Civic Engagement In Higher Education Research Articles

Did I Teach Them That? The Implicit Power of Democratic Education

This article explores the implications of democratic education, not as isolated classroom exercises or even well-coordinated service projects, but as a general ethos that shapes institutions and subsequently becomes the greatest teacher of democratic values. In this article, the authors reflect on the general state of civic engagement in higher education, make a case for the importance of democratic civic learning, and finally issue a challenge to institutional leaders to think seriously about the environments in which students are educated.

Developing global citizenship

This article explores an attempt to develop global citizenship through a service-learning experience that placed undergraduate students in community organizations that serve refugee populations. It begins with a discussion of the importance of civic engagement in higher education and how service learning, as a pedagogical method, can advance the goals of civic engagement and community building. It discusses how groupwork in class, with service providers, and with refugees led to increased civic awareness and transformed student dispositions toward diverse community groups.

Impacts of Sustained Institutional Participation in Service-Learning: Perspectives from faculty, staff and administrators

The movement for greater civic engagement in higher education in the United States has taken hold across the core academic missions of teaching, research and service. One manifestation of this movement has been growing participation in service-learning, a teaching method grounded in community-university partnerships in which students provide services that simultaneously address community-identified concerns and meet key learning objectives. In order to assess the benefits of long-term sustained institutional involvement in service-learning, in 2007–2008 we interviewed 23 faculty members, staff and administrators from 16 academic institutions that had participated in a national demonstration program for service-learning, which ended in 1998. We found that 15 of these institutions had sustained service-learning to some degree and 12 had integrated service-learning into the curriculum, with varying degrees of institutional support. Interview participants described five main impacts of their institutions’ sustained participation in service-learning: 1) increased community engagement and community-engaged scholarship, and increased valuation of both, among participating faculty members; 2) greater capacity for community-university partnerships among academic and community partners; 3) improved community-university relations; 4) diffusion of service-learning and/or principles of community-university partnerships to other departments and schools; and 5) recruitment of students seeking community engagement opportunities. This study provides evidence that sustained institutional participation in service-learning can foster an understanding of the scholarly value of community-engaged teaching and research among participating faculty, and increase community-engaged activities at participating academic institutions. These findings suggest that funding agencies, faculty members and academic administrators can use service-learning as a strategy to foster a culture of community engagement in higher education institutions. 
 
 Keywords
 Community-university partnerships, service-learning, community engagement, sustainability, impact, higher education

The Challenge of Developing Civic Engagement in Higher Education in England

ABSTRACT This paper explores how civic engagement as an important dimension of public engagement in higher education has been slow to develop in the UK, despite an important history dating from the ‘civic universities’ in the ninetheenth century. I specifically consider the development of ‘service learning’ as an important way in which the values and practices of democratic citizenship can be embedded in the curriculum of higher education. Finally, I examine how the decline of the ideal of ‘public service’ in the UK provides some significant barriers to the re-development of the civic university.

Book Reviews: Improving Student Retention in Higher Education: The Role of Teaching and Learning: Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices: Helping College Students: Developing Essential Support Skills for Student Affairs Practice

Book Reviews: Improving Student Retention in Higher Education: The Role of Teaching and Learning: Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices: Helping College Students: Developing Essential Support Skills for Student Affairs Practice

Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices (review)

Reviewed by: Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices Jennifer Gilbride-Brown Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices. Barbara Jacoby and Associates. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass Publishing, 2009, 265 pages, $40.00 (hardcover) Ambiguity abounds when conceptualizing the term, “civic engagement.” Higher education finds itself in a moment where parameters and definitions are needed in order to move its civic initiatives forward. Institutions are asking the question, “What do we mean by civic engagement?” The latest book from Barbara Jacoby and Associates, Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices, offers a response and provides insight into what educating students for civic engagement might entail. Jacoby (2009) argues: If civic engagement is to gain real traction in today’s higher education, it must be clearly defined, and civic learning outcomes must be established. Opportunities to learn about and practice civic engagement must be embedded throughout the curriculum and the co-curriculum. This book shows how all this can be done, and is being done, at higher education institutions around the country. (p. 2) Drawing from expertise around the country, the contributing authors in this book offer a wide range of perspectives and examples while drawing from the rich base of research upon which civic engagement work can and must rest. The intended audience is broad and ranges from entry and midlevel professionals on the forefront of civic engagement initiatives to assistant/associate deans/directors who supervise them. This book has clear implications for policymakers, foundations, and associations. Fundamentally, this is a book for anyone who is charged with enacting the civic mission of higher education and is an important resource for determining what might be accomplished. This edited book is divided into two sections. The first section provides a structure for conceptualizing civic engagement grounded in its historical context and includes an exploration of the dimensions of civic learning. The second section investigates a wide range of civic engagement initiatives, both curricular and co-curricular, happening across the country in diverse institutional contexts. The book flows like a conversation among the authors with many of the contributors referring to the important conceptual and historical mapping offered in the opening chapters. In the introductory chapter, Barbara Jacoby takes on the challenge at hand, getting one’s mind around what is civic engagement and what do we mean by “educating students for civic engagement.” In many ways, the work of civic engagement has pushed ahead with fragmented and loose understandings of what it is in the first place. She cites a review of research done by Lester and Salle (2006) that listed thirty-three recent studies on service-learning of which only three included any definition of civic engagement. Drawing heavily from the work of CIRCLE (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement) and the Coalition for Civic Engagement and Leadership at the University of Maryland-College Park (2005), Jacoby [End Page 567] defines civic engagement as: acting upon a sense of responsibility to one’s communities. This includes a wide range of activities, including developing civic sensitivity, participating in building civic society, and benefiting the common good . . . Through civic engagement, individuals-as citizens of their communities, their nations, and the world-are empowered as agents of positive social change for a more democratic world. (p. 9) She concludes with a thorough overview of leadership in this area that can easily double as a quick reference guide to the many higher education associations and initiatives working to drive civic engagement today. This opening chapter lays important groundwork and captures the current state of affairs in civic engagement across the country. The first section also contains a chapter reviewing civic engagement research over the last 10 years written by Mark Hugo Lopez and Abby Kiesa, both of whom provide leadership on research through CIRCLE. Caryn McTighe Musil of AAC&U completes this opening section by offering a creative and useful conceptualization of what we mean by “educating students for personal and social responsibility.” The second section builds from these definitions and frameworks by examining current practices that shed light on strategies and pitfalls of integrating civic engagement across an institution. Other movements in higher education such as...

Learning as a Way of Leading: Lessons from the Struggle for Social Justice (review)

the complexity of this work, the intersections with dynamics of race and class that are thinly considered but demand more intentionality, and directions for research. They finish by charging key stakeholders with tasks at hand in order to “secure the future.” There are moments in the chapters where understandings or examples are lean and complacent with popular enactments of “weak multiculturalism” (Butin, 2003) or thin versions of charity (Morton, 1995). There are also places where the review of the research is too neat and does not acknowledge the complexities of both practice and research in civic engagement, let alone the inadequate understandings of difficult contexts in university/community partnerships central to the work. Civic engagement in terms of language and focus is a contested subject and has been viewed as too political or as simply not the business of higher education. This counterview goes unaddressed in any substantive way. However, together the contributing authors offer a very comprehensive review of research and practice while also providing leadership for the directions we must head in order to educate students for the 21st century, regardless of political standpoint or controversy. Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices charts territory that is not new but has never been so comprehensively considered. For many years, Barbara Jacoby has been a catalyst in putting words and structures to quickly moving topics where consensus about definition is elusive. This edited volume on civic engagement takes the next step by moving beyond service­learning into the bigger questions around the civic purposes of higher education. What are those civic purposes? What should education for these purposes entail? Who can provide insight and leadership? Most importantly, what don’t we know or aren’t getting quite right? Barbara Jacoby and the contributing authors offer an important resource for higher education. This book is timely and much needed as institutions seek to put parameters and criteria to civic engagement for the purposes of its institutionalization and “securing the future.”

Civic Engagement in Higher Education: Concepts and Practices

Civic Engagement in Higher Education is a timely publication because it focuses higher education's attention once more on a topic that many of us have long thought as central to the mission of American colleges and universities.

Strengthening Spirituality and Civic Engagement in Higher Education

Arthur Chickering, Goddard College. Our two and four year colleges and universities are the nation’s most significant resource for creating the kind of citizenry required for helping future citizens move to more complex ways of thinking.