is usually linked to George Herbert Mead, who traces identity back to interaction between the individual and society. According to this, identity is shaped by social conventions, which can be conveyed by a profession, a role or a social situation. As those constantly undergo change, the individual’s identity is continuously changing as well. Erikson’s is regarded as an essentialist approach, whereas Mead’s is called a constructivist one. The problem is not that there are differences between these two historical models, but that their adherents never or hardly ever reflect upon each other’s views. A solution to this problem could be offered through the concept of narrative identity, to which the author of this study attributes a bridging role, due to the recent appearance of several new theories which consciously undertake to “reconcile” the two historical models (“the double track”). The present study starts by describing the development and deepening of the current chasm between the two historical models. Next, it outlines several theories of narrative identity which are becoming increasingly popular both in sociology and in psychology. While the influence of the two historical models can also be detected in the theories of narrative identity, they make a perceivable effort to play a bridging role. If sociology wants to use narratives as sources in the research of identity, it should take into account the fact that the individual is striving to reach a kind of inner identity and stability even in late modern circumstances. Likewise, if narratives are to be used for research in psychology, it must be acknowledged that social circumstances in our modern world are extremely changeable, which hinders the formation of a stable, inner identity core. I suggest that that narrative identity started to be seen as bridge. In sociology, no reflection upon this process has begun yet. The aim of this study is to articulate the problem and to promote further reflection in sociology and psychology as well.

Context: This study examines how urban American Indian high school students negotiate their civic identities within the settler colonial structures of urban American public schools. Research Question: How do urban American Indian students negotiate civic identities in spaces where civic concepts are taught, such as American history classes in an urban public high school and a Native Youth Council (Native YC)? Research Design: This critical participatory ethnographic study examines the negotiation of civic identity by 11 urban Indigenous students in social studies classes, a Native YC, and a school in Washington State, where the STI curriculum is taught. Safety zone theory and tribal critical race theory were used to understand students’ experiences and their stories from observations, participant interviews, and focus groups, which were employed as data. Conclusions/Recommendations: The study found that the social studies classes and Native YC were zones of sovereignty (ZoS), forwarding survivance and self-determination for Native students. Students learned about the Indigenous civic constructs of sovereignty, self-determination, dual citizenship, tribal self-government, and federal Indian policy inside and outside of school, all of which supported Native students in civic identity development. Recommendations on teaching Indigenous civic constructs to all students as part of teaching for critical democracy in public schools as a component of social studies classes and extracurricular activities are discussed.

The Michigan Historical Review 44:2 (Fall 2018): 37-66©2018 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved A “Self-Made Town”: Semi-Annual Furniture Expositions and the Development of Civic Identity in Grand Rapids, 1878-1965 By Scott Richard St. Louis The Right Place at the Right Time1 In the later decades of the nineteenth century, prominent business figures in the city of Grand Rapids had reason to be both ambitious and optimistic. Striving to pull every last cent of profit out of available resources, they rationalized production workflows and integrated the latest technologies into their factories. They also perceptively discerned that a maturing railroad network connecting Grand Rapids to an emerging Victorian consumer economy would empower the city to achieve new levels of prosperity and fame through an industry on the verge of unprecedented growth: domestic furniture production.2 These entrepreneurs acted upon their hopes for the community’s future through the establishment of the semi-annual Grand Rapids Furniture Expositions, beginning in December 1878. At first glance, these expositions might seem to have been a mere manifestation of the community’s recognition as America’s “Furniture City.” However, they actually constituted a fundamental cause behind the construction of this 1 Previous versions of this research were presented at the Second Annual Midwestern History Conference in Grand Rapids on 1 June 2016; at the 131st Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Denver, Colorado, on 7 January 2017; and at “History Detectives: Sleuthing for Local History,” a program held at the Grand Rapids Public Library on 28 January 2017. 2 For more information on the history of industrialization in the Midwest during the nineteenth century, see David R. Meyer, “Midwestern Industrialization and the American Manufacturing Belt in the Nineteenth Century,” The Journal of Economic History 49.4 (December 1989): 921-37 and Brian Page and Richard Walker, “From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest,” Economic Geography 67.4 (October 1991): 281-315. Meyer notes that the Midwest increased “its share of national manufacturing value added from 14 to 26 percent between 1860 and 1900” (92223 ). Page and Walker note that in “exploring the spatial form of the Midwest, particular emphasis must be put on the neglected role of small industrial cities in the process of regional industrialization and the formation of a dense network of urban spaces” (284). 38 The Michigan Historical Review civic identity by local citizens: business leaders and supportive community members who collaborated in making the Grand Rapids name synonymous with excellent household furniture on an international scale. These citizens also resolved to prevent similar efforts in rival cities— including the powerhouses of New York and especially Chicago—from eclipsing their own.3 The astonishing extent of their success provided the city with a greater profile in the national consciousness and transformed the physical and economic landscape of Grand Rapids itself. Given that Grand Rapids fits comfortably into Midwestern historian Timothy Mahoney’s description of small cities, this article also responds to his call for scholarly examinations of these urban spaces and their relationship to the broader regional and national economic forces that influence—and are influenced by—the fate of such cities.4 By arguing for the importance of the semi-annual furniture expositions to the development of Grand Rapids, this research sheds light on the place of a small Midwestern city in the growth of a national consumer culture during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.5 3 For more information on the place of Chicago in Midwestern history, see Timothy B. Spears, Chicago Dreaming: Midwesterners and the City, 1871-1919 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) and William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991). 4 Timothy R. Mahoney, “The Small City in American History,” Indiana Magazine of History 99.4 (December 2003): 311-30. 5 Within the last decade, scholars have been rebuilding the intellectual infrastructure required to spark and sustain a revival of Midwestern studies in American historical scholarship. For example, the Midwestern History Association was established in 2014; in 2015, it began hosting annual conferences and publishing Studies in Midwestern History. Additionally...

In the article analyzed psychological nature of the phenomenon of civic identity, refined its essence in comparison of ethnic, national, territorial, language, civilization identities. In contradistinction to ethnic, territorial identities (defined as primary, «sociobiological») civic identity behove to political-cultural identities. Civic identity is identification with human citizen of the state and with a member of the community, which is a consorcium – association of people with common distany. Motivational-value connections with the State and citizens based on the typicality problems of social self-realization of personality in organizational space of state. Social conditions of self-realization, given in organizational state space, unite people on the basis of joint, are in axiological space of state. This civic identity differs from close to her national identity focused more on national culture and traditions and national interests in politics. In multicultural states civic identity plays a unifying role than national identity. Because in modern Ukraine are ongoing processes of state formation, civic identity of its inhabitants is in intensive dynamics. In particular, in addition to Ukrainian civil identity should assume the existence of Soviet civic identity (in rudimentary forms), Russian, European, cosmopolitan and uncertain identitys. The dynamics of civic identity is a transformation of the hierarchical ties with other kinds of social and political identities, and changes in the content of civic identity.