Civic Engagement Scholarship: What We Can Learn from the Research

We have selected articles to review from PS: Political Science & Politics that in some way inform civic education designed to promote civic knowledge, skills, and engagement. Our analysis provides a basic overview of these articles so that practitioners and scholars can quickly and easily reference the research and practices reflected in these articles and use these when designing their own course curriculum and assignments. A good many of these papers provide best practices or detailed descriptions of initiatives for easy replicability. This literature review has the modest intent to survey the works described herein in order to identify useful, actionable and broadly relevant research and practices that can easily be deployed to address the crises we currently face.

Civic Knowledge, Engagement, and Attitudes Among Lower-Secondary Students in 24 Countries

The ICCS 2016 study is a continuation and extension of ICCS 2009. The study explored the enduring and the emerging challenges of educating young people in a world where contexts of democracy and civic participation had changed and continue to change. In total, ICCS 2016 is based on test and questionnaire data from more than 94,000 students enrolled in their eighth year of schooling (Grade 8 or equivalent) at more than 3,800 schools in 24 countries. These student data were augmented by contextual questionnaire data from school principals of selected schools and more than 37,000 teachers.

Public Approval, Policy Issues, and Partisanship in the American Presidency: Examining the 2019–2020 Trump Impeachment and Acquittal

ABSTRACT Although much of the United States undoubtedly was aware of the impeachment hearings and trial for President Donald Trump in 2019–2020, the extent to which information about those events influenced the public remains unknown. Building on scholarship about public opinion and democratic governance, we attempted to fill this knowledge gap through a unique survey. We asked half of our sample to answer three factual questions pertaining to Trump’s first impeachment trial. We ran a quasi-experiment on the other half, trying to influence their view of the trial by informing them of the same three facts that we asked the first group. The quasi-experiment demonstrates that support for acquittal was largely static and that partisanship strongly influences whether the public accepts the veracity and importance of political information. Consequently, civic knowledge today appears to have a limited—perhaps even nonexistent—effect on public attitudes about American politics.

Is there a Relationship Between School Factors and Students’ Citizenship Education? The Cases of Latvia and Finland Based on IEA ICCS 2016 Data

In this research, the aim was to determine teacher- and school-level factors that are associated with students’ civic knowledge, future engagement in society as a citizen, opinions about future global issues and sense of belonging to their country. For that purpose, the research took IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016) questionnaire data from Latvian and Finnish students (Latvia n = 3224, Finland n = 3173), teachers (Latvia n = 1933, Finland n = 2097) and schools (Latvia n = 137, Finland n = 174). The study used a subset of the teacher dataset that corresponds only to those teachers who teach civic and citizenship education lessons in school (Latvia n = 131, Finland n = 165). The research shows that there are some significant relationships with teacher- and school-level factors and four student factors: civic knowledge, future engagement, sense of belonging to their country and global problems (sustainability, violence and economy). The research supported by research application no. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/1/16/020.

The Ripple Effect of Civic Education Empowerment: Unravelling the Pillars of Good Citizenship

Discourse on pivotal current issues through and in education is the best approach to promote civic engagement and meaningful political participation among the youth. In this paper, the benefits of civic education empowerment from among Grade 12 students of Sablan National High School was explored. The essence of civic education empowerment has three main goals: political knowledge and understanding, democratic attitudes, and a readiness for democratic political action. Schools play an important role in catalyzing increased civic engagement; they can do this by enabling the youth to develop and practice the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours needed to participate in civic life. The ripple effect of civic education empowerment is manifested in the relevant learning experiences obtained by the participants in terms of their civic knowledge and civic skills. As to how these civic knowledge and civic skills enhance their civic dispositions and participation, it is evident that participant-respondents assimilated the necessary civic knowledge for an informed choice which reflects their civic dispositions in the formulation of their standards for suffrage. Civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions and participation constitute the core elements of an informed and active citizenship.

Social Awareness and Ideology: Self-Assessment and Socio-Civic Knowledge Competence

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt" (Russell, 1933, p. 28). One seldom hears doubt in the espousing of socio-civic, cultural, or political pronouncements. While the voices seem to always be “cocksure;” we first ask at what level is their objective knowledge and how well do they self-assess that knowledge? We explore how ideological positioning is related to self-assessment and objective knowledge. We conducted a non-comparative (absolute) quantitative study through an email survey of 330 residents of the U.S. over the age of 18 that examined objective socio-civic knowledge and self-assessed ideology and wokeness. The experimental results confirmed misestimations consistent with Dunning-Kruger Effects.

The Ripple Effect of Civic Education Empowerment: Unravelling the Pillars of Good Citizenship

Discourse on pivotal current issues through and in education is the best approach to promote civic engagement and meaningful political participation among the youth. In this paper, the benefits of civic education empowerment from among Grade 12 students of Sablan National High School was explored. The essence of civic education empowerment has three main goals: political knowledge and understanding, democratic attitudes, and a readiness for democratic political action. Schools play an important role in catalyzing increased civic engagement; they can do this by enabling the youth to develop and practice the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviours needed to participate in civic life. The ripple effect of civic education empowerment is manifested in the relevant learning experiences obtained by the participants in terms of their civic knowledge and civic skills. As to how these civic knowledge and civic skills enhance their civic dispositions and participation, it is evident that participant-respondents assimilated the necessary civic knowledge for an informed choice which reflects their civic dispositions in the formulation of their standards for suffrage. Civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions and participation constitute the core elements of an informed and active citizenship.

The Challenges before Higher Education for the Composite Growth of a Sustainable Society

A society is a large composite structure moulded by many interconnected non-autonomous entities. As the growth of the society is an inevitable continuous process, its structure and so also its demands keep on changing. This alteration, yields up many challenges to be met by the individual of a society. The sustainable growth of society, along with its diversity and disparities, needs a holistic approach to development. Therefore, there is a demand of fostering a durable human resource. The higher education besides being value addition to a person’s cognitive ability, must enhance the readiness to face any problem in life with sufficient empirical competence. The greatest challenge before higher education is to inculcate humanitarian values, civic knowledge and sensi-tivity towards other life forms and the environment in a learner; so that s/he can realise her/his obligation to the social and natural environment.

PENGEMBANGAN CIVIC KNOWLEDGE DAN LITERASI INFORMASI DI MASA PANDEMI COVID-19 MELALUI CASE METHOD PADA MAHASISWA PENDIDIKAN PANCASILA DAN KEWARGANEGARAAN

Penelitian ini bertujuan mengembangkan civic knowledge dan literasi informasi mahasiswa melalui case method. Metode pembelajaran ini dilakukan dengan memberikan tugas analisis kasus pada koran biasa maupun koran digital. Penelitian menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dan studi literatur. Teknik pengumpulan data yaitu wawancara dan penyebaran angket melalui Google Form . Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa civic knowledge dan literasi informasi dapat dikembangkan melalui case method. Mahasiswa yang sebelumnya jarang membaca, menjadi sangat tertarik terhadap case method dengan menganalisis kasus di koran sebab menambah wawasan dan pengetahuan baru. Sikap kritis mahasiswa juga berkembang ketika membaca koran dan dalam memberikan solusi terkait permasalahan bangsa dari aspek hukum, social, dan aspek kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara dari muatan Civic Knowledge dalam koran tersebut. Case method memberikan kesempatan kepada mahasiswa untuk menjawab pertanyaan bukan hanya bagaimana tetapi mengapa dan melibatkan kepercayaan untuk belajar dan melihat dari berbagai perspektif serta menemukan solusi dari masalah. case method dapat membangun kreatifitas mahasiswa untuk menemukan khasanah literasi pengetahuan dan perspektif kritis terhadap berbagai problematika dari pendidikan pancasila dan kewarganegaraan. Dari metode pembelajaran case method, pengetahuan kewarganegaraan mahasiswa bertambah, mahasiswa lebih semangat belajar dan lebih teliti dalam mendapatkan informasi. Metode pembelajaran case method dapat dijadikan metode wajib dalam pembelajaran pendidikan pancasila dan kewarganegaraan.Kata Kunci : Civic Knowledge;Case Method;Kewarganegaraan;Literasi;Pendidikan Pancasila

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CIVIC FACTORS AND THE MIDDLE PROFICIENCY LEVEL OF CIVIC KNOWLEDGE

This study explores the relationship between civic and citizenship factors and the middle proficiency level of students’ civic knowledge in the Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The study uses large scale data from the IEA’s International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2016. According to ICCS 2016, 39% of students from the three Baltic countries and only 26% of students from the Nordic countries had a middle proficiency level of civic knowledge. This middle proficiency level is the largest group in comparison to other levels. Therefore, the study aims to recognise the differences between the highest and lowest achievements in the middle proficiency level of civic knowledge and to examine the relationship between factors such as background, values, behaviour, citizenship activities and attitudes. Multivariable linear regression was used for the data analysis, creating several models. The results show that there are different factors associated with the highest and lowest achievements in the middle proficiency level. For example, the results indicate that students with a lower proficiency level participated in illegal protest activities more often and had lower critical thinking skills. Moreover, the research investigates differences inside the middle proficiency level of civic knowledge and between the lowest middle-level students and students from the lower level of civic knowledge.