An urban elementary school in the city of Phoenix showed little evidence of using active learning even though active learning is a best practice to create engaged citizens. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether participating in a 3-week service-learning project improved civic engagement among at-risk elementary students. The theoretical foundation for this study was the constructivist learning theory, which states that students learn and create meaning by being active participants in their own learning. The research questions asked if completing a 3-week service-learning project showed a statistically significant difference in civic engagement for at-risk tutorial students at the school and whether there was a statistically significant grade level interaction effect. The Civic Responsibility Survey for K-12 Students Engaged in Service was used to gather quantitative data for this quasi-experimental design. The sample consisted of 162 students and was limited to the number of students enrolled in first through fourth grades in the 2016-2017 school year. Descriptive statistics and an analysis of covariance was conducted to determine the effect of participation in a service-learning project on reported civic engagement outcomes. There was no statistically significant difference in civic engagement after students participated in a service-learning project compared to students who did not participate. There was, however, a statistically significant difference in civic engagement scores between Grade 3 and Grade 1 and Grade 3 and Grade 4. A 3-day professional development was created for teachers as a result of this study. This may influence positive social change by creating active learning experiences for students at the school, which may lead to greater civic engagement, improved teacher-student relationships, and higher academic achievement.

Short-term service-learning experiences such as alternative breaks are increasing in popularity due to the focus on service in higher education and the institution’s responsibility to ensure students are graduating with the skills needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive, global economy and contribute to a democratic society as citizens who address societal needs. To meet this demand, colleges and universities continue to explore ways to increase civic engagement in the form of curricular and co-curricular programs. Additionally, faculty and administrators in higher education are intensely seeking a revitalization of the public purposes of higher education, which include educating for moral and civic development (Colby, 2000). One specific need identified in the research literature includes developing a better understanding of the relationship between service-learning and moral competence. There are strong indications that service-learning experiences support psychosocial development in areas such as appreciation of diversity, empathy, concern for social justice, a greater sense of personal efficacy, and problem solving (Bernacki & Jaeger, 2008; Einfeld & Collins, 2008; Marichal, 2010). While this limited research is hopeful, little to no research has been conducted to date to explore the relationship between a co-curricular service-learning experience and moral competence. An exploratory, mixed methods study was conducted with participants of a short-term service-learning experience known as a Bulls Service Break at the University of South Florida. A pre-post analysis was conducted on participants to determine if there was a relationship between moral competence and the service-learning experience through use of the Moral Competence Test. Additionally, a questionnaire was administered to participants upon completion of their service experience to explore the relationship between service-learning and Rest’s Four Component Model of Moral Behavior. The questions focused on moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral character. These data were analyzed using a combination of statistical analysis through SPSS for the quantitative research question, and through thematic coding for the qualitative questionnaire responses. Results indicated that students experienced an increase in their moral competence as evidenced pre-post comparison of C-scores. Additionally, for the research questions pertaining to Rest’s Four Component Model of Moral Behavior, relationships between moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation and moral character were confirmed via the themes generated from the qualitative data analysis. Participants experienced increased self-awareness and social awareness with relation to moral sensitivity. When exploring the data pertaining to moral judgment, participants expressed a realization of social injustice in our communities. This awareness then prompted participants to be morally motivated to combat social injustices by helping others and giving back to my community and by treating others equally and with respect. And finally, the participants’ moral character was tested when they experienced situations that made them uncomfortable during their service but they persisted toward combating social injustices and helping the communities they served. Based on the findings of the study, suggestions for future research and practical implications are offered.

Despite existing literature that demonstrates the relation between an attitude of social responsibility and activism; few studies have examined the underlying factor structure of social responsibility. The current study had two goals. The first goal was to examine the structure of a measure of social responsibility attitude for urban adolescents. The second goal was to examine the associations of social responsibility with civic and political activism. The participants were 221 adolescents from schools and youth serving organizations in metropolitan Atlanta, GA. Confirmatory factor analysis of social responsibility items revealed that a model with a single latent factor explained the data better than a two-factor model with one latent factor representing neighborhood social responsibility and the other representing global social responsibility. There were significant positive relations between social responsibility and civic activism and political activism when controlling for parental activism and peer activism. This study suggests that a social responsibility attitude may exist as a single factor amongst urban adolescents and it has added empirical support to show that higher levels of social responsibility are associated with greater depth of involvement in civic and political activism. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to examine participants&rsquo / civic engagement behavior of a non-formal training on democracy and human rights through the case of Toplum G&ouml / n&uuml / ll&uuml / leri Vakfi (TOG) Democracy and Human Rights Project. In order to achieve this, a survey was conducted to the participants who attended the trainer&rsquo / s training of TOG&rsquo / s Democracy and Human Rights Project. The entire population who completed the trainer&rsquo / s training at that time consisted of 154 TOG volunteers, and all population were aimed to be reached for data collection. The study initiated with a needs analysis study to explore what elements were needed to be evaluated in the survey with regard to TOG&rsquo / s administrative group. Next, based on those findings, literature review on civic engagement and the indicators adapted by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) a questionnaire containing both open-ended and close-ended items was developed to measure participants&rsquo / civic behaviors. The data were collected through an online survey tool, Survey Monkey, an accessable number of population (N=56) was reached and a return rate of 43.4 percent was enhanced. The results revealed that participants of trainer&rsquo / s training of TOG&rsquo / s Democracy and Human Rights Project could be regarded as active citizens who engage in civil society, participate in political actions, pay attention to current events and follow the news regularly. In addition, findings showed that there was a decrease in the frequencies in terms of participation in the civil society in time. Lastly, implications for further research on participants&rsquo / civic participation from non-formal education perspectives are highlighted.

Many municipalities are deciding how to engage their citizens through social media while, at the same time, the universe of social media applications continues to grow and evolve. As of May 2011, the government of the City of New Braunfels, Texas, is not using centralized social media to interact with its constituents. This report considers whether or not social media tools are appropriate to help the city reach three identified service goals: 1) strengthening emergency management and communications services; 2) providing the capability to serve as a direct-to-citizen news entity instead of relying on traditional media for messaging; and 3) increasing public participation and engagement. Possible options and unresolved issues associated with each goal are presented. The community demographic profile of New Braunfels, the city’s status as a small urban community, and citizen access to high-speed Internet service increases the likelihood that residents will be online and engaged with social media on a regular basis. Data regarding the ownership of mobile phones and the use of these devices to connect to the Internet, combined with growing interest in social media, supports the exploration of social media for crisis communications. Three types of social media applications (microblogs/status-sharing applications, public alert applications, and blogs) present possible options for the use of social media to support emergency communications. Existing patterns of local press coverage provide the city with the possible motivation to innovate its message delivery. Possible options that could facilitate the city’s engagement of social media for messaging include hiring a public information officer, conducting an audit of the city’s brand identity online, and examining social media applications used by the city’s market comparators, including micromedia, photo and video sharing, and blogs. While data is limited with respect to existing levels of civic engagement, establishing social media policies and metrics capable of adapting to changing technologies could provide city administrators with a reasonable perspective on the value of social media for improving public engagement and participation. / text

Youth councils are an increasingly popular tool that both government and non-governmental organizations use to inform policy and program development, to increase the participation of young people, and to improve the connection of youth to their communities and to civic life more broadly. In this thesis, the youth engagement experiences of local governments in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia are examined. Both municipalities initiated youth councils in recent years in an attempt to consult on issues affecting youth in their communities. The two communities have experienced varied degrees of success in implementing these strategies. In broad terms, youth councils operated more successfully in the smaller, more self-contained community of Amherst than in the more sprawling urban municipality of the Halifax area. The divergent experiences of these two municipalities inform a discussion about the merits of youth councils as a tool for engagement for local governments. It is concluded that while youth councils can be both effective in terms of achieving immediate objectives, success is not easily reproduced in all scenarios and depends to a large extent on the characteristics of the community itself, the level of support from adults and facilitators, and the ability of the councils to meet their objectives and thus achieve legitimacy among stakeholders, creating a positive feedback look which engenders further effectiveness.

As the civic role of higher education attracts renewed critical attention, the idea of engagement has come to the fore. Civic engagement, as espoused in many institutional missions, encompasses a diversity of goals, strategies and activities. Latterly, these have included particular approaches to teaching and learning. This research examines the process of embedding a civic engagement dimension within the higher education curriculum in Ireland. I use the term ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’as a generic term for a range of academic practices –variously referred to as ‘service learning’or ‘community based learning’–which share an explicit civic focus. Academic practice serves as the central focus with attention to pertinent aspects of the prevailing context. Using a multi-site case study conducted in the spirit of naturalistic enquiry, I examine four cases of this curriculum innovation, drawn from the university and institute of technology sectors in Ireland, with unstructured interviews and documents as the main sources of data. I interrogate the underpinning rationale for ‘pedagogy for civic engagement’–as gleaned from the literature, the policy context and the case studies –exploring implicit conceptions in relation to knowledge, curriculum, civil society, community and the purpose of higher education. The study draws its empirical data from those responsible for implementing this pedagogy –the ‘embedders’–and a range of other actors. Interviews were carried out with academic staff, project directors, educational developers, academic managers and leaders. Key actors from the national policy context and from the international field of civic engagement also participated in the study. Four orientations to civic engagement are identified, revealing the multifaceted rationale. I explore the process of operationalising the pedagogy and the factors impacting on academics’capacity and willingness to embed it. While the study does not directly examine the experience of students and community partners their role within the process, as perceived by academic staff and others, is problematised. The implications of the putative unresolved epistemology of this pedagogy are explored in light of how participants conceive of and practice it. Academics’ambivalence about the place of values in higher education emerges as a theme and the issue of agency recurs. I explore how the pedagogy may be conceived of in terms of the teaching, research and service roles of academics and consider how it may be positioned within an institution. Opportunities for alignment are identified at a number of levels from constructive alignment within the curriculum to alignment with national strategic priorities. I explore the unrealised potential of the Irish National Framework of Qualifications –specifically the ‘insight’dimension –as a means of enabling and legitimising the pedagogy, in light of the prominence afforded to the principle of subsidiarity in Irish higher education policy. The localised way in which these practices have been adopted and adapted underlines the significance of context and culture. ‘Pedagogy for civic engagement’as a concept and as a practice challenges a range of assumptions and traditional practices, raising fundamental questions regarding the role and purpose of higher education –and not just in contemporary Ireland.

Submitted by André Luiz Vieira Dias (andrelvdias@me.com) on 2018-11-23T20:12:35Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DIAS, André - Tese - versão final.pdf: 5338157 bytes, checksum: e75f634b7129e1609759ed502d34cc53 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Milena Maria Rodrigues null (milena@fclar.unesp.br) on 2018-11-23T22:47:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 dias_alv_dr_fclar.pdf: 5338157 bytes, checksum: e75f634b7129e1609759ed502d34cc53 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-23T22:47:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dias_alv_dr_fclar.pdf: 5338157 bytes, checksum: e75f634b7129e1609759ed502d34cc53 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo deste trabalho foi testar e analisar o efeito da escolaridade sobre o engajamento cívico e político dos brasileiros no período de 2000 a 2016, destacando, sobretudo, as mudanças do comportamento dos mais escolarizados – se são os mais interessados, participativos e aderentes aos valores e atitudes democráticas. A partir dos dados obtidos pelo survey Latinobarômetro, foi adotada a função explanatória, e não apenas exploratória e descritiva aplicando as técnicas de análise quantitativa, no intuito de verificar o desempenho da influência da escolaridade – isolada e controlada por outras variáveis posicionais e socioeconômicas sobre as dimensões da proficiência cognitiva, engajamento e esclarecimento democrático. A análise quantitativa recorreu à aplicação dos modelos de regressão multinomial probit e logit, além de seus efeitos marginais, adequados à explicação da probabilidade normal de ocorrência de um determinado fenômeno. Neste sentido, a hipótese verificada foi a de que, diferente do efeito ocasionado sobre a cidadania nas democracias avançadas, fatores contextuais reduziram progressivamente a capacidade preditiva da escolaridade sobre a cognição, o engajamento e a adesão à democracia no Brasil. / The objective of this study was to test and analyze the effect of schooling on the civic and political engagement of Brazilians from 2000 to 2016, highlighting, above all, the behavioral changes of the more educated - if they are the most interested, participative and adherent to values and democratic attitudes. From the data obtained by the Latinobarómetro survey, the explanatory function was adopted, not only exploratory and descriptive, applying the techniques of quantitative analysis, in order to verify the performance of the influence of schooling - isolated and controlled by other positional and socioeconomic variables on the dimensions of cognitive proficiency, engagement, and democratic enlightenment. The quantitative analysis utilized the multinomial regression models probit and logit, in addition to their marginal effects, adequate to the explanation of the normal probability of occurrence of a certain phenomenon. In this sense, the hypothesis was accepted that, unlike the effect on citizenship in advanced democracies, contextual factors progressively reduced the predictive capacity of schooling over cognition, engagement and adherence to democracy in Brazil.

This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of student attitudes toward global citizenship at the classroom level. Previous quantitative studies of civic attitudes have generally been designed for large sample sizes, and qualitative assessments are time consuming for researchers. This dissertation presents a tool utilizing Q methodology to bridge the gap between quantitative and qualitative measures of attitudes. The first phase of the study focuses on the design and validation of the research tool. The second phase of the study describes the implementation of the tool using a pre and post design to capture the shifts in attitudes that high school students have about global citizenship after completing a course in the subject. The results demonstrate that Q methodology is an effective measure for analyzing attitudes at the classroom level. Teachers and researchers can use the information from this tool to ensure that curriculum is effectively moving students toward attitudes of global competence, social responsibility, and global civic engagement.

abstract: Public participation is considered an essential process for achieving sustainable urban development. Often, however, insufficient attention is paid to the design of public participation, and processes are formulaic. Then, participation may not match the local context of the communities within which a project is conducted. As a result, participation may become co-optative or coercive, stakeholders may lose trust, and outcomes may favor special interests or be unsustainable, among other shortcomings. In this research, urban public participation is a collaborative decision-making process between residents, businesses, experts, public officials, and other stakeholders. When processes are not attuned with the local context (participant lifestyles, needs, interests, and capacities) misalignments between process and context arise around living conditions and personal circumstances, stakeholder trust, civic engagement, collaborative capacity, and sustainability literacy, among others. This dissertation asks (1) what challenges arise when the public participation process does not match the local context, (2) what are key elements of public participation processes that are aligned with the local context, (3) what are ways to design public participation that align with specific local contexts, and (4) what societal qualities and conditions are necessary for meaningful participatory processes? These questions are answered through four interrelated studies. Study 1 analyzes the current state of the problem by reviewing public participation processes and categorizing common misalignments with the local context. Study 2 envisions a future in which the problem is solved by identifying the features of well-aligned processes. Studies 3 and 4 test interventions for achieving the vision. This dissertation presents a framework for analyzing the local context in urban development projects and designing public participation processes to meet this context. This work envisions public participation processes aligned with their local context, and it presents directives for designing deliberative decision-making processes for sustainable urban development. The dissertation applies a systems perspective to the social process of public participation, and it provides empirical support for theoretical debates on public participation while creating actionable knowledge for planners and practitioners. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2015