Civic Selves Research Articles

Where “Here” and “There” Intersect: The Role of Transnational Spaces in Civic Identity Development Among Educational Sojourners in the United States

Background/Context: Few studies have examined civic identity development among international individuals on educational sojourns in the United States. This study broadens our understanding of processes that facilitate meaning making of sojourn experiences among socioeconomically diverse international students from Thailand. Specifically, I focus on examining transnational spaces as platforms for social interactions, exchange of ideas, and development of individual and collective practices, and their overall impact on the civic self. Research Design: Data for this study were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with 21 Royal Thai Scholars who pursued multiyear study in the United States and then returned to their home country to contribute their knowledge and skills. Participants were at different points of their educational sojourns at the time of the data collection; 16 were enrolled in boarding schools, colleges, or universities, and five completed their studies and returned to Thailand. Conclusions: Findings suggest that transnational spaces play three roles that contribute to the development of civic self: they afford opportunities for connection with other transnational individuals to process sojourn experiences and help develop strategies to navigate them; they serve as political socialization spaces in which youth become aware of and connected to their communities; and they serve as platforms where youth develop criticality, voice their opinions, and build empathy. The study highlights the importance of creating intentional opportunities for international students that help them develop cognitive, emotional, moral, and active engagement skills, process their experiences, and facilitate the formation of their transnational civic identities.

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Handbook on Religion in China ed. by Stephan Feuchtwang

Reviewed by: Handbook on Religion in China ed. by Stephan Feuchtwang Shin-Yi Chao Stephan Feuchtwang, ed., Handbook on Religion in China. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020. vii, 472 pp. US$240 (hb), US$65 (ebook). ISBN 978-1-78643-795-2 The Handbook on Religion in China is part of the series “Handbooks of Research on Contemporary China.” It contains an introduction and nineteen articles divided into four parts: “State Policies, Civic Society and Cultural Revival,” “Revitalized and Modernizing Traditions,” “Daoism, Buddhism, Tibet, the Naxi,” and “Islam and Christianity.” The Introduction, by Stephan Feuchtwang, sets the tone: Religious landscape takes shape on secular ground. This and the following chapters discuss political conditions and socio-economic change as major impetuses in the reshaping of the current religious landscape. The rural-urban contrast runs throughout the book. While the volume’s focus is the post-Mao era, the contributors are not stingy in offering historical background. Part I provides an essential understanding of the politico-economic environments and cultural traditions for approaching the religious landscape of contemporary China. Chapter 1, “Religious Policy in China,” authored by Richard Madsen, analyzes two water-shed events in the PRC’s religious policy: the publication of Document 19 in 1982; and the establishment of Xi Jinping’s regime in 2012. The author perceptively characterizes the underlying principles of the two periods as “ambiguity” and “Sinicizing,” respectively. Chapter 2, by Robert Weller, C. Julia Huang, and Keping Wu, discusses religious philanthropy on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. It argues that activist volunteerism emphasizing good deeds could give religious groups “legitimacy, political support and room to pursue their own agenda from the state” (p. 39). The combination of “political merit-making” and “the rise of a cosmopolitan, civic self” (p. 50) led religious philanthropy to grow to such an enormous scale that it became “industrialized.” Chapter 3, by Anna Iskra, Fabian Winiger, and David A. Palmer, introduces body-mind cultivation movements from qigong 氣功 to Falun gong 法輪功, and movements for living the/attaining a good life including the Crazy English phenomenon and other self-help groups. Whether or not these movements are religious depends on the reader’s own definition of religion. Nevertheless, they are expressions of a desire to cultivate one’s “inner essence” (p. 68) to construct a new self in civic society. Chapter 4, by Sébastien Billioud, investigates the actors in the current revival of Confucianism. The reemergence of popular Confucianism in the 2000s, the author argues, began as a grassroots (minjian 民間) movement that elites (academic, business, and political) subsequently endorsed. In the 2010s, redemptive societies like Yiguandao 一貫道, which uphold Confucian ethics in their core teaching, joined the promotion campaign after losing the stigma of being “reactionary” (fandong 反動). Chapter 5, “Heritage and Religion in China” by Yujie Zhu, elaborates on the vague boundaries between religious and cultural traditions. This has led to compromise and contestation between different agents with overlapping or conflicting goals in promoting cultural/religious practices and sites. Under the Intangible Cultural Heritage program, the author argues, religious activities and celebration are rebranded as cultural heritage and marketed as tourist attractions. Entrepreneurship is thus integrated into the religious sphere. Part II is about “practices that exist outside formal religious organizations” (p. 8) and explores family (chapter 6), community (chapter 7), individual practices (chapter 8), and sectarians (chapter 9). Chapter 6, by Ellen Oxfeld, examines the transformation of rituals of death, marriage, and birth in cities and the countryside. The urban-rural gap is highlighted in death rituals. By the last decade of the twentieth century, traditional religious elements had already reemerged in rural funerals but urban funerals continue to be conducted primarily in the secular form of a memorial service (zhuidao hui 追悼會) managed by the deceased’s work unit (danwei 單位). The author argues that this contrast reflects [End Page 290] “the social distinction between the organization of urban living and the peasant community” (p. 120). The reader wonders what has become of urban funerals in the twenty-first century as danwei have largely disappeared? The discussion on marriage and birth rituals highlights the impact of improvement in general living standards, but scarcely mentions religious elements such as taboos, horoscopes...

The Effects of Service-Learning on the Civic Attitudes and Self Efficacys of Women University Students in Korea

The article's abstract is no available.

Identity tensions in dual career: the discursive construction of future selves by female Finnish judo athletes

To date, few studies have explored how changes in the practices, policies, and politics of sport and education may be implicated in how young athletes think about and plan for the future. Drawing on cultural praxis and feminist poststructuralist frameworks, this paper explores whether and how dual career (DC) policies and practices in Finland guide female judo athletes’ imaginings about their future. Discourse analysis was used to analyse interviews with three adolescent (aged 16) and three young adult (aged 20, 23, and 27) elite female judo athletes. Differences were found in the ways the athletes in the different age groups constructed their future athletic, civic and gendered selves. We argue that some female judo athletes may experience identity tensions and lower their athletic aspirations in seeking to meet the new societal expectations embedded in the DC discourse. We conclude with recommendations for future policy and practice.

Vocabularies of Citizenship: West Coast Secondary Students Describe Their Civic Subjectivities, Skills, and Classrooms

Canada’s changing geopolitical landscape will require a generation of engaged and active citizens. Citizenship education in British Columbia must negotiate conflicting narratives while opening spaces for students to develop civic skills and subjectivities. Given negative program reviews, empirical evidence for the impact of identity - especially group identifications - on behaviours and beliefs, and continued low youth political engagement, there is a great need to understand how citizenship and civic subjectivities are constructed in real school contexts in order to gain insight into how secondary civics classrooms might support students’ active political voices and development of efficacious subjectivities. This article reports preliminary results from a large mixed methods, multiple-case study project. The data reported here focuses on students (n = 64) from two purposefully sampled secondary school classrooms on Vancouver Island: a special civics program, and a regular stream Social Studies classroom in the same school. Data collection consisted of a class-wide online survey near the beginning of the course. Grounded in the larger understandings of social identity theory and rooted cosmopolitanism, qualitative data from open-ended questionnaire responses analyzed with a constant comparative coding technique explored the extent to which students construct regional, national, or global notions of citizenship. A preliminary report of quantitative items investigates the level of conflict present between levels of identification and suggests avenues for future research. Examined against previous research and the theory of rooted cosmopolitanism, this project aims to question the popular narrative of youth apathy and to describe the ways in which students characterize their civic subjectivities. In giving voice to student perspectives on their civic selves and their Civics classrooms, this study aims to contribute to more representative classrooms and pedagogies.

The conscience of a fugitive: sheldon wolin and the prospects for radical democracy

Amidst increasing and seemingly intransigent inequalities, unresponsive institutions, and illegible patterns of social change, political theorists are increasingly faced with questions about the viability of democracy in the contemporary age. One of the most prominent voices within this conversation has been that of Sheldon Wolin. Wolin has famously argued that democracy is a ‘fugitive’ experience with an inherently temporary character. Critics have pounced on this concept, rejecting it as an admission of defeat or despair that is at odds with the formation of democratic counter-power. In this article, I push back against this view of fugitive democracy. I do so by contextualizing the idea within Wolin’s broader democratic theory, and especially his idea of the ‘multiple civic self’, in order to give a more coherent form to a conception of citizenship often concealed by the attention given to the supposedly momentary nature of democracy. This all too common misreading of fugitive democracy has significant stakes, because it shapes not only how we approach Wolin’s impact as a political theorist, but also how we approach practices of democratic citizenship and how we think about political theory and political science’s relationship to those practices.

High School Teachers’ Identities: Constructing Civic Selves

Research suggests that teachers play a role in the type of citizenship education implemented in schools. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how two high school teachers understood and enacted their civic identities as a dimension of their teacher identities. Findings suggest that factors contributing to an individual’s civic identity take on a unique perspective when filtered through the development and enactment of teacher professional identity. Participants’ civic identities are discussed through the two dimensions of belonging and responsibility to the community. They ground their civic identities in the local community, encouraging their students to fit into and serve the local community. Participants supported democratic ideals including justice and diversity, but rejected an American identity that they equated with negativity, consumerism, and inhospitable to those who are unfamiliar. In-service teacher education would benefit from building on and reframing teachers’ existing community connections to incorporate participatory action research (PAR) and critical service-learning.

Empowerment and Civic Surrogacy: Community Workers' Perceptions of Their Own and Their Latino/a Students' Civic Potential

This article examines how three Nashville educational support professionals' conceptions of empowerment map onto their civic expectations for their Latino/a students and themselves. It argues that these expectations are inversely related, with students standing as surrogates for professionals' civic selves or professionals acting as civic surrogates for students. The article shows how professionals' civic identities are formed in relation to their students and the classrooms where they work—complicating models of empowerment, citizenship, and out‐of‐school settings.

Finding a Civic Voice: Latino Immigrant Youths' Experiences in High School Social Studies.

Socialization into the dominant civic and political discourse lies at the heart of social studies. As they become proficient in the discourse of home and school, Latino immigrant youth demonstrate the potential to uniquely benefit from this socialization. This qualitative study explores ten Latino immigrant young adults' perceptions of how their social studies experiences shaped their young adult civic selves. Participants internalized not only their parents' high expectations for them, but also those of their teachers, highlighting the potentially instrumental role of schools in the civic fabric of the nation. In addition, the Latino young adults felt empowered by their social studies teachers via civic expectations and academic encouragement and perceived this empowerment to have facilitated the skill development necessary for later civic leadership. In closing, we reflect on immigrant students' incorporation of the discourse of the dominant culture with that of the home to develop their own civic voices.

Bridging the Gap between Young People’s Civic Selves and Theoretical Positions on Democratic Citizenship Education

In citizenship education, tensions exist between pedagogical goals and students’ perspectives. This article investigates the discrepancies and commonalities between the theoretical positions and young people’s lived citizenship, especially concerning their conceptual and social foundations. Two theoretical positions on democratic citizenship development and one Dutch student’s sense of his civic self are compared. Our findings indicate that the theoretical positions are less suitable to detect and appreciate more subtle ways in which young people already do contribute to democracy in their everyday lives. Secondly, they indicate that democratic citizenship education needs to attend more to students’ perceptions of a need to contribute and to develop their citizenship identities. Two complementary approaches are suggested: investigating more subtle ways in which students already do contribute, and raising student’s awareness of democratic deficits.

The politics of participation: Francis Galton's Anthropometric Laboratory and the making of civic selves

AbstractHistorians have given much attention to museums and exhibitions as sites for the production and communication of knowledge in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But few studies have analysed how the activity and participation of visitors was designed and promoted at such locations. Using Francis Galton's Anthropometric Laboratory at the International Health Exhibition in London 1884 as the empirical focal point, this paper explores a new mode of involving exhibition audiences in the late nineteenth century. Its particular form of address is characterized by an ambition to transform the visitors' self-understanding by engaging them with various techniques of scientific observation and representation of social issues. By analysing the didactics of this particular project, I argue that the observational ideal of ‘mechanical objectivity’ and associated modes of representation in this instance became an integrated part of a political vision of self-observation and self-reformation. Thus the exhibit and related projects by Galton not only underpinned a theoretical lesson, but also were part of an effort to extend a complex set of practices among the general public.

The Politics of Speed: Connolly, Wolin, and the Prospects for Democratic Citizenship in an Accelerated Polity

Is there a speed limit for democracy? Do the system imperatives of late-modern economic polities necessitate a shrinking of democratic oversight and control? Are the accelerated life-experiences of citizens in late modernity fundamentally hostile to the formation of civic identities, deliberative skills, and democratic habits? In this paper I examine recent work in democratic theory on social acceleration in order to address these questions. I argue that liberal theorists such as William Scheuerman focus excessively on institutional adjustments to the democratic polity rather than on ways in which democratic participation can be nurtured in an attempt to surmount the challenges of social acceleration. At the same time, radical pluralists such as William Connolly come close to romanticizing the effects of speed while ignoring its ill consequences for democracy (and for pluralism). I end the paper with an examination of the work of Sheldon Wolin, whose understanding of democracy has led him to formulate the idea of a “multiple civic self” that is nurtured through slow-time political practices. Wolin's theory of the multiple civic self, I argue, offers us the best way to think about the challenges for democracy represented by social acceleration, especially in conversation with Connolly's emphasis on “bicameral” citizenship and Bonnie Honig's treatment of the “Slow Food” movement.

Kids Rule!: Nickelodeon and Consumer Citizenship by Sarah Banet‐Weiser

Kids Rule!: and Consumer Citizenship Sarah Banet-Weiser. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. Geraldine Laybourne, former president of kids' cable channel and oft-quoted personage in the pages of Sarah Banet-Weiser's new book, said of the early days of the network, Nickelodeon decided to do what nobody else was doing-raise a banner for kids and give them a place on television that they could call their own ... In January 1985, we relaunched as a network dedicated to empowering kids, a place where kids could take a and get a break (qtd. in Banet-Weiser 82). Kids Rule!: and Consumer Citizenship attempts to tell the story of the channel from the moment of its relaunch in 1985 to its place as a global media power and seminal cultural brand in the early years of the twentyfirst century. In so doing, Banet-Weiser considers the impact consumer citizenship has had on the way we as a society conceptualize rights, power, civic duty and engagement-and, most specifically, childhood and the position of children as citizens and consumers. Banet-Weiser's argument is that Nickelodeon, through a carefully constructed brand and deliberately honed marketing strategy, transformed itself from a green vegetable network offering pedagogy-based programming to young children, into a space, a nation, devoted to the empowerment of kids. Through this process, the network claimed a mantle for itself as the purveyor of agency for the traditionally disenfranchised youth population, while also building a global media empire. By buying into the Nick brand, kids claim participatory citizenship in a public sphere defined by consumer culture, rather than liberal civic-mindedness and action. is thus post-Habermasian, in addition to being postfeminist, postrace, postmodern; the civic self is determined by the marketplace, and cultural and national identity is about purchasing power. In such a realm, kids have just as much power, if not more, than anyone. Nickelodeon, therefore, serves as a case through which to examine the ways consumer citizenship offers a new model for agency and empowerment, particularly for children, who are often excluded from civic life. In building this case, Banet-Weiser conducted interviews with industry insiders, including former employees of Nickelodeon; additionally, she interviewed fifty children, ages eight to thirteen, all of varying ethnic backgrounds, all of the middle class. …

Genetic Testing for Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer: Responsibility and Choice

Genetic testing for hereditary breast-ovarian cancer has become an important part of clinical genetics practice. Although considerable work has focused on the psychological impact of this technology, there has been little research into the moral implications of genetic information on hereditary cancer families. In this article, the author examines moral issues related to individuals' decisions to seek or decline testing. In-depth interviews with 53 participants make up the core of the research. Analysis of participants' accounts illustrates how the decision to be tested (or not) interconnects with moral agency and aspects of self (embodied, familial-relational, and civic self). The findings form the foundation for inquiry into conceptualization of moral responsibility, autonomy, and choice. They also provide insight that might assist clinicians to understand more fully the needs and responses of those who seek genetic testing for hereditary breast-ovarian cancer.

Becoming Subjective

Kierkegaard, we are often told, gives us philosophy, if we care to call it that, that is mystical, acosmic, indifferent to world of persons, one concerned only with subjective or inward reality that does not impinge on reality and inwardness of any one but that of isolated individual. An ethics that is based on wherein inwardness and subjectivity are identical with truth is ethics then that is arbitrary, deprived of any basis within reason, robbed therefore of any claim to being connected to philosophy and central concern of philosophy, that of rationality. Martin Buber famously leads attack against Kierkegaard on basis of this understanding of him, arguing that Kierkegaard's individual is preoccupied with God-relation, in its very obscurity, to exclusion of other relations, so that God-relation becomes an exclusive one . . . excluding other relations into realm of unessential,' concern that finds equivalent expression in H. R. Niebuhr, for whom Kierkegaard's is the exclusive of hermit . . . (wherein) theme of isolated individuality is dominant.2 The criticism leveled early on by Louis Mackey expands on this theme, contending that Kierkegaardian subjectivity-the tension of inwardness within itself-far from being concrete and existential, is but abstraction vibrating in vacuum.3 So too Richard Popkin regards Kierkegaard as anti-rationalist, one whose primary concern is to leap into this ontological vacuum with irrational faith that disdains world of common sense and rules of logic and order, common ground wherein philosophy must be rooted and in which any meaningful relation to God must originate.4 Additionally, Alasdair Maclntyre points to what he sees as arbitrariness of ethics based on radical choice,5 instead of on reason, arbitrariness that leads ethics to dead-end, regarding loss of rational argumentation, of relativism. Indeed Kierkegaard gives such interpretations ample ammunition and wide target toward which such critics can direct their concerns. Thus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard, through his philosophically disposed pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, claims that ethically . . . each individual will be isolated and compelled to exist for himself,6 that the only reality that exists for existing individual is his own ethical reality.7 And indeed Kierkegaard's non-pseudonymous writings echo this theme: all this chittering and chattering about community.... The first thing religious man does is to lock his door and talk in secret,8 and, in his Attack Upon Christendom Kierkegaard's rancorous side is on display without inhibition: Christianity . . . consists in loving God, in hatred to man, in hatred of oneself, and thereby of other men, . . . strongest expression for most agonizing isolation.9 Notoriously, Climacus appears to establish philosophical underpinnings for such exaggerated expression of individuality, arguing that religiosity consists in secret inwardness,10 and that subjectivity, inwardness, is truth.11 To of this Kierkegaard himself adds note of finality on issue, expressing wish: I would like 'that single individual' to be placed on my grave.12 Maddeningly for scholars, however, Kierkegaard offers with equal, or almost equal, passion opposite view. In Either/Or II, Kierkegaard (through so-called letters of Judge William) presents with sympathy, at least apparently, defense of traditional, ethical view of a social , civic self,13 one that is part of natural order14 or a rational order of things15 in which self must develop in ways that will allow it to fulfill its potential, to become self, and not just be immediate self of aesthetic life that Kierkegaard represents in notorious seducer of first part of work. …

The art of global thinking: integrating organizational philosophies of East and West

This work aims to show how the ancient myths from the hunting societies of the West and the planting societies of the East have been transformed to today's corporate boardroom and business practices. book links the individual self from the West and the civic self from the East to emotional intelligence, leadership style and corporate performance. In doing so, the book links out two contrasting but complemetary capabilites for logic and intution, individualism and collectivism, and distinctiviness and harmony. The Art of Global Thinking draws from the mythology, philosophy, religion, and ancient writing and fuse modern research, cultural difference and business know-how to suggest an innovative approach to leadership. It looks at Eastern and Western values not as different, but rather as complementary, and shows how each serves to define and enhance the other.

The Fabric of Self: A Theory of Ethics and Emotions

illuminates our path through a cluttered conceptual territory. I think this is a straining, important contribution to our understanding of emotion and the -- Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes WorkMargolis's grasp of the complexities of selfhood in contemporary life is a key contribution of her work. She takes us on a fascinating and readable excursion in social -- John P. Hewitt, author of Dilemmas of the American SelfWays of viewing the self change when social environments change, argues Diane Rothbard Margolis in this powerful work of social theory. She analyzes six views of the self found in contemporary Western cultures and shows how each plays a critical role in society and in our everyday lives. Each image of the self is a moral construct expressing what is forbidden, allowed, and expected. Each was created at a historical moment that demanded a new assessment of fight and wrong. No moral orientation is, in absolute terms, better or worse than any other, Margolis contends; each continues to exist because it permits or demands some form of action required by contemporary society.Although the idea of the self as an individualistic exchanger -- rational, self-interested, competitive -- may dominate current discourse, especially in market economies, Margolis describes other constructs: the obligated self, the cosmic self, the reciprocating self, the called person, and the civic self. She delineates the moral ideas from which these images arise and develops a theory of emotions to explain how we live by several moral orientations simultaneously. Her perspective on moral orientations andemotions illuminates such contemporary dilemmas as why women and men may play the same social role quite differently, why women encounter the glass ceiling, and why nationalism persists despite the growth of world markets.

The Physician and the Civic Self

How does a physician serve? How should he serve? Peter Dans, MD, has written a quietly provocative article on physicians and health policy that makes a number of apt observations about physicians and the big picture (p 1451). He presents these views in the context of a brief description of the Institute of Medicine's Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellows Program (not to be confused with the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program)—a program that has been a success by all indications. Since its inception, competition for the fellowships has been keen. But what happened to the fellows themselves after leaving the program? What of their reentry? Have the physicians among them remained clinically active? If not, should they have? How should these physicians serve? How should any physician serve? For centuries the socialization process in medicine has overwhelmingly emphasized the values of philanthropy and technophilia. Historically, physicians have held

The physician and the civic self

The physician and the civic self