Knowledge Of Citizens Research Articles

Measuring young people’s understanding of civics and citizenship in a cross-national study

The development of knowledge and understanding is widely reported as a key aim of civic and citizenship education and as an important aspect of being equipped for active citizenship. Measuring knowledge and understanding of this domain has grown as a focus of educational research both as an outcome in its own right and to underpin the systematic investigation of factors associated with the development of effective active citizenship. Given that civics and citizenship is often seen as a set of cross-curricular capabilities rather than an established discipline, it is crucial to articulate clearly what is being measured and to be sure that its measurement is based on sound psychometric properties. This article describes how knowledge and understanding of civics and citizenship was conceptually defined and measured in the context of the IEA Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2009).

La competencia mediática en Andalucía: un camino por recorrer

This paper aims to investigate the knowledge of Andalusian citizens about the «audiovisual skills» concept, from a quantitative point of view. We studied the responses to six specific dimensions by a sample taken in the region of Andalusia, as an essential first step to make training educational proposals about media education. This study is a part of the Agora Research Group at University of Huelva and Grupo Comunicar, and from the beginning it was supported by the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia and University Pompeu Fabra, as a part of a much larger project.

ASSOCIATIVE EXPERIENCES IN THE MEXICO-TEXAS BORDER: A SOCIAL COACHING EXPERIENCE

Social capital is concerned with the resources that individuals, community groups, institutions and organizations derive from their participation in networks and associations for social change. In this context, this article is aiming to explore dimensions of social capital activated through Social Coaching initiatives. This intense associative experience is relevant as it includes the emotional dimensions of social networking and relational capital experiences for social change. It aims to advance a more conscious and responsible knowledge-based citizenship, with a new set of collective values, agreements, and profile. These social coaching initiatives actually inquire how a different social construction of a nation can be triggered. Following those perspectives, this article has been built around a recent experience of ontological social coaching in youth groups in the Northern Mexico city-region of Monterrey. These youngster are seemingly aiming to play a leading role as knowledge citizens in their communities by telling a different story in this intensely challenged borderland.

Technology Optimism or Pessimism About Genomic Science: Social Scientists Versus the American Public

Members of the general public, as well as experts, express varying levels of technology optimism or pessimism about scientific endeavors. Tolerance for risk may vary according to cognitive or affective characteristics of the individual, the social context, the content of the enterprise being evaluated, or some other dimension; the theory is underdeveloped. In this paper, we explore technology optimism and pessimism through the lens of responses to various arenas within genomic science. The novelty of genomics in the public realm -- along with its unusual combination of life-and-death implications for individuals, stupefyingly complex technology, and broad but as-yet-unknown societal implications -- make it an excellent subject for the study of policy formulation, political consolidation, and individual’s responses to the frontiers of knowledge. We use three new sources of evidence: in-depth elite interviews, content analysis of prominent articles, and a new public opinion survey. The paper focuses on three features of technology optimism -- the impact of scientific knowledge and value predispositions in the American public, the impact of value dispositions (given high levels of scientific knowledge) in genomics experts across various academic disciplines, and tensions between public and expert opinion. We find that the most knowledgeable citizens and liberals or Democrats are the most optimistic about genomics, and that religious conviction is associated with less optimism. However, scholars in more liberal disciplines are less optimistic about genomics than scholars in relatively more conservative disciplines. We offer suggestions to explain the disparity between public and expert views, and raise questions about the political and policy implications of the tension between ordinary citizens and academic elites with regard to genomics and other scientific endeavors or technologies.

Online emotional appeals and political participation: The effect of candidate affect on mass behavior

The role that emotions play in shaping mass political behavior is increasingly well researched. This study refocuses the debate to explore the effect that the emotions expressed by candidates (target affect) through new media have on participation, rather than the effect of emotions felt by voters (observer affect). A unique experiment embedded in a nationally representative online survey demonstrates that appeals invoking target affect can strongly increase citizens’ political participation both online and offline. Contrary to fears that the use of emotions by political elites will agitate the least knowledgeable citizens, however, the results demonstrate that it is the most politically-engaged citizens who are mobilized by such appeals. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the participatory consequences of emotional political messages on the Internet.

Reflections on Communication and Sport

In this essay, David Rowe reflects on how the nexus of sport and communication has affected national and global sensibilities. Sport contests take place at particular times in specific places, usually in a stadium setting, but not all who desire to watch can be present in the stadium. Without mediated communication, the vast edifice of contemporary sport would have remained largely localized, segmented activities. Progressively under modernity, print media could discuss and interpret sport for those who were far distant; electronic media brought the sights and sounds of the unique event to them in real time, and much else besides; and now online media enable people all over the world to communicate with each other about sport. Communication and sport are, then, demonstrably indissoluble and of intrinsic importance as a focus of sociocultural organization, activity, identity, and affect as well as of capital accumulation. Mediated sport is thereby carried into virtually every other sociocultural domain. Understanding the dynamics of communication and sport is, therefore, an essential capability for anyone who wishes to function as an engaged, knowledgeable citizen of a sport-saturated world that they may not have made but must nonetheless inhabit.

Citizenship and Governance in the Asian Region: Insights from The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study

Large scale assessment of student performance is a regular feature of the international education landscape. The International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) is a recent attempt with a focus on citizenship knowledge and skills. Student political trust data from ICCS is reported here and a mixture Rasch model is used to identify the heterogeneity in this data. The results indicate the complexity of within country and cross-country estimates of measures of political trust. The problem of relying on a single scale score to represent this complexity is underscored and the implications for citizenship education are discussed.

Promoting Mindfulness Through Contemplative Education

For years, higher education institutions in the United States have developed courses in the field of liberal education that focus on social, political, economic and environmental issues with a global outlook. As such, students are taught critical thinking, critical reasoning, and critical writing skills. While students learn to engage in debates, decisive speaking, and critical analysis, they are rarely taught to feel compassionate toward these issues. Hence, in the current global community in which many countries are at war, or are facing poverty and financial crises, it is essential that higher education institutions prepare knowledgeable citizens that not only ascertain critical assessment and judgment skills, but also ascertain the art of contemplation. This article reviews literature from various disciplines and suggests that higher education institutions must work toward integrating contemplative education and mindfulness in their curriculum in order to enhance students’ learning and understanding through contemplation and personal insight. Furthermore, it is essential that higher education institutions implement multidimensional educational strategies that encourage a vigorous and universal understanding of cross-cultural communication. Additionally, this paper examines the role of elements, such as experience, contemplations, and transformation, in teaching and preparing future graduates for the current global community. Furthermore, it evaluates strategies that can be used by higher education leaders in creating multidimensional and effective learning environments.

Sustainable Water Ecosystems Management in Europe: Bridging the Knowledge of Citizens, Scientists and Policy Makers

Sustainable Water Ecosystems Management in Europe examines the anthropogenic deterioration of water ecosystems, in particular in coastal areas. It proposes a new approach to enhance connectivity between research and policy-making. The book exploits the concept of integrated adaptive ecosystem management, by engaging scientists, policy makers and the public (the latter including both stakeholders and lay citizens/water users) in comparable case studies. Emphasis is given to the role of the public to enlarge the concept of organisational learning to the wider concept of social learning. The EC 7th Research Framework Program funded project AWARE engaged a panel of randomly selected citizens living in three different coastal areas of Europe - in a pilot experience of knowledge brokerage with water scientists and decision makers focused on coastal waters quality. Results and lessons learned from the project are summarized in this volume, and recommendations are made for this pilot's replication and transferability to different coastal areas and sustainable water management tasks - and beyond to other sustainability research and policy issues. This book is a must-read for water managers and policy makers looking to effectively organize citizen and stakeholder participation in river basin and coastal water planning, as required by the EU Water Framework Directive. Sustainable Water Ecosystems Management in Europe provides useful recommendations for organising effective participation of citizens in the science and policy dialogue, promoting a collective awareness of the plans and actions needed to protect the water environment and ensure sustainable use of water resources. This title belongs to European Water Research Series . ISBN: 9781780401140 (Print) ISBN: 9781780401157 (eBook)

Strategies for critical reflection in international contexts for social work students

International contexts provide social work students with the opportunity to develop knowledge of international social work, global citizenship and cultural competency. While these contexts are powerful sites of learning, there is a need to ensure that this occurs within a critical framework. The paradigm of critical reflection is used to facilitate this and has been popular in international programs. In this article, we develop this further by describing critically-reflective techniques and providing examples used in a pilot exchange program between a social work school in the UK and in India. The potential implications of these strategies for social work education are discussed.

Learning citizenship through social participation outside and inside school: An international, multilevel study of young people's learning of citizenship

In this article we revisit and re‐analyse data from the 1999 IEA CIVED transnational study to examine the factors associated with the ways in which young people learn positive attitudes towards participation in, and knowledge and skills about democracy. Less formal learning, wherever it takes place, has recently been conceptualised as a process of social participation, and we explore its effects using Lave and Wenger's and Wenger's understanding of learning through communities of practice. This is then contrasted with the effect of the volume of civic education. The analysis shows that learning through social participation, both inside and outside school, and in particular through meaning‐making activities shows a strong positive relationship with citizenship knowledge, skills and dispositions across a wide range of countries. Moreover, it demonstrates the usefulness of situated learning theory in the field of civic learning, and its applicability in large‐scale, quantitative studies.

Impact and Scope of e-Governance Initiatives in State of Punjab (INDIA)

Governance refers to the process of automation for providing efficient and effective delivery of government services to the citizens. The purpose of this paper is to explore e-Governance initiatives taken by the Punjab Government. The research findings elaborate on what are the reasons that e-Governance is not properly implemented in rural areas of the state. It highlighted the factors of e-Governance to control the corruption. It also explains knowledge of citizens about internet required for effective implementation of e-Governance. This study is useful to know the impact of e-Governance projects implemented and find out the scope of e-Governance in the State of Punjab.

Stem Cell Research, Regulatory Regimes, and Citizens’ “Calculus of Consent” in the European Union

What factors affect support for the development of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research? Ordered logit analysis of responses to a 2005 Eurobarometer survey finds that Europeans with greater trust in the European Union and national hESC regulatory systems report significantly more support for hESC research. Higher levels of religiosity and concern for the moral status of the fetus reduce support for hESC research, while citizens more interested in politics, those getting their news from the print media, more highly educated respondents, and those reporting higher knowledge about stem cells tend to be more supportive of the technique. Nevertheless, the objectively more knowledgeable citizens exhibit less consistency in their support.

SDI-based business processes: A territorial analysis web information system in Spain

Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) provide access to geospatial data and operations through interoperable Web services. These data and operations can be chained to set up specialized geospatial business processes, and these processes can give support to different applications. End users can benefit from these applications, while experts can integrate the Web services in their own business processes and developments. This paper presents an SDI-based territorial analysis Web information system for Spain, which gives access to land cover, topography and elevation data, as well as to a number of interoperable geospatial operations by means of a Web Processing Service (WPS). Several examples illustrate how different territorial analysis business processes are supported. The system has been established by the Spanish National SDI (Infraestructura de Datos Espaciales de España, IDEE) both as an experimental platform for geoscientists and geoinformation system developers, and as a mechanism to contribute to the Spanish citizens knowledge about their territory.

A mixed report: The effects of strategic and substantive news content on political cynicism and voting

Abstract This article examines the effects of strategic and substantive news on political cynicism, turnout intention and voter uncertainty, drawing on two experiments (n = 451, 18–25 year-olds). We found that among less politically knowledgeable citizens, all news mobilizes, but strategic news also induces cynicism. For the more knowledgeable citizens, we found that the combination of strategic and substantive news yields slightly less cynicism and that substantive news makes these citizens reconsider their voting choice. Overall, we only found favorable or neutral effects among the more knowledgeable, while we found both favorable and unfavorable effects among the less knowledgeable. The implications for news effects research are discussed.

A conceptual model of the citizen stream stewardship decision process in an urbanising Midwestern United States watershed

We present a conceptual model depicting how citizens make decisions to promote stream health. The model, based on a combination of local expert opinion and substantive literature, serves as a foundation for assessing citizen knowledge gaps and decision influences, with the ultimate goal of designing more informed communication efforts. The model indicates that decisions are directly influenced by the recognition of a threat and need to act, as well as the legal requirement to act regardless of personal concern. The recognition of a threat is dependent on understanding the ecosystem and the threats and impacts to stream health, as well as a variety of individual differences and socio-cultural factors that motivate individuals to better understand the risk.

Learning for STEM Literacy: STEM Literacy for Learning

We are in the STEM generation whose comprehensive purpose is to resolve (1) societal needs for new technological and scientific advances; (2) economic needs for national security; and (3) personal needs to become a fulfilled, productive, knowledgeable citizen. STEM specifically refers to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but now has a broader meaning to include environment, economics, and medicine. Currently, there is not an agreement of the particulars in education, or in standards, by professional organizations that define STEM literacy. Most definitions do cover societal and economic needs but overlook personal needs. There is a general consensus that everyone needs to be STEM literate. But there is a difference between literacy and being literate. STEM literacy should not be viewed as a content area but as a deictic means (composed of skills, abilities, factual knowledge, procedures, concepts, and metacognitive capacities) to gain further learning. This paper gives a brief background of literacy definitions in STEM and presents a description of STEM literacy based upon (1) cognitive, (2) affective, and (3) psychomotor learning theory domains. The paper stresses the need to evolve from learning for STEM literacy to using STEM literacy for learning to satisfy our societal, economic, and personal needs.

Public attitudes toward biofuels: Effects of knowledge, political partisanship, and media use

Despite large-scale investments and government mandates to expand biofuels development and infrastructure in the United States, little is known about how the public conceives of this alternative fuel technology. This study examines public opinion of biofuels by focusing on citizen knowledge and the motivated processing of media information. Specifically, we explore the direct effects of biofuels knowledge and the moderating effect of partisanship on the relationship between media use and benefit vs. risk perceptions in the following four domains: environmental impacts, economic consequences, ethical/social implications, and political ramifications. Our results suggest that more knowledgeable respondents see fewer benefits of biofuels relative to risks, and that Democrats and Republicans are affected differently by media use when forming opinions about biofuels. Among Democrats, greater attention to political media content leads to a more favorable outlook toward the technology across several domains of interest, while among Republicans, an increase in attention to political content has the opposite effect. Possible reasons for these results, as well as implications of the findings at the intersection of politics and the life sciences, are discussed.

Acknowledging Risk, Trusting Expertise, and Coping With Uncertainty: Citizens' Deliberations on Spraying an Insect Population

The basis for this article is the growing interest in understanding how the public evaluates risk issues. The empirical case consists of an interview study of residents in an area that has experienced an outbreak of moths that has become a nuisance to humans. The study focuses on the narratives created by the residents to make sense of the situation, the risks they associated with regulatory options, and how these narratives relate to expert opinions of the problem. The analysis shows that the residents criticize specific experts and knowledge claims. This is done, however, without questioning science as such; there is still a belief among the residents that science is an institution that generally produces valid knowledge. The analysis also shows that citizen knowledge does not merely passively reflect science. Instead, citizens create meaning and construct knowledge by organizing personal experiences and knowledge claims into coherent narratives.

Public attitudes toward biofuels: Effects of knowledge, political partisanship, and media use

Despite large-scale investments and government mandates to expand biofuels development and infrastructure in the United States, little is known about how the public conceives of this alternative fuel technology. This study examines public opinion of biofuels by focusing on citizen knowledge and the motivated processing of media information. Specifically, we explore the direct effects of biofuels knowledge and the moderating effect of partisanship on the relationship between media use and benefit vs. risk perceptions in the following four domains: environmental impacts, economic consequences, ethical/social implications, and political ramifications. Our results suggest that more knowledgeable respondents see fewer benefits of biofuels relative to risks, and that Democrats and Republicans are affected differently by media use when forming opinions about biofuels. Among Democrats, greater attention to political media content leads to a more favorable outlook toward the technology across several domains of interest, while among Republicans, an increase in attention to political content has the opposite effect. Possible reasons for these results, as well as implications of the findings at the intersection of politics and the life sciences, are discussed.