Civic Motivations Research Articles

Teacher Motivation Nuances: A Latent Profile Analysis of Personal Utility Value, Civic Mindedness, and Future Professional Development

This study examined motivators of preservice teachers (PSTs) for pursuing a teaching career. We used latent profile analysis to identify four profiles of PSTs based on their scores on personal utility value, civic mindedness, and intentions for future professional engagement. Using logistic regression, we identified motivational differences among PST content areas and latent profiles. We found that early childhood education students had higher motivation scores than students from other certification areas across different profiles. We discussed recommendations related to these findings for teacher education programs, especially for identity development and nurturing the civic motivations of PSTs who aspire to use their teaching to improve their communities.

“Friendship Brought Me Into it, but Commitment Bought Me Into it”: Civic Engagement Motivations Among Highly Engaged Asian American Youth

Background/Context: There is currently a dearth of research on Asian American civic engagement broadly, and the scholarship on Asian American youth is even more limited. The lack of research contributes to opacity in understanding how Asian Americans fit into the civic landscape. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study offers a window into the civic engagement experiences of a group of Asian American youth and differentiates the motivations that initiated their civic engagement from the motivations that sustained it. The research questions are: (a) How do these Asian American adolescents describe the motivations behind their civic engagement? (b) How do they make choices among different kinds of civic engagement? (c) What do they describe as the impact of their civic engagement? Research Design: Participants in this study were 14 highly engaged Asian American youth, 16 to 18 years of age, from a small city in the Northeast. I conducted semistructured interviews with the participants, examining their descriptions of civic involvement. Knowledge of youth civic engagement has tended to emanate from survey studies that count and categorize civic participation as opposed to investigating youth’s own meaning-making of their civic activities. Thus, to answer the “why” of civic participation, I took a grounded theory approach to explore youth’s own constructions of what motivated their civic involvement. Findings/Results: Participants initiated civic involvement with instrumental motivations to “look good for college” and socialize with friends, whereas continuing civic engagement was supported by a deep relational commitment to teenage colleagues in their civic endeavors, a sense of self-efficacy engendered through complex civic work, and pride in making a tangible impact on their community. Asian American youth in this study demonstrated sophisticated capabilities as civic actors and sustained their civic engagement through organizations that scaffolded the development of such capabilities. Conclusions/Recommendations: Participants’ experiences illustrate how civic engagement motivations can change. While individuals were the unit of analysis in this study, participants’ experiences point strongly to the integral role of organizations in supporting continued, rather than intermittent, civic engagement. Specifically, organizations can support youth in continuing their civic involvement in the long term by facilitating conditions for young people to build deep relationships in furtherance of common goals and appealing to identities that can be bolstered through civic participation.

Logic of an Effectuating Hyperlocal

Abstract This article examines motivations, rewards and strategies in hyperlocal news entrepreneurship. The material is an interview study with eight entrepreneurs who independently own and manage hyperlocal news sites in Sweden. The conclusion is that the means of the hyperlocal entrepreneur both motivate and create an obstacle for growth. The findings of struggling business models, self-exploitation and civic motivations correspond with previous research in different countries, but alternative perspectives are suggested drawing from theories of entrepreneurial passion and processes. Civic motivations can be viewed as part of entrepreneurial passion, and the precarious nature as a low-risk effectuation process. The effectuator explores possible outcomes of given means and builds the business by controlling the affordable loss rather than calculating the possible return. Along with the obvious difficulty in finding a profitable business model when operating in a very small market, this implies a new perspective on failure and success in hyperlocal entrepreneurship, but also underlines that any measures of support for the sector need to be easily accessible for the individual entrepreneur.

A Mediation Path to Chinese Netizens' Civic Engagement: The Effects of News Usage, Civic Motivations, Online Expression and Discussion

This study refreshes the communication mediation model by integrating impacts of individual psychological traits (civic motivations and political efficacy) with the relationships between Chinese netizens' media news uses, civic expression/discussion and civic engagement in the model. The results of an online survey (N=490) indicated that new media and conventional media have indirect effects on civic engagement through different mediators. Specifically, reading news from the newspapers has a negative impact on motivations driven by emotion, but directly spurs political efficacy, civic discussion and engagement. By contrast, watching TV news encourages civic discussion, while browsing news online increases the likelihood of participatory behaviours, driven by emotions of anger or sadness. Pressure from social networks is positively related to civic engagement. Motivations of civic duties, emotion and political efficacy are positively related to online civic expression and discussion with social networks about public affairs, both of which are strongly associated with participatory behaviours.

THE EVOLUTION OF A NORTHERN CORN MARKET: DONCASTER, 1843–1873

The English market was a physical space where production and consumption converged and the relationship between town and country was mediated. As Colin Stephen Smith argued, ‘Markets and marketing lie at the heart of English economic and social history’.1 Corn halls were economic powerhouses of the Victorian era, and as such were a physical embodiment of the corn trade. Despite the integral role of the corn market and corn halls at the heart of trade in arable areas during the nineteenth century, they remain underrepresented entities in accounts of nineteenthcentury agriculture. Yet corn halls are important portals to the history of agricultural trade and the relationship between town and country. This article examines how and why the corn market in Doncaster evolved in the mid nineteenth century. It explores responses to the growth of the corn trade, commercial and civic motivations, and perceptions of town and country. It contributes a northern perspective to the understanding of corn halls in the nineteenth century.

A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège by Catherine Saucier (review)

Reviewed by: A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège by Catherine Saucier Emily Thelen A Paradise of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liège. By Catherine Saucier. [Eastman Studies in Music.] (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. 2014. Pp. xvi, 300. $75.00. ISBN: 978-1-580-46480-2.) Medieval Liège was a special place for secular clergy. Known from the sixteenth century onward as a “Paradise of Priests,” it boasted an imposing cathedral and seven collegiate churches, in addition to myriad smaller ecclesiastical institutions. [End Page 607] With 270 canons singing in these churches as early as the mid-eleventh century, the extraordinary size and wealth of Liège’s clerical population attracted international attention. The liturgy sung by these canons has been studied in conjunction with the widely celebrated feasts of Corpus Christi and the Holy Trinity, both of which were founded in Liège. Yet the plainchant and polyphony that celebrates the city’s own clerics and saints has received comparatively little attention. In this book, Catherine Saucier examines the liturgies for three of the most prominent bishops associated with Liège—St. Theodard (d. c. 668), St. Lambert (d. c. 700), and St. Hubert (d. 727)—and shows how the city itself is celebrated through the plainchant and polyphony written and sung by the liégeois clerical community. Through a meticulous investigation of the rich hagiographic tradition that provided inspiration and textual sources for these liturgies, Saucier traces how the saintly identities of these bishops developed and how the stories of their lives were shaped—and sometimes even rewritten—to promote civic ideals and objectives. In the first two chapters, she shows how the Offices of Ss. Theodard and Lambert, both of whom were murdered for political rather than religious reasons, draw upon an idea begun in the corresponding hagiographic literature that the city was sanctified by the blood of these martyrs. Saucier argues that the chants of the liturgy were designed to validate and idealize these bishops’ martyrdoms, to make their sacrifices holy rather than political. She shows that the translations of their relics to Liège as celebrated in the liturgies were important occasions of conflating civic and saintly attributes, such as in the antiphon Laetare et lauda that she discusses throughout the book. In the central chapter, Saucier demonstrates that the Office for St. Hubert was at odds with its hagiographic sources by maintaining the appearance of the physical presence of Hubert’s relics in the city, despite the fact that his remains had been translated to Andage. As Lambert’s successor, Hubert promoted Liège as a sacred site by overseeing the translation of Lambert’s relics to the city, but the liturgy for St. Hubert ensured his continued veneration in Liège. The fourth chapter turns to polyphony and an analysis of the motet Fortis cum quevis actio by Johannes Brassart (c. 1400-55). Saucier elaborates on the clerical context of the motet (including the unusual detail of a liturgical strike) and how Brassart drew inspiration from another important episcopal founder, Bishop Notger (d. 1008). The final chapter addresses the larger importance of ritual in the sanctification of Liège by tracing the development of the feast of St Lambert’s Translation from the later Middle Ages to the early-sixteenth century. Saucier discusses five occasions on which Lambert’s relics were venerated, including three processional displays of his nude skull, that reflect varied civic motivations for calling upon the protection of the saint. The book includes convenient tables that outline the plainchant along with its textual sources for the saints’ offices as celebrated in the city’s cathedral and an appendix of sources preserving the music. The analytical musical portions are written in such a way as to be comprehensible to the wide audience likely to be interested in Saucier’s colorful narrative. Because of its broad scope, clear organization, [End Page 608] and accessible style, this rich book will be of service not only to musicologists but also to scholars of liturgy, hagiography, church history, and urban history. Emily Thelen Alamire Foundation Catholic University of Leuven Copyright...

Motivations for Civic Participation Among Diverse Youth: More Similarities than Differences

Participating in civic life is an important developmental task of adolescence and a central tenet of democracy. What motivates diverse youth in the United States to become involved in civic life? Using a mixed-method and person-centered approach, the authors (1) identified subgroups of participants based on their motivations for political and nonpolitical volunteering and (2) explored differences in civic motivations by ethnic and immigration backgrounds among Asian and Latino adolescents. Using latent class analysis, the authors identified four classes of motivation for political (n = 414) and nonpolitical volunteer (n = 1,066) activities: helping identity, instrumental, personal issue, and weak motivation. Overall, first- and second-generation Latino and Asian youth and nonimmigrants showed more similarities than differences in civic motivations. Survey and interview data revealed that youth from immigrant backgrounds were more motivated to volunteer by instrumental reasons compared to nonimmigrants. Qualitative analyses also revealed that immigrant youth from Mexican backgrounds were mobilized around issues of immigration reform whereas youth from Asian backgrounds were concerned with issues in their local communities.

Between the quality of the environment and the quality of the performances in Israeli local government

According to the current Local Authorities Act in Israel 2000, once the municipal government fails to function financially, the Ministry of the Interior should intervene to appoint a professional team to help the municipality recover from its crisis. This law contains no wording ordering the local authorities to provide any local services. In the absence of a clear demand from the central government to provide certain public goods at the local level, what motivates the heads of local authorities to provide such goods? Given that local environmental issues are mostly identified as local services, and that people's satisfaction with the quality of the local environmental services is an effective predictor for the re-election of an incumbent head in almost all Israeli municipalities, the way local authorities deal with these services constitutes a case study with which to examine their incentive for providing local services. This study seeks to explain the empirical nature of the major political motivations of the heads of local authorities for providing environmental services. The environmental and sustainability literature offers economic and civic motivations as an answer to this question. In contrast, this article suggests public choice theory as an alternative answer to this question.

What Motivates Youth Civic Involvement?

The topic of youth civic engagement is increasingly popular in social science research; however, the question of why some youth are civically involved while others are not is not well understood. This article addresses the following questions: What motivations and barriers do youth report for civic involvement? How do motivations and barriers differ across school contexts? A qualitative study using in-depth semi-structured interviews with youth ( N = 22) was used to identify four categories of motivations and two categories of barriers for civic involvement. Variation emerged in the motivations and barriers for civic involvement both within and across school contexts. Understanding civic motivations in context uncovers new insights about how to structure opportunities to better facilitate youth civic involvement.

“We Used Every Effort to be Impartial”: The Complicated Response of Newspaper Publishers to Unions

As large employers of labor and owners of businesses that conveyed information about organized labor to a wide audience, publishers were intimately connected to the labor movement during the 1930s and 1940s. Publishers such as William Randolph Hearst were condemned for controlling a press determined to fight unionism. Newspaper owners, however, were business operators, journalists, and community leaders and these broad interests led to the creation of diverse content on organized labor in the nation's newspapers. For some publishers, civic and professional motivations encouraged an effort to remain neutral or to offer balance in reporting and commentary. Other publishers expressed support for unions, if only to claim market share. Regardless of personal views on unions, many publishers showed an honest respect for the line between opinion and news. This article examines the complex response of publishers to the growth of unions in American life.

ONLINE YOUTH CIVIC ATTITUDES AND THE LIMITS OF CIVIC CONSUMERISM

This paper examines young people's civic motivations in conjunction with their expected gratifications from, and evaluations of, civic websites. Fourty-six young people took part in this qualitative study, which included individual written evaluations as well as group reviews of the websites of four civic organisations (Fairtrade Foundation, Soil Association, Friends of the Earth, The Meatrix). The key finding of the study is that young people are willing to engage with civic websites as long as a series of ‘terms and conditions’ are met that would make that engagement meaningful to them, such as a link between the issue and the individual's lifeworld and the benefits of civic action. These conditions constitute a coherent paradigm of civic consumerism, although the evidence strongly suggests that this is due to a sense of civic loneliness and widespread scepticism about the relevance of collective action. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of the emotional dimension of civic engagement, which recurred consistently in these young people's narratives. The implications and limitations of this paradigm of civic consumerism are examined, along with the ensuing challenge to the internet's democratic potential.

Pathways to Partisanship: Evidence from Russia

Newly competitive party systems provide an opportunity to observe individuals as they first acquire partisan orientations. The development of partisanship shortly after the advent of multiparty competition in Russia is investigated. Expectations from existing scholarship are grouped into potential "pathways" to partisanship: political motivation and ability, voting experience, exposure to politics, civic motivations, group pressures, and immersion in social networks. The contributions of these pathways to partisan stability, consistency, and self-identification are assessed. This study examines the origins of party identification in democracies and helps to clarify a discrepancy between theories of partisanship as a crutch for the unaware and evidence that partisans are more sophisticated than their fellow citizens.

Practical Politics and Voice and Equality

both to reconstruction for post-hoc plausibility and to inflation for social desirability, but they point out that the response patterns vary by forms of participation in ways which make it unlikely that social desirability accounts for the entire phenomenon. They also forgo describing civic motivations as expressive, probably having picked up from the philosophical literature the point that motivations deriving from duty are conceptually distinct from, even opposed to, motivations deriving from desire. In the adversarial model of democracy, the relevant normative rule is that conflicting interests should be represented in proportion to the numbers of interestbearers in the population. VSB advance both normative theory and empirical knowledge in this tradition by considering in depth for the first time the role of citizen as representative, and by demonstrating to devastating effect that both descriptively and substantively the existing participatory system in the United States results in major representational distortions.