Civic Renewal Research Articles

Longing for a Broken Politics to Be Healed: A Book Symposium of Michael Wear’s The Spirit of Our Politics

Michael's Wear's 2024 book, The Spirit of Our Politics, inaugurates a unique and meaty symposium in the JSFSC that focuses on practical theologies of spiritual formation issues of public life. Wear's book delivers a discerning application of Dallas Willard's perspective to areas of political life. Symposium contributors include Michael Wear, Todd Hunter, Kyle David Bennet, Kaitlyn Schiess, and Chine McDonald. Guest Editor Joseph E. Gorra introduces the symposium, offers context on Wear, his book, and a call for further contributions in his Afterword. After Wear's book précis, Hunter, Bennett, and Schiess weave important themes of pneumatology, family spirituality, and ecclesiology as practitioner factors shaping the vitality of a Christian spiritual formation of public life. McDonald underscores the importance of incarnation, imagination, and invitation when leading institutions of public life. All contributors underscore how spiritual formation is central to civic renewal. Michael Wear's response integrates important themes among the papers, underscoring that Christian spiritual formation does not take place in isolation from actual contexts of public life.

Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder. Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 268 pp.

Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder. Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 268 pp.

Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public EducationLarryBlum and ZoëBurkholderUniversity of Chicago Press, 2021, Pp. 280.

Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public EducationLarryBlum and ZoëBurkholderUniversity of Chicago Press, 2021, Pp. 280.

Civil Society, Volunteerism, and Youth Citizenship in Fiji

Fiji’s multi-ethnic society is historically characterised by low levels of inter-ethnic trust and a segregated civil society, typified by low participation of youth, the poor, ethnic minorities, and less literate members of society. How does this actually existing civil society shape the social transactions, value subjectivities, norms and habits of citizenship bred through volunteering and other forms of civic engagement in these contexts? Drawing on data from a mixed method study on youth volunteering in Fiji, this paper interrogates prevailing normative assumptions on volunteerism’s role in retooling civic renewal and citizenship. Being socially situated, the outcomes of youth volunteering vary. Specifically, youth volunteering in organisations that value inclusion has midwifed progressive citizenship values; while, participation in bonding type civil society reproduces exclusionary citizenship, social disparities and patterns of discrimination and privilege. The implication is that for volunteerism to produce desired progressive citizenship values and attitudes, civic organisations transmitting such values need to be specifically focussed on progressive goals.

Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder. Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education.

Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder. <i>Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education</i>.

Community organising in higher education: activist community-engaged learning in geography

ABSTRACT This paper highlights the transformative potential of place-based community organizing as a theory and practice of progressive social change and as a critical approach to the social purpose of community engagement in Higher Education Institutions. The aim is to expose power asymmetries and civic renewal “from below” through a focus on community engaged learning, specifically community organizing on the curriculum for geography undergraduates. The empirical focus is an English university, but the issues and observations are widespread. Around the world, students are coping with disruptions following a global pandemic, austerity, and loss of trust in local democracy – participating in climate emergency and racial justice movements. This paper advances community organising and community engaged learning as a mutually co-constitutive challenge to conventional notions of the student as a passive consumer of recruitment, learning, and individualised notions of civic responsibility. Methods of community organising are based on the theory that if you want change, you need power: change ultimately traces a motivational journey from anger to agitation and action. Empirical vignettes explore the transformative role of emotionally stirring “political theatre” and direct action, while exposing tensions that arise due to the transitory status of students in place and time.

:Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal

:<i>Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal</i>

Leisure in Middletown: cultural change and social capital in an inter-war American community

ABSTRACT In both America and Great Britain, the social survey became an important tool for the documentation of leisure in the late nineteenth century. To social reformers it revealed inequalities to be addressed; to policy makers it was essential to planning and civic renewal. The Middletown survey was a social study of the city of Muncie, Indiana in 1924. As one of the earliest social surveys to be conducted by social anthropology, it remains a classic text of social science. Social anthropology dealt directly with the everyday life of the organic community and the cultural values and practices of people. It regarded leisure not as superfluous but as a vital field of both private and social life. Undertaken in the new modernity of the inter-war period, the Middletown survey presents a contemporaneous interpretation of the impact of the new technologies of the cinema, radio and automobile on established leisure patterns and of the changing nature and social functions of leisure-based clubs and associations. Anticipating recent interest in leisure and social capital, it reveals historical awareness of the importance of associational leisure activity to community cohesion and offers insights to a nascent sociology of leisure not yet widely recognized in leisure studies.

Book review: Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder, Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education

Book review: Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder, <i>Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education</i>

Book Review: &lt;em&gt;Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education&lt;/em&gt;

Book Review: &lt;em&gt;Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education&lt;/em&gt;

Redesigning Schools of Social Work Into Schools of Social Work and Social Justice: Opportunities for Civic and Organizational Renewal in a Justice Reform Environment

ABSTRACT This paper explores the re-envisioning of a school of social work into a School of Social Work and Social Justice. The thought experiment identifies how a school can meet its educational and social justice mission in response to the historic crises of 2020. An outgrowth of the aspirational strategic vision statement is the proposed strengthening of democratic learning spaces involving students and faculty members, better alignment of school curricular reform with human service workforce dynamics and social work practice needs, and an emphasis on culturally responsive leadership. The overall intention is to identify opportunities for social work schools and departments at public and private universities to advance anti-racist, community-centered innovations in social work education in an uncharted environment.

Civic Life and System Stewardship on the Job: How Can Workers in Every Industry Strengthen the Belonging and Civic Muscle Everyone Needs to Thrive?

Abstract Stewardship for well-being is an ancient and still-evolving field of practice concerned with any system that affects who thrives, struggles, or suffers. It is a distinctive way of working across boundaries to reframe how people approach routine work, organizational design, and democratic self-governance. It has been paired effectively with a set of interdependent vital conditions that are the focus of a growing consensus about what produces equitable well-being over time. This article explores how system stewardship, centered on the vital conditions, can drive civic renewal on the job in virtually every industry. We begin by discussing who can become a steward and why stewardship depends on building an inclusive sense of belonging and strong civic muscle. Next, we look at one part of the system for well-being—the American healthcare industry—to illustrate what it takes for industry insiders to step into new roles as civic-minded system stewards. Finally, we consider whether a rising cadre of system stewards could open a viable new path in the movement for well-being and justice.

Does the Civic Renewal Movement Have a Future?

AbstractA civic ideal is an ideal of deliberative self‐governance. People who participate in discussing what their own groups should do are being civic. Civic venues, institutions, and habits have waned since the mid‐1900s. In the 1990s, a movement arose to restore them, under the banner of “civic renewal.” This movement was carefully nonpartisan, often impartial about specific issues, and interested in creating alternative settings that could complement such basic political institutions as Congress and elections. As the condition of democracy has worsened in recent years, this approach looks inadequate or irrelevant. The most promising sources of civic renewal now are parties and social movements that have substantive agendas, such as racial justice, and that improve civic life as a collateral benefit.[Correction added on 27 September 2021, after first online publication: In the abstract, “mid‐1990s” has been changed to “mid‐1900s”.]

Crowdfunding cities: Social entrepreneurship, speculation and solidarity in Berlin

Situated at the intersection of urban and economic geography, this paper develops and illustrates a three-step research agenda to further critical understanding of relations between crowdfunding and cities. First, we explore how crowdfunding is enrolled in shifting programmes of urban governance that valorize entrepreneurship in North America and Europe in particular. When invoked in urban governance, crowdfunding is increasingly the ‘go to’ method for mobilizing the cash, capital and collective enthusiasm necessary for social entrepreneurship and civic renewal in cities. Second, we offer a situated, qualitative case study account of crowdfunding in Berlin. In contrast with existing research, we show how a specific urban context contributes to shaping the distinctive crowdfunding ecologies that emerge in a city. Third, we interrogate the multiplicity and diversity of crowdfunding-city relations, identifying and analyzing three distinctive ecologies that have emerged to date in Berlin. While crowdfunding is indeed enabling social entrepreneurship in particular ways in Berlin, it also contributes to capitalizing speculation in booming real-estate developments and facilitates the solidarity economies of community groups and charities.

Civic Life and System Stewardship on the Job: How Can Workers in Every Industry Strengthen the Belonging and Civic Muscle Everyone Needs to Thrive?

Abstract Stewardship for well-being is an ancient and still-evolving field of practice concerned with any system that affects who thrives, struggles, or suffers. It is a distinctive way of working across boundaries to reframe how people approach routine work, organizational design, and democratic self-governance. It has been paired effectively with a set of interdependent vital conditions that are the focus of a growing consensus about what produces equitable well-being over time. This article explores how system stewardship, centered on the vital conditions, can drive civic renewal on the job in virtually every industry. We begin by discussing who can become a steward and why stewardship depends on building an inclusive sense of belonging and strong civic muscle. Next, we look at one part of the system for well-being—the American healthcare industry—to illustrate what it takes for industry insiders to step into new roles as civic-minded system stewards. Finally, we consider whether a rising cadre of system stewards could open a viable new path in the movement for well-being and justice.

Norms and Practice of Public Sphere Deliberations in the Philippines: A Case Study of Naga City’s Public Market Reform

Abstract This paper analyzes how the local public market enterprise in the Philippines was reformed through public deliberations and benchmarked with Habermas’ model of deliberative democracy. The findings reveal that the normative model and the public market reform experience of Naga City fit well – although the model should be complemented by empirical observations such as leadership and facilitators to support the periphery and iterative procedures for a functioning deliberative democracy. In addition, the study shows that considerations of the public sphere deliberations and procedural minima led to sustainable results and civic renewal, consistent with the long-term governance approach of Naga City. Case study research design and discourse analyses were adopted. Review of transcripts, face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders, and use of secondary data were utilized in reconstructing the reform process.

Reflecting with Pierre Bourdieu: towards a reflexive outlook for practice-based studies of entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT In recent times, practice-based approaches have gained momentum as theoretical tools to understand entrepreneurship. Even if this project is far from finished, in this paper we argue that it needs its own critical assessment by zooming in on one of the major implications which comes with taking the practice turn, namely the question of reflexivity. Drawing on Bourdieu’s rich and refined conception of reflexivity, which forms an inherent part of his practice theory, we delineate the importance of incorporating this notion in how we further apply Bourdieu in practice-based entrepreneurship studies, while also opening up for a reflexive outlook of the practice turn in entrepreneurship studies. In particular, we argue that reflexivity is not so much a self-involved scholarly issue but rather a matter of attending to the social and intellectual unconscious embedded in our research and analytical tools, which can bring both epistemic and civic renewal in the ways practice-based approaches are developed in entrepreneurship studies. In the conclusion, we underline that the practice turn, without a reflexive outlook, will rather maintain the status quo of the field of entrepreneurship studies instead of realizing the promise it holds for the study of entrepreneurship.

A Chronicle of Civic Renewal: The National Civic Review in the 1990s

A Chronicle of Civic Renewal: The National Civic Review in the 1990s

Moral Destabilisation or Revivification: The Trend of Religion-Based Social Capital Following 9/11

AbstractAlthough different aspects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks have been widely studied, few researchers have attempted to understand both its religious and social aspects. In this context, considering the declining trend of social capital in the United States, whether 9/11 has become a window of opportunity for civic renewal and whether such renewal has been short-lived or long-lived become highly important to examine. To address these questions, this study examines whether the level of social capital in the American society changed from 2000 to 2006 and whether religious traditions had different effects on their members’ social capital levels following 9/11.

Games for Civic Renewal

Abstract In this article, we summarize the first civic games contest, its rules and process, and the results. We describe civics, games, and argue that there is a fruitful intersection to be had between these two fields. Finally, we introduce the winning games.