Civic Literacy Research Articles

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:Fred R. Myers, Painting Culture: The Making of an Aboriginal High ArtRebe Taylor, Unearthed: The Aboriginal Tasmanians of Kangaroo IslandDaniel Marc Segesser, Empire und Totaler Krieg: Australien 1905–1918Marilyn Lake, Faith: Faith Bandler, Gentle ActivistDavid Goldsworthy, Losing the Blanket: Australia and the End of Britain's EmpireBridget Griffen‐Foley, Party Games: Australian Politicians and the Media from War to DismissalEdited by Susan Ryan and Troy Bramston, The Hawke Government: A Critical RetrospectiveRae Wear, Johannes Bjelke‐Petersen: The Lord's PremierMarilyn Dodkin, Bob Carr: The Reluctant LeaderEdited by Michael Hogan and David Clune, The People's Choice. Electoral Politics in 20th Century New South Wales. Volume One: 1901 to 1927; Volume Two: 1930 to 1965; Volume Three: 1968 to 1999Verity Burgmann, Power, Profit and Protest: Australian Social Movements and GlobalisationMichael Goldsmith and Doug Munro, The Accidental Missionary: Tales of Elekana The State Trials 1163–1858 on CD‐ROM Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830 – 1867Robert Sloan, William Smith O'Brien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848Edited by Robert J. Young, Under Siege: Portraits of Civilian Life in France during World War IRobert Boyce and Joseph Maiolo, eds, The Origins of the Second World War: The Debate ContinuesJürgen Tampke, Czech‐German Relations and the Politics of Central Europe: From Bohemia to the EURolf Steininger, Der Mauerbau: Die Westmächte und Adenauer in der Berlinkrise 1958–1963 [The Building of the Wall: The Western Powers and Adenauer in the Berlin Crisis, 1958–1963]Edited by Larry Eugene Jones, Crossing Boundaries. The Exclusion of Minorities In Germany and the United StatesMark Sanders, Complicities: The Intellectual and ApartheidMichael E. Brown and Šumit Ganguly, eds, Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in AsiaShigeharu Tanabe and Charles F. Keyes, eds, Cultural Crisis and Social Memory: Modernity and Identity in Thailand and LaosAsa Briggs and Peter Burke, A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the InternetSophie Bessis, trans. Patrick Camiller, Western Supremacy: Triumph of an Idea?Henry Milner, Civic Literacy. How Informed Citizens Make Democracy WorkM. Anne Brown, Human Rights and the Borders of Suffering: The Promotion of Human Rights in International PoliticsJanna Thompson, Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical InjusticePhilip B. Heymann, Terrorism, Freedom and Security: Winning Without War

Civic Literacy: How Informed Citizens Make Democracy Work. By Henry Milner. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2002. 256p. $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper

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Civic Literacy and Falling Electoral Turnout: The United Kingdom 1992-1997

Aggregate cross-national analyses of political participation have reported correlations between civic literacy, political knowledge and election turnout. Enhancing civic literacy among Canadian voters, in part by encouraging greater newspaper readership in the general population, has been put forward as a strategy for combating falling turnout in national general elections. The idea is evaluated comparatively at the level of individual voters, using data from the British Election Study. Newspaper readership is related to political knowledge, but increased newspaper reading does not translate into a greater propensity to vote.

Social Capital, Civic Engagement, and Civic Literacy: Reviewing, Refining, and Defining the Concepts

Social Capital, Civic Engagement, and Civic Literacy: Reviewing, Refining, and Defining the Concepts

Social Capital, Civic Engagement, and Civic Literacy: Reviewing, Refining, and Defining the Concepts

Social Capital, Civic Engagement, and Civic Literacy: Reviewing, Refining, and Defining the Concepts

Who is Using the Web for Science and Health Information?

This analysis (1) reviews the growth of public access to computers and the Web in recent years, (2) identifies those individuals from a national sample of adults who have sought specific information from the Web, (3) identifies those individuals who have attempted to find science or health information on the Web, and (4) constructs two simple models to predict seeking scientific and health information from the Web. The analysis concludes that the growth of access to the Web is likely to continue and that slightly more than 20 percent of American adults sought health or science information from the Web in 1999. A pair of path models found that civic scientific literacy and formal education were the strongest predictors of seeking science information on the Web, and that biomedical literacy and formal education were the strongest predictors of seeking health information on the Web.

Review of Toward a Civil Society: Civic Literacy and Service Learning

Review of Toward a Civil Society: Civic Literacy and Service Learning

How Reading and Writing Literacy Narratives Affect Preservice Teachers' Understandings of Literacy, Pedagogy, and Multiculturalism

How to best prepare teachers to work with diverse learners engaged in multiple and new literacies (Luke & Elkins, 1998; The New London Group, 1996) is a critical concern to teacher educators. In the 21st century, the face of literacy and the faces in K-12 classrooms will become increasingly diverse. Luke and Elkins (1998) point out, The texts and literate practices of everyday life are changing at an unprecedented and disorienting pace. This applies across a range of contexts, in urban or rural areas, the shifting borderlands of multilingual communities, postindustrial or newly industrializing nations, traditional neighborhoods, and the virtual communities of the Internet (p. 4). Even as these changes occur, the teaching force remains homogeneous (Banks, 1991; Haberman, 1989). Melnick and Zeichner (1998) note, Demographic projections suggest that, in the coming years, students in U.S. schools will be even increasingly different in background from their teachers, making the task of teacher education one of educating largely typical candidates--White, monolingual, middle class--to teach an increasingly diverse student body composed of many poor students of color (p. 88). Faced with these challenges, teacher education programs must change substantively to successfully prepare teachers for diverse classrooms. How and in what ways such changes should occur remain open questions. In this article, we describe one set of possible answers to these questions as we examine the curriculum of a course in a newly restructured master's of education (M. Ed.) certification program at the Ohio State University. A collaboration between the course instructor and a graduate student, the study brings together the reflections of the professor who designed and taught the course--a form of teacher research (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993)--with those of a researcher reflecting as a participant observer. We bring our respective positionings as a White, female, assistant professor and a Latina, female, graduate student to bear as we explore the role of reading and writing literacy narratives in shaping preservice teachers' understandings about literacy pedagogy and multiculturalism. The Research Context The course under examination provides secondary M. Ed. certification students with an introduction to definitions of language, literacy, and culture, and to key issues underlying their fields of study--social studies, English language arts, and foreign and second language education. These issues include current understandings about language and learning, literacy, and instructional debates surrounding the teaching of language, literacy, and culture generally, and within more specific content areas. During the autumn 1997 class, we explored issues related to language in use: language and literacy in home, community, workplace, and school settings; the notion of multiple literacies; literacy and education in a democratic society; civic literacy, multicultural and global education; and critical views of learning and teaching. To contextualize the many theoretical and pedagogical issues that were explored, students wrote and shared three papers related to literacy including a personal literacy narrative in which they wrote an account of their coming into literacy or experiences with literacy. They also read a variety of literacy narratives (Eldred & Mortensen, 1992), written from multiple perspectives; they used these to frame their understandings of language, literacy, and culture more generally. Students in the course divided into self-selected reading groups and chose among book-length narratives such as Push, by Sapphire (1997); Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, by Lois-Ann Yamanaka (1997); Always Running, by Luis Rodriguez (1993); Working in the Dark, by Jimmy Santiago Baca (1994); and Rivethead, by Ben Hamper (1986). All of the students also read Keith Gilyard's (1991) self-study, Voices of the Self and shorter narratives by Richard Rodriguez (1982), Frederick Douglass (1845), Harper Lee (1960), Amy Tan (1991), Maxine Hong-Kingston (1985), and Toni Cade Bambara (1972). …

Toward a civil society: civic literacy and service learning

The Need for a Civil Society The Concept of the Civil Society and Weak and Strong Democracy Service Learning Service Learning as Volunteerism and the Neo-Conservative Theory of Civic Literacy Service Learning as Experiential Education and Consumerist Politics Service Learning as Justice Service Learning and Strong Democracy A Community-Development Approach to Service-Learning Principles and Best Practices of Campus and Community Partnership The Social Responsibilities of Higher Education References Index

Public Displays of Affection: Political Community through Critical Empathy

Reflects on the notion of community in public life. Considers the importance of developing and sustaining affective relationships in the larger public sphere, engaging in civic literacy (publicly consequential acts of citizenship) complemented and sustained by civil literacy (characterized by a willingness to listen), supported by critical empathy (establishing affective connections with other human beings).

Civic illiteracy and education: the battle for the hearts and minds of American youth

This book presents a disturbing thesis: education - often through history textbooks - promotes civic illiteracy and turns civic responsibility into patriotic conformity. Youth are taught to support a dominant-elite view of international conflicts which undermines the critical abilities that are essential for citizens in a democracy. Expanding upon the social and educational insights of dissident theorists, the author challenges the view of civic literacy put forth by such educators as William Bennett and Diane Ravitch.

Book Review: Promoting Community Renewal through Civic Literacy and Service Learning

This is an optimistic, and useful, book written at a pessimistic time. In an era when the nation faces many social problems - including alienation from the government and work, the fragmentation of the family, and an expanding materialism - this book promoting civic literacy approaches to service learning and seeks to help educators in their efforts to redefine the role of civics in contemporary society. The civic literacy approach to service learning is defined as pedagogy that combines community service and academic instruction and that focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsiblity. The editors challenge community colleges to act as catalysts for a national movement of community renewal, suggesting that they may be our best hope for finding ways to solve our social problems.

Book Review: Promoting Community Renewal through Civic Literacy and Service Learning

This is an optimistic, and useful, book written at a pessimistic time. In an era when the nation faces many social problems - including alienation from the government and work, the fragmentation of the family, and an expanding materialism - this book promoting civic literacy approaches to service learning and seeks to help educators in their efforts to redefine the role of civics in contemporary society. The civic literacy approach to service learning is defined as pedagogy that combines community service and academic instruction and that focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsiblity. The editors challenge community colleges to act as catalysts for a national movement of community renewal, suggesting that they may be our best hope for finding ways to solve our social problems.

Incorporating civic literacy into technician education: Why? how?

AbstractThis chapter focuses on issues related to a new “civic literacy” work force competency by examining some underlying social and technological changes that influenced the creation of the standard. It concludes with a description of a national‐level curriculum development and implementation project.

Sources and information: Current programming in civic literacy and community services

AbstractThis chapter presents additional educational programs related to civic literacy and community services. The importance of providing a community‐centered focus for each curriculum is also discussed.

Believingin Difference: The Ethics of Civic Literacy

<i>Believing</i>in Difference: The Ethics of Civic Literacy

Adults and Reading Disability: A New Field of Inquiry

This paper first describes the development of adult literacy pedagogy and philosophy in Australia, then reports and discusses two studies of research into reading disability for adults. The first study uses a quantitative approach with a sample of 102 asthma patients and has important implications for the assessment of adults' reading. The second study is a theory‐driven, critical case study of the stated needs for literacy of 11 adult literacy learners. These stated literacy needs are argued to be socially constructed, influenced by the external environment of more general socio‐political contexts as well as particular civic, personal and workplace literacy requirements. These needs are also influenced by the adult learners' reconstructions and memories of schooling and the views about literacy of significant others, all of which affect the adult learners' perceptions of their ‘reading failure.’ The perspectives offered by the two different studies provide understandings and insights into this new field ...

Achieving Civic Literacy through Film, Fiction, and Composition

Achieving Civic Literacy through Film, Fiction, and Composition

Achieving Civic Literacy through Film, Fiction, and Composition

Achieving Civic Literacy through Film, Fiction, and Composition

Freedom of Expression: Civic Literacy and Civic Identity

English teachers remember that recently the teaching of reading and writing was considered the official and sole responsibility of the English curriculum. Similarly, civic literacy has been regarded since the second decade of this century to be under the domain of the social-studies curriculum. The formal isolation of civics within the social studies has been as ineffective as the formal isola-