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One of the stock assumptions that inhabits our understanding of the history of 19th- and early 20th-century immigration to an industrializing America is the wretchedness of the new immigrant laborers. The waves of new Americans from impoverished rural zones of emigration that swept into the nation were thought to be simple, rural people of limited skill for an advanced economy, unschooled in the norms of civic life, ignorant of democratic processes. Oscar Handlin was the original architect of this view; he saw the new ethnic groups as unsophisticated pre-moderns, and, as "peasants, they had not the background or skills to make their way in the economy of the New World." Whatever progress the new ethnic groups achieved in cultural and civic matters was attributable to learning and adapting to American influence, a process of assimilation that instilled social discipline in personal and public life and an appreciation for American democracy. This study challenges this assumption and relocates the locus of investigation overseas, to transnational sources of civic life in the pre-emigration lands of Ireland and South/Central Italy to explain the rapid rise and proliferation of ethnic voluntary associations in the late 1800s, early 1900s. The empirical universe is the Irish and Italians of Philadelphia; the time frame is 1880-1920, and the social site of investigation and analysis is the vibrant community life of ethnic voluntary associations the Irish and Italians constructed. This study also challenges a reading of the Irish associations in Philadelphia as little more than neighborhood clubs peopled by an aspiring upper strata of the Irish American community reaching for bourgeois values. This work suggests that the associations were populated by the working class, many born in Ireland, that substituted an ethic of solidarity for individual achievement values, a communal opposition to symbols of past oppression and agents of privilege. The Irish Americans of Philadelphia had cultural advantages prior to emigration, and they capitalized on this stock of common knowledge absorbed in native Ireland to transfer the norms, methods and moral codes of behavior from the Irish Friendly Society to the Irish American Beneficial Association of Philadelphia. However closely the Irish of Philadelphia followed the original transatlantic model, they ultimately molded their own style of ethnic association that elevated humanitarian communal values and constructed their civic life on a scaffolding of stable financial reasoning backed by a solid group discipline. The region of Abruzzo in South/Central Italy sent a disproportionate share of its rural people to Philadelphia in a massive chain migration that formed the Italian colony of South Philadelphia in the early 1900s. The Abruzzesse were a mountainous people defined by their rocky hilltop topography and a hard heritage derived from eking out an existence working rocky soil or shepherding; this was a mobile population cultured in the tradition of seasonal migration within Europe as the small farmers and rural laborers often spent months away from home in search of work to support their family and home. The rural proletariat of Abruzzo that eventually settled in Philadelphia also arrived with a rich civic heritage firmly intact, and the Italians capitalized on their knowledge and experience of an advanced civic culture based in local mutual aid to establish beneficial associations in Italian Philadelphia. In the process of following transatlantic models and in creating their own life, these ethnic groups constructed a collective consciousness mediated through the immediate community and educational mission of the ethnic associations. For the Irish, the association became the protective institution for a world view that defined Irish identity within the Diaspora as a community of exiles torn from cherished rural locations, a people bent on maintaining a vigilant eye on enemies such as the occupying British state in Ireland, on Irish landlordism and anti-Catholic agents in America, ever supportive of Irish nationalism. This consciousness grafted all kinds of imaginary symbols to its base, including race, a Social Darwinistic rendering of the Celtic type as superior to the Anglo Saxon, and a matrix of factors that conflated social class, nationalism, and sentimental remembrance into a hard opposition leveled at all forms of illegitimate privilege. The Italians were a mobile people of the mountains loyal to family and land, schooled in the rigors of migration, backed by the civic institutions of self-help they constructed in their agricultural towns; they were not burdened by the weight of sentimental nationalism as the Irish were in their Diaspora. Yet, during Italy's time of crisis during World War I, the Italian Americans of Philadelphia awakened national leanings and constructed a movement of national support for failing Italy. The Italian American associations of South Philadelphia came alive to sponsor financial and moral support for Italy at war, and a renewed Italian imperialism in the immediate post-war years. Thus, as the Irish and Italians drew on their old-world methods to create new civic institutions in Philadelphia, they also constructed separate ethnic identities and an active community, a vibrant energy that made industrial Philadelphia the home of the American voluntary association. / History

This thesis investigates the effect that a variety of demographic, educational, cognitive, and health-related variables have on civic engagement. Civic engagement is defined as a combination of frequency of volunteering and feelings of political efficacy. International survey data from 34 countries are used to provide a cross-national view of the predictors of civic engagement. We use canonical correlation analysis to investigate the widespread effects of predictor variables on both facets of civic engagement (volunteering and political efficacy) and the effects that are linked to only one facet. Furthermore, we use country-level socio-demographic data to link patterns of civic engagement of potentially marginalised groups to the representation those groups have at the community level and the political level. Our results highlight the importance of cognitive skills and skill building resources in supporting engaged citizens: literacy skill, numeracy skill, educational attainment, and number of books in the home are found to be strong predictors of civic engagement across all countries. The present thesis contributes to knowledge by employing a common measure of civic engagement across all countries, using an analysis method that allows and accounts for variance shared by multiple facets of civic engagement, and by investigating civic engagement across a wide variety of countries. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This thesis investigates the factors that affect how involved someone is in their community or society. This involvement is known as civic engagement, which we define as a combination of levels of volunteering and political efficacy (the belief that one can affect politics). A wide variety of potential influencing factors are considered, including literacy and numeracy level, education, health level, and immigration and language background. We use data from an international survey to investigate the effects of these variables on levels of civic engagement in 34 countries. We use a statistical method that highlights how our variables of interest influence civic engagement as a whole, and how the variables specifically influence levels of volunteering or political efficacy. By analyzing the effects of the variables across diverse countries and measures of civic engagement, we shed new light on the factors that promote civic engagement around the world.

yes / It is argued that “individuals do not automatically become free and responsible citizens but must be educated for citizenship” (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, 2003, cited in Leisha, 2012:55). Hence adults’ promotion of young people’s civic engagement is intended to educate young people to become active citizens. This assumes a deficit, or lack of caring by young people about issues in their country or community. However, young people’s sense of belonging and motivations to participate in civic activities are different from that of adults. This paper discusses research with young people involved in two participatory initiatives in Ghana, to examine their motivations for engaging in the projects. The study found that in addition to demonstrating that they are active citizens by engaging in the projects, the young people were also motivated by other self-interest reasons. There was however a marked gender difference in their reasons for participating in the projects. It was observed that the motivations given by the young people reflected gender stereotype of masculinity and femininity. The paper concludes that by understanding what motivates young people to engage in civic activities and other decision-making forums, participatory opportunities that emphasise young people’s interests and motivations could be created in order to sustain their participation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among student civic knowledge scores and several different variables each at the student, classroom/school, and national levels using the IEA CIVED study international data set collected in 1999 from 27 countries. The student level predictors included two elements of socioeconomic status (a student's parental education, their home literacy level measured by the number of books at home), student's perception of an open classroom climate, student aspiration of obtaining higher education, and other variables that were identified as relevant to the dependent variable in the literature. The classroom/school level predictors included teacher's degree in civics, in-service training, teaching confidence, and school safety in addition to the compositional variable created as the classroom/school averages by aggregating the student level variables. Then I investigated whether instructional methods focusing on the student activities the teacher employed in the classroom and an open classroom climate were associated after accounting for the above student and school level background variables. National level variables such as GNP, GINI index, democratic system, public education expenditure, and etc. as well as compositional variables obtained by aggregating the classroom/school variables were also added to the model to investigate if they were associated with students' civic knowledge scores and whether they could explain between nations variability. The study used a three-level hierarchical linear model to analyze the data, with number of students, N=56,579, number of classrooms/schools, J=3443, and number of countries, K=27. Some of the key findings was that there were significant variations of civics knowledge among nations, and significant variations of civic knowledge scores between school and within nations, no statistically significant association between teacher's practice and civics knowledge scores, however the student perception of an open classroom climate was significant at all 3 levels. These findings were interpreted in terms of policies and practices that could be implemented to improve students' civic knowledge. / Ph. D.

This thesis engages the question of the impact of religion on civic nationalism in the western European context. Civic nationalism, it suggests, is an identarian nationalist construct that is pursued by a liberal state's population through various historical linkages, myth construction, modern outlook, and propaganda. (Smith 2001) (Gellner 1997) The central question is whether civic nationalism, as a method of unifying a population, can compete with the concentrated cultural influence of an equally viable identity construction. Radical Islam is the focus point of this comparison. A powerful religious identity, radical Islam instills in its members a similar sense of unity through belief in core values and utilizes the existence of external threats to reinforce its allegiances. Through this theoretical and empirical exercise, the profound challenge of the civic nation to maintain feelings of unity without inspiring the imagination and mysticism usually inherent in nationalism is investigated. A victim of its own values, the civic nation aspires to harness the unifying force of more negative forms of nationalism without the hateful and exclusive practices usually associated with such group identities while also denying the deep theocratic roots that give nationalism its impermeable quality. The competition of these identarian constructions is empirically examined through a multi-form analysis of reactions to the July 7th, 2005 terrorist bombings of the London transportation system. / Master of Arts

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / László J. Kulcsár / In the United States, many are critical of agricultural policies and economic incentives that support large-scale food production and the dominant actors in the mainstream agrifood system. Critics point out that at the same time agribusinesses and very large-scale farmers receive support, there are those in poverty who struggle to meet their food needs. Critics question what that relationship should be between civil society and the agrifood system. A variety of activities are addressing concerns of social injustices in the system. For example, participation is increasing in civic and urban agriculture. Civic agriculture is the interrelated activities of small-scale, socially and environmentally sound practices of food production and consumption that aim to increase community sustainability. Urban agriculture is food production in and near cities. By focusing on Kansas and the Kansas City metropolitan area, this dissertation addresses the following questions: How do the relations between civil society and the U.S. agrifood system impact the level of fairness in the system? To what extent are urban agricultural activities fostering fairness in the agrifood system, including access to fresh foods, civic engagement, and fulfilling careers, while also benefiting the environmental health of the city? Survey and interview data collected by a research team on agriculture in Kansas sets the context for my examination of urban agriculture in Kansas City’s urban core. In addition to participant observations and primary and secondary data analysis, I conducted 38 semi-structured interviews with growers (27), food advocates (4), community organizers (4), and governmental employees (3). In Kansas City, many of the activities and programs in place are building community, strengthening civil society, and promoting food justice for the poor and for people of color, for example, in food deserts, which are locales where people particularly face challenges in meeting their food needs. While some participants are more focused on their immediate communities and less so on overt widespread change, others feel a part of a social movement aiming to change the agrifood system. Diverse people from various social classes and races are increasingly becoming involved in growing food and food advocacy to expand fairness in the system.

In order to understand the motivations and driving factors that encourage individuals to join the political sphere, as volunteers, the individual’s stories and background will be examined through an exploratory study without any initial hypothesis. Utilizing qualitative research methods, this study will directly look at the lived experiences of political volunteers that drive campaigns and candidates in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District. A greater understanding for both the factors that compel an individual to enter the political sphere in the first place as a volunteer as well as variables that persuade the volunteer to continually stay active will be analyzed. Results: Based off of 10 different interviews with registered voters in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, this thesis found significant differences in motivations varying from party affiliations, religious values, as well as relationships with the campaign staff.

By consciously re-crafting K-12 American public schools through aesthetic design, the United States can improve civic education. Specifically, by paying attention to how school environments affect students through each of their five senses, Americans can create learning environments that encourage the development of civic virtues necessary to support four essential criteria identified by John Dewey as foundational for an ideal democracy: individual expression, communicated experience, associated living, and consciousness of the connection between individuals, their behaviors, and their choices. By examining Dewey’s theory of ideal democracy, and the civic virtues that it requires, I delineate and analyze specific criteria by which to improve American civic education in public schools. Then I show that creating beautiful schools can meet the specified criteria and develop civic virtues in students. These virtues are necessary – although not by themselves sufficient – for healthy democratic citizenship. America today is far from an ideal democracy. Split in our beliefs, unengaged in the civic process, disconnected from fellow citizens, and often unaware of the harm caused by our lack of participation, care, and responsibility, we have a long way to go before our democracy approaches the ideal form proposed by Dewey. Far from deterring our efforts, however, these facts should motivate us to find new and improved ways to educate our young citizens during their years in public schooling. This thesis aims to convince the reader that the conscious crafting of school aesthetics can provide a unique and irreplaceable contribution to that end. / text

In this dissertation I argue for using John Dewey's scholarship in ethics, progressive education, and public discourse as a framework for teaching rhetoric for civic engagement. By "civic engagement" I mean working to discover, address, or confront issues of public importance through discourse. In the first part I establish Dewey as a point of reference for progressive revisions of curriculum in rhetoric at the undergraduate level. Using data gathered from a sample of undergraduate institutions, I argue for an increase in courses that reflect classical interests in performance of argument and critical analysis of text as essential skills for civic engagement. In the second part I describe what such revisions may look like as we consider teaching argument as a back and forth process, deliberation as a key component of rhetorical literacy, and critical analysis of literature as an aid to civic imagination. This dissertation contributes to the continuing interest in the way rhetorical education can help students develop transferable skills, attitudes, and interests that will make them effective and ethical agents in their professional and civic lives.