Civic Engagement Practices Research Articles

Leveraging brain science for impactful advocacy and policymaking: The synergistic partnership between developmental cognitive neuroscientists and a parent-led grassroots movement to drive dyslexia prevention policy and legislation

Reading proficiency is crucial for academic, vocational, and economic success and has been closely linked to health outcomes. Unfortunately, in the United States, a concerning 63% of fourth-grade children are reading below grade level, with approximately 7%–10% exhibiting a disability in word reading, developmental dyslexia. Research in developmental cognitive neuroscience indicates that individuals with dyslexia show functional and structural brain alterations in regions processing reading and reading-related information, with some of these differences emerging as early as preschool and even infancy. This suggests that some children start schooling with less optimal brain architecture for learning to read, emphasizing the need for preventative education practices. This article reviews educational policies impacting children with dyslexia and highlights a decentralized parent-led grassroots movement, Decoding Dyslexia, which centers the voices of those directly impacted by dyslexia. It utilizes civic engagement practices, advocacy and lobbying on local, federal, and social media platforms, and strong partnerships with scientists to drive systems-level change in educational practices, leading to dyslexia prevention legislation across the U.S. The ongoing partnership continues to address the profound gaps between scientific findings and policymaking to drive systems-level change for contemporary challenges in educational practices within a learning disabilities framework.

Экологические проекты инициативного бюджетирования

Ecological projects of initiative budgeting are considered in the article as a form of involving citizens in the ecological agenda. The classification of ecological projects initiated by citizens was compiled by the authors. These are projects of organizing the collection of solid waste and garbage, projects in the field of fire safety, projects to provide settlements with clean drinking water. Based on the database of the All-Russian contest of the best projects of initiative budgeting, numerical indicators on the implementation of ecological projects (number, cost, beneficiaries) were selected. The foreign experience of involving citizens in the environmental agenda – green participatory budgeting – was presented. The unique experience of involving schoolchildren and youth in climate and environmental issues in some foreign countries was described. A review of Russian initiative projects in the field of ecology was carried out. It is concluded that there is the emergence of a trend to involve citizens in the ecological agenda. Initiative budgeting projects serve as indicators of the actual requests and needs of citizens. It is also noted that it is reasonable to use the database of the All-Russian competition of initiative budgeting projects as a unique information resource about the practices of civic engagement.

Exploring the Complexities and Dilemmas of Civic Engagement Through Five Great Works of Literature

This article extends an invitation to fellow civic engagement educators and others to reflect on how an eclectic and personal selection of great works of literature raises and illuminates some of the critical questions surrounding the concept and practice of civic engagement. Through literature we can explore the implications of various ideas and perspectives, often in situations that push values and worldviews to the extreme, enabling us to imagine how today’s issues and circumstances might look if carried to their fullest extent. For each of the five works, this study offers a synopsis, relevance to today’s issues, and questions for reflection and discussion.

Digital participation: category conceptualization in foreign practice of civic engagement

The participatory model of civic participation is attracting more and more attention from researchers of modern societies. The article is devoted to the issue of determining the content and structural components of digital participation concept. The problem of the digital technologies’ effectiveness for the implementation of civic activity is considered in the context of the practice and experience of foreign organizations in the implementation of digital activism. The author conducts an informal analysis of 46 foreign websites, their content is related to the development of digital participation (government agencies, educational and charitable organizations, digital platforms). The study made it possible to build a structural model of digital participation, including the main subjects, their goals and the necessary conditions / factors of the non-digital and digital environment, as well as the personal component. This is connected with an expanded context in the interpretation of digital participation, which considers the activities of not only the subjects of civic participation itself, but also all other subjects and conditions necessary for the involvement of citizens in digital participation. It is shown that the practice-oriented understanding of digital participation is based on a number of provisions in the documents of international organizations (the United Nations, the European Union) and is based on the assessment through various international indices. The participatory interpretation allows us to conclude that civic participation is extremely positive, based on a culture of participation and consistency in the goals of various social groups and subjects.

Queering Romantic Engagement in the Postal Age: A Rhetorical Education

Queering Romantic Engagement in the Postal Age: A Rhetorical Education

Формирование гражданского патриотизма студенческой молодежи Юга России: факторы и барьеры (по материалам фокус-групп)

Introduction. The relevance of the study is determined, justified by the need for "sociological appeal" to the problem of  formation of civil patriotism of student youth. According to a number of researchers, modern students do not have sufficient opportunities and conditions for full active participation in constructive civic practices, therefore youth patriotism, its attitudes and values are not fixed in real practices of civic engagement, which hinders formation of qualities of a citizen-patriot of him/her country among young people. Methods. The empirical research was carried out using the focus group method. During focus groups, students of 1-4 training courses of the University of Economics and Management (Simferopol, Republic of Crimea), Crimean branch of the Russian State University of Justice (Simferopol), Southern Federal University (Rostov-on-Don) were chosen. Two students from each course of various (humanitarian) areas of training were selected.  Results. In the article, based on the results of a qualitative empirical sociological research, an analysis of the opinions and assessments of student youth in the South of Russia was carried out regarding the peculiarities of formation and manifestation of civil patriotism, factors hindering its formation in the region; motivation of student youth participating in civil-patriotic practices was investigated. According to students' opinion, the most important factors hindering formation of civil patriotism are incompletely balanced educational and youth state policy, unwillingness of administration of universities to create real motivation for students' civil activity and create space for their self-organization. Among the barriers, one should also note the legal illiteracy of young people, the lack of necessary information about legitimate opportunities to defend their rights and interests.

Towards (Hyper)Local Public Sphere: Comparison of Civic Engagement across the Global North

The role of hyperlocal media is of increasing relevance as traditional local journalism experiences a decline due to centralisation and consolidation. The affordances of Internet and digital technologies also enable hyperlocal initiatives to enhance civic engagement in localities and serve as a place and resource for local deliberative processes. This study examines how the aims, perceptions and practices of hyperlocal media vary in three countries of the Global North—Sweden, Finland and Russia—and what implications this has for connectedness and civic engagement in local public spheres. The context of different media systems and local political regimes help to explore possibilities and limitations of hyperlocals as agents of place-oriented civic engagement. The data includes interviews with practitioners and analysis of selected hyperlocal media. Our results indicate that hyperlocal media practitioners in all three countries aim to provide local people and communities with a voice, and to enhance resident engagement in local life. We reveal three civic roles of hyperlocal media: (i) information provider, (ii) community builder, and (iii) civic mediator. Practices of civic engagement used by hyperlocal media range from relying on civic journalism to fostering civic debates and can be classified in two main categories: civic information and civic debate and interaction. The perceptions and practices of these hyperlocal media are, to some extent, similar because of comparable changes and challenges regarding the local media and public spheres. At the same time, the perceptions of civic roles vary, reflecting both the developments and differences in the countries’ media spheres and political regimes. This research raises a critical question about hyperlocal practitioners’ understanding of their own roles and aims, and in addition, how differences in media cultures and local regimes affect their performance as agents of local public spheres.

Diaspora citizenship in practice: identity, belonging and transnational civic activism amongst Zimbabweans in the UK

ABSTRACT This article develops the notion of diaspora citizenship to analyse domains of transnational action by Zimbabwean migrants in the UK by focussing on their political and civic practices. I argue that diaspora citizenship is enmeshed with a sense of belonging and active practices of civic engagement in both host and homeland. A transnational lens allows us to look at how diasporic citizenship can provide a banner of mobilisation, not just for undocumented or irregular migrants in relation to rights in countries of settlement, but also for a range of diasporic activists whose formal citizenship is not fully recognised in countries of origin. Diaspora citizenship therefore becomes a recognisable sphere of practice in both the hostland and homeland. The article draws on interviews conducted in the UK and Zimbabwe and follows a multi-sited methodology that entailed tracing and assessing UK-based diaspora groups’ transnational networks and activities in Zimbabwe. The article therefore contributes to broader theoretical debates about citizenship and diaspora by exploring the potential utility of the concept of diaspora citizenship.

Domestication of Difference: Practices of Civic Engagement among Middle Eastern Christians in Denmark

This article employs Hage’s concept of “domestication” as a lens for understanding how various forms of civic engagement among Coptic, Assyrian, and Chaldean Christian migrant communities in Denmark reproduce and contest a Danish model of citizenship, a particular construction of both the national subject and its Others. While churches are a primary place for civic engagement among Middle Eastern Christians as an ethnoreligious group, internally in the communities three modalities of civic engagement—serving, committing, and consuming—are practiced. Each produces different manifestations of citizenship because they engage with the local, national, and transnational differently. Christians of Middle Eastern origin are not publicly visible as political or activist groups as they, along with other immigrant groups, are expected to immerse themselves into the Danish model where ethnic and cultural differences are acknowledged but disregarded of their original context and its power relations.

The role of social media in youth civic engagement practices in the Eastern Cape

The increasing appropriation of social media by young people has impelled many scholars to study how social networks affect their civic participation. Understanding this has become more urgent since there are concerns over the growing indifference to civic participation among young people. The paper was conceptualised using the public sphere theory. A mixed research design was used and 331 questionnaires were distributed to gather quantitative data while six focus group discussions were conducted to gather qualitative data. The findings showed that there is a shifting notion of communities and that young people are using social media to interact and solve issues that affect them in their ‗communities‘. Young people also use social media to get news, to discuss community development issues and to help others within their social networks to address challenges they face individually or collectively. The study concludes that social networks are important tools for promoting civic engagement.

Civic engagement in the community-managed libraries in Oman

The current study aims to identify the practice of civic engagement in the community- managed libraries inOman. Community-Managed library is an act of making the library space available for community’s activities, byworking in partnership with the voluntary and community sector and other public services. In addition, it isusually involving users as volunteers in the delivery of library services and the organization of activities, thatsupports and involves the community in various levels of decision making process, work around books andengage in public dialogues and deliberations.A qualitative survey was used to identify the stakeholders’ perception towards the adoption of civic engagement,as a method to develop and sustain these libraries. Stakeholders’ suggestions to overcome the challenges,currently faced by these libraries were also identified. Triangulation method was used to gather informationfrom social media of the libraries beside the open survey. It was discovered that, the six aspects of civicparticipation are practiced in the community-managed libraries’ and seen in various activities and programs.However, the libraries founders must be motivated through appreciation and support from the government,private sector and other organizations, in order to develop their libraries and keep them sustainable. Finally, thecommunity-managed libraries could model public libraries or serve as extension in the country.Keywords: Community managed libraries, Community engagement, social capital, public libraries.

Creating Cohesive Paths to Civic Engagement: Five Approaches to Institutionalizing Civic Engagement

As colleges and universities prioritize civic engagement in the curriculum, there is a need for coherent program design and the diffusion of civic engagement practices throughout the undergraduate experience. The authors suggest that curricular mapping is a powerful catalyst for institutionalizing these practices on campus that can be undertaken with limited resources. Project Pericles launched an initiative to assess and promote the institutionalization of civic engagement and social responsibility in higher education. Analyzing the responses of 26 campuses to an inventory designed by Project Pericles, the authors identify five types of program organization that campuses may consider as they seek to strengthen their community engaged efforts: civic engagement and social responsibility (CESR) requirements, Civic Scholars programs, pathways approaches, certificates, and entrepreneurial/open-choice models. The authors also argue for sustained analysis, sharing across campuses, and ongoing support for the implementation of improvements through a process of mapping the curriculum.

Distributed, privacy-enhancing technologies in the 2017 Catalan referendum on independence: New tactics and models of participatory democracy

This paper examines new civic engagement practices unfolding during the 2017 referendum on independence in Catalonia. These practices constitute one of the first signs of some emerging trends in the use of the Internet for civic and political action: the adoption of horizontal, distributed, and privacy-enhancing technologies that rely on P2P networks and advanced cryptographic tools. In this regard, the case of the 2017 Catalan referendum, framed within conflicting political dynamics, can be considered a first-of-its kind in participatory democracy. The case also offers an opportunity to reflect on an interesting paradox that twenty-first century activism will face: the more it will rely on private-friendly, secured, and encrypted networks, the more open, inclusive, ethical, and transparent it will need to be.

Iranian Diaspora, Reality Television and Connecting to Homeland

<p><em>Befarmaeed Sham</em>, an Iranian diasporic media production adapted from the original UK reality show “Come Dine with me” features Iranian diaspora of diverse backgrounds as contestants in a cooking reality show. The success of the show has been unprecedented among audiences back home in Iran, reaching millions of households. Using discourse analysis this article examines the potential of reality TV in widening the scope of public sphere and in providing a space for participation and representation. The key practices to illustrate this are ways diaspora position themselves as subjects through discursive practices to express agency in generating, participating and sharing opinions. Casual talk and the entertaining attribute of reality TV focused on the everyday life of ordinary people, constructs a space to normalize audience engagement with what is otherwise, restrictive taboo topics embedded in themes around belonging, homeland, gender, and identity. The article concludes that the broad system of discourse used by diaspora as participants in the reality show constructs a space for representation. It can be considered as a contribution to enhancing the public sphere to not only communicate and connect with their homeland but to express opinions on broader social issues as a practice of civic engagement. This unique adaptation of reality TV is an important aspect of globalization and in using new media to mobilize diaspora in connecting to homeland.</p>

Beyond the Ballot: Immigrant Integration Through Civic Engagement and Advocacy

This conceptual article outlines the current literature on immigrant integration, immigrant civic engagement practices, opportunities to include other civic engagement activities into existing concepts of immigrant integration, and suggestions for future research and practice. The authors support a framework of civic and political integration of immigrants that goes beyond voting, and purposefully delineates categories that are commonly used to distinguish immigrants based on their eligibility for citizenship and participation in elections. Civic community organizing activities for all immigrants, regardless of citizenship status, can help build individual and community identity and empowerment as well as help mitigate stressors associated with immigrant feelings of social isolation. Implications for theory and practice on the role noncitizen immigrants play in the policy-making process and how they are received (or systematically left out) of this civic engagement process are also discussed.

Young people as global citizens: negotiation of youth civic participation in adult-managed online spaces

ABSTRACTWith the proliferation of new media technologies, online spaces for civic engagement are being used as new sites by the young people for enacting global citizenship. Some of these online civic spaces are managed by parent organizations and guide the participants towards accomplishing goals that align with the institutional policies. We use Stuart Hall’s theoretical framework to ground the two methods we used for empirical research- textual analysis of the selected online spaces and in-depth interviews with young bloggers. Our analysis shows how negotiated reading of the encoded messages on the online platforms for youth civic engagement marks a political moment of signification in which there lies a possibility of challenging the dominance of the adult centered notions of civic engagement. Shelat’s online civic culture framework [2014. “Citizens, Global Civic Engagement on Online Platforms: Women as Transcultural Citizens.” Dissertation] helped us examine how these managed platforms encode global citizenship with pre-designed participatory practices that reinforce the hegemonic definition of youth political participation. Interviews of young bloggers on two online global spaces foreground the process of negotiation with the dominant definitions and the use of decoding strategies to create scope for subjective, more local definitions, as well as practices of civic engagement and global citizenship. Though literature suggests that adult-management of online youth spaces perpetuate a gap between the adult-centric notions of participation and the youth oriented ideas of civic engagement, our study reveals that the young participants find ways of articulating their ideas and enter these spaces with plans on how to fulfill their civic goals.

The Sabar Shouchagar Project (toilets for everyone): making Nadia District the first open-defecation-free district in India

Subject area Public Sector Management. Study level/applicability MBA or postgraduate program courses in public policy and management. MBA or postgraduate program courses on social innovation, social entrepreneurship and public or collective entrepreneurship. Management development programs for public policy professionals, non-governmental organizations and social enterprises. Case overview Despite several country-wide campaigns to improve sanitation levels, India continues to be the country with the highest number of people, over 600 million, practicing open defecation. This case outlines the Sabar Shouchagar Project (Toilets for Everyone) undertaken by the District Administration of Nadia District in West Bengal that transformed the region into the first open-defecation-free district in India. The case begins with providing the context of the problem of open defecation, why it has been hard to eliminate and how undertaking a project to eliminate open-defecation-free practices has myriad institutional and economic challenges. The case then details the conceptualization and execution of the complex Sabar Shouchagar Project which involved a loose coalition of various state programs and civil society organizations. The case ends with questions on the continuity of this project beyond the tenure of the current District Magistrate and on the replicability of such an ambitious project in other parts of the country. The setting of this case, a government agency, is different than most cases and provides an opportunity for students to talk about a state agency and its interstices with civil society. This case explores how to create change through large government machinery and allows the student to explore aspects of social mobilization, social change and social innovation. If taught within a postgraduate or MBA program, the case would serve well to dispel stereotypes and biases about government bureaucracies (such as slow timelines, limited efficacy of projects and so on). Expected learning outcomes After discussion and analysis of the case, students will be able to: appreciate how administrators within a large government bureaucracy address an ambitious and complex public health issue in a developing world context. Understand the on-the-ground challenges that arise when a change agent pursues a worthwhile goal. There are difficulties such as getting resources beyond what a government office has access to, getting alignments between different key actors within the local community and forging coalitions. Understand initiatives for social transformation within a developing country context. Specifically, the case unpacks the cultural, political, economic contexts that determine how social innovations may be pursued. Understand capacity-building and change management. Evaluate efforts required to sustain social change efforts and the challenges and pathways with respect to replication of successful social change projects in other geographies. Appreciate the design of civic engagement practices in public policy implementation. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email www.support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject Code CSS: 10: Public Sector management.

Innovazione sociale e sviluppo territoriale. Quando la strada si fa comunità

This work is focused on the concept of Social Innovation (SI), defining it as a practice of alter-native territorial development. In this sense, the SI stands out in particular for the importance that gives to the local dimension as a source of shared identities. Taking the Social Street Fondazza in Bologna as a case study, this paper aims to show how SI projects activate civic engagement practices, capable of shaping a participatory citizenship on the boundaries between the private and public spheres producing new interpretive schemes able to redefine the society at the local level.

“These Maps Talk for Us:” Participatory Action Mapping as Civic Engagement Practice

Geographers have long been associated with mapping and cartography, because the visual representation of space fits neatly into the wide-ranging discipline that engages both the physical and the social worlds. Mapmaking remained in the domain of experts for centuries until the advent of new mapping technologies, which have widened the possibilities for mapmaking from experts and nonexperts alike. Simply widening participation in mapmaking does not necessarily democratize the knowledge-production process, however, as scholars have recently argued. What is required, we suggest, are critically trained geographers who take seriously both the conventions of professional cartography and the power relations embedded in and reflected in the map-making process and in maps themselves. We name participatory action mapping (PAM) as a methodology that seeks to be as effective in advancing the mapping needs of the public as it is critical in evaluating the processes through which maps are produced. PAM is a practice of civic engagement that borrows from community mapping and public participatory geographic information systems and that is deeply informed by participatory action research. We highlight the contours of PAM through a case study of our work with the Westside Atlanta Land Trust in Atlanta, Georgia.

Media Morality and Visual Icons in the Age of Social Media: Alan Kurdi and the Emergence of an Impromptu Public of Moral Spectatorship

New and social media are increasingly used to raise issues of global justice. Images and texts representing distant suffering in an emotionally charged way involve users of social media in debates about ethical standards and moral responsibility. This raises the question of how social media users react to such evidence about instances of distant suffering. How and under which conditions are users’ involvement in discourses of global justice enhancing new practices of civic engagement and redefining the boundaries of solidarity? Our point of departure is the so-called “refugee crisis” in Europe in fall 2015, which raised questions of distant spectatorship and moral responses with renewed urgency and immediacy. We consider the conditions of collective reception and interpretation of visual icons of human suffering, which became viral through social media in this period. We first situate social media reception in the framework for the analysis of moral spectatorship. We secondly explore the link between iconic images and the emergence of so-called impromptu publics of moral spectatorship. As an empirical case, we refer to the performance of reddit discussion groups in confronting the salient images of Alan Kurdi, the drowned boy from Syria found at the beach in Turkey in September 2015.