Civic Action,Historical Agency,and Grassroots Advocacy: Historical Inquiry Into Freedom Summer

Abstract

In this article, the authors discuss how to explore the agency of ordinary citizens using local institutions to combat Jim Crow segregation laws during Freedom Summer. Primary sources from Miami (OH) University website about Freedom Summer and Susan Goldman Rubin's trade book ground the inquiry. Through the series of activities discussed, middle school students utilize the steps of the Inquiry Arc in the C3 Framework to analyze primary and secondary sources about Freedom Summer to determine how ordinary citizens took civic action to address the economic, social, cultural, and political inequalities of Jim Crow segregation laws. These experiences equip students with the knowledge and skills to be change agents in their own communities.     

The Organizational Context of Faith-Based Community Organizing: Effects on Member Civic Engagement

This article explores the congregation as a conduit for civic engagement. Specifically examined are the effects of participation in congregations engaged in faith-based community organizing (FBCO). Civic engagement is examined by comparing FBCO-affiliated congregation members to non-FBCO-affiliated congregation members, local school participants, neighborhood association members, and those without such affiliations. Findings reveal that those engaged in FBCO evidence higher rates of civic engagement than members of the other groups. Implications for the field and future study are discussed.     

Civic Literacy and Social Work Education: Results From a Multi-Site Study

Given the decline in civic literacy among Americans, social work educators can no longer assume that students come prepared with the civic knowledge necessary for competent advocacy or policy practice. This article examines rates of civic knowledge among social work students at four social work education programs across the United States (U.S.). Findings indicate that although social work students score higher than the general U.S. adult population, their civic knowledge scores are still low, with nearly a third of these students falling in the failing range. Results suggest that social work students need additional content on civic knowledge.     

青少年公民教育的发展脉络、现实问题与未来方向

青少年公民教育是新时期促进国家发展,增加国家实力的基本保障。由于相关概念内涵的模糊不清、推行机制的不完善等原因,导致了我国青少年公民教育的理论体系和实施体系建设的相对滞后。直至20世纪90年代以后在国际和国内环境的双重推动下。青少年公民教育才开始有了实质性的发展和推进:同时也存在着理论体系建构滞缓、教学理念混淆、课程衔接乏力、教育内容知行脱节等现实问题。构建一个适应时代发展需求,符合青少年身心发展特征。校内外有机结合的积极有效的青少年公民教育体系成为了新时期发展青少年公民教育的重要任务。     

Civic responsibility in a risk democracy

The National Research Council advocates for what they term a risk democracy, in which risk issues require community decision-making based on dialogue. This essay focuses on the promotion of civic responsibility in a risk democracy. Award-winning public awareness campaigns are analyzed to demonstrate how community partnerships and civic responsibility can improve community resilience. First, the role of a community in an emergency is discussed; second, the current focus of the Department of Homeland Security on prevention rather than preparation as illuminated by interviews with emergency managers is critically examined; and finally, public awareness campaigns are presented to show how personal and civic responsibility can assist in emergency planning and response.     

Agency: The Internal Split of Structure

In this article I first examine the ways in which the dual terms of structure and agency are used in sociological theories. Then, relying on Lacan's notions of split-subject, the formula of sexuation, and forms of discourses, and Laclau's theory of ideological hegemony, I argue that agency in most current sociological formulations is but a posited other of the structure that dissolves if examined closely; it is similar to the Lacanian fantasmic object. To resolve the fundamental paradoxes in structure-agency theories, I reformulate structures as paradoxical, incomplete, and contingent symbolic formations that are always partial and unstable due to their inclusion and exclusion operations. Consequently, social transformational agency consists in the structural inconsistencies that open structural gaps available to social actors. As a result, agency can be recognized in two moments conceived as two symbolic gestures. From this perspective, agency as such is always a possibility qua potential and its efficacy is always retroactively recognized-actualized from within a new social structure or symbolic order.     

Civic Engagement Among Older Adults in a Rural Community

Abstract

This is a report of the second and final stage of a research project evaluating courses for community activists in Israel. We compared 286 graduates of Schools for Community Activists, of whom 198 were still active in their communities and 98 were not, with 138 activists and 131 non-active residents of the same neighbourhoods who had never participated in courses for activists. We noted no significant socio-economic or demographic differences between the graduates and the non-graduates. However, on a range of variables, we found consistent and generally significant differences between the graduate and non-graduate activists: the former reported higher levels of activism, knowledge and skills, higher community involvement and deeper community roots, and assessed more highly the prestige of community involvement. Few differences were noted on their assessment of the benefits and losses of community activity. Since the graduates and non-graduates come from similar backgrounds, we conclude that the courses made a significant contribution to the development and socialization of those activists who participated in them.     

Academic Civic Mindedness and Model Citizenship in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme

This study uses interview and survey methods to describe the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme's (DP) development of students' “academic civic mindedness” and “model citizenship” at four public schools in California. Results indicate that the DP pedagogy enables students to develop many of the skills that are necessary for civic advocacy and that the DP places a strong emphasis on students' knowledge of issues related to public policy. The DP develops students' citizenship through promoting their awareness of political and social issues and required active engagement with a local or global issue. Most IB students and teachers feel that the DP develops students' academic civic mindedness and model citizenship to a considerably greater extent than other curricular alternatives. Finally, teachers feel that the strongest limitation to their prioritization of students' citizenship development is their lack of clarity on how to frame the civic implications of what they teach.     

Gender and the Transmission of Civic Engagement: Assessing the Influences on Youth Civic Activity*

The study of civic activity has become a central focus for many social scientists over the past decade, generating considerable research and debate. Previous studies have largely overlooked the role of youth socialization into civic life, most notably in the settings of home and school. Further, differences along gender lines in civic capacity have not been given sufficient attention in past studies. This study adds to the literature by examining the potential pathways in the development of youth civic activity and potential, utilizing both gender‐neutral and gender‐specific structural equation modeling of data from the 1996 National Household Education Survey. Results indicate that involvement by parents in their child’s schooling plays a crucial, mediating role in the relationship between adult and youth civic activity. Gender differences are minimal; thus adult school involvement is crucial for transmitting civic culture from parents to both female and male youth.     

Participation in Bridging and Bonding Associations and Civic Attitudes: Evidence from Flanders

Current scientific research and recent policy initiatives reveal an intense interest in the effect of social capital on a broad range of socioeconomic outcomes both at the individual level (e.g., civic attitudes) and the societal level (e.g., democratic or economic performance). Despite persistent argumentation in this debate that voluntary associations are of crucial importance in this process, empirical research usually reveals but a weak relation between membership and democratic (or civic) attitudes. In this paper, we follow recent arguments that various types of associations may play different roles. Specifically, we empirically distinguish between bridging and bonding associations based on the socioeconomic diversity within an association. Using a dataset on association membership in Flanders, we find empirical support for the view that individuals’ values and attitudes indeed differ across members in (predominantly) bridging or bonding associations.

Building Skills for Civic Engagement: Children as Agents of Neighborhood Change

ABSTRACT

This study examines civic engagement and social development in children (N = 73) from public housing neighborhoods. Much of the research on civic engagement and social development focuses on youths and college students and the influence of participation in community service. This study addresses younger children in the process of social development and acquiring the seeds for civic engagement. Participants (X age = 9.25 years) learned to observe, photograph, and assess neighborhood strengths and challenges. They engaged in democratic processes to compile findings and present them to community members. Results indicate statistically significant changes in civic engagement and social development. Qualitative findings expand on these quantitative results. Implications for community practice and research are discussed.     

Between Market and Civic Governance Regimes: Civicness in the Governance of Social Services in Europe

The paper proposes to discuss the issue of civicness in the governance of social services by analyzing policy changes relative to the regulation and governance of social services in Europe. The empirical analysis is structured around the concept of “governance regime.” The paper shows that modernization processes within the field of social services in Europe develop along two radically different regulative conceptions reflected into two different governance regimes: market-based or competitive governance vs civic-based or partnership governance. The governance of social services in Europe appears to take place within a mix between two ideal-typical governance regimes: the market-based and partnership-based governance regimes.

The Influence of Agency Staffing on Quality of Care in Nursing Homes

ABSTRACT

Data from a large sample of nursing homes were used to examine the cross-sectional association between use of agency staff, regular staff, and quality. Agency use data came from a survey conducted in 2003 (N?=?1071 nursing homes). The agency and regular staff measures were for nurse aides, licensed practical nurses, and registered nurses. We used a single quality factor constructed from the 14 quality measures in Nursing Home Compare. More agency nurse aides resulted in a smaller increase in quality, compared to the use of an equivalent number of regular nurse aides. Agency registered nurse staff were associated with better quality factor scores, especially in the presence of high levels of regular licensed practical nurses. Our results have policy and practice implications, the most significant of which is that agency registered nurses may be beneficial in a wide variety of circumstances, whereas agency nurse aides and licensed practical nurses should be used with caution.     

Top-Down Civic Projects Are Not Grassroots Associations: How The Differences Matter in Everyday Life

Research on civic associations blurs an important distinction between the unfunded, informal, ongoing associations that theorists like de Tocqueville described versus current participatory democracy projects that are funded by the state and large nongovernmental organizations, are open to all, and are usually short-term. Based on a long-term ethnography of youth programs in the United States, this paper shows that entities like these, which participants and researchers alike often called “volunteer” or “civic” groups, operate very differently from traditional civic groups. The ethnography systematically details prevalent tensions that actors face when they try to cultivate the civic spirit in these increasingly typical organizations.

Fate and Agency in Job Loss Narratives

While sociologists have emphasized the social sources of autobiographical narratives, there has been relatively little sociological reflection on the way that autobiographers themselves make selective use of accounts of social forces and pressures to explain their actions. This paper examines the way individuals' use of social pressures as explanations of their behavior are related to the structure of autobiographical narratives as a whole. The paper draws on empirical examples from interviews with people who are unemployed. Focusing on heroic and tragic narrative structures, I argue that the overall narrative structure is shaped by a number of factors, including the events of historical experience, the rhetorical intention of the autobiographer, and the structuring effects of social location.     

Agency in advanced liberal services: grounding sociological knowledge in homeless people's accounts

This paper aims to understand how people who are homeless respond to advanced liberal social services that endeavour to promote their autonomy and responsible actions. We prioritize the experiences and positions of people who are homeless, and what agentic action means to them. Sociological literature is selective about what accounts are deemed agentic. Agency is associated with accounts that resist or subvert dominant neoliberal framings of homelessness as failure of individuals. When people experiencing homelessness or poverty themselves foreground autonomy or responsibility, sociologists treat them as cultural dopes who have internalized neoliberal discourse. Our analysis is driven by an ethnographic study in an Australian homelessness shelter. We demonstrate how people who are homeless neither outright reject nor completely embrace advanced liberal practices to influence their actions and promote autonomy. People engaged in relational reasoning. Paternalist and advanced liberal social services were both lauded and rejected for their capacities and limitations to realize a good life. We contribute to the discussion for sociology to value people's accounts and experiences, rather than broader social process explaining their accounts. From the perspectives of people who are homeless, we show that just because something appears neoliberal does not mean it should be automatically rejected.     

Effects of Photovoice: Civic Engagement Among Older Youth in Urban Communities

Youth civic engagement is critical to many community empowerment initiatives. Photovoice is a popular empowerment technique for disenfranchised groups, including youth. The technique has little published empirical support. This research assesses Photovoice as a youth mobilization project within the context of an ongoing community development initiative. It was hypothesized that Photovoice participation would (a) improve students' interest in civic engagement and (b) have greater impact on older rather than younger adolescents. Thirty-three (33) youths (15–21 years of age) completed a Survey of Youth Engagement before and after Photovoice participation. Results indicate a main effect for age, with youths 18 years of age and older scoring significantly higher than youths under 18 years of age. This study suggests that Photovoice promotes significant changes in perceived civic engagement among older youths.     

Tagging Walls and Planting Seeds: Creating Spaces for Youth Civic Action

Youth civic spaces are environments in which youth participation in civic action is fostered—the pathways, structures, and vehicles that provide opportunities for young people to engage in critical discussion, dialogue, and action. The concept of youth civic space includes the formal and informal places in which youth civic engagement can occur and how the lived experience of those places contributes to young people's development as civic actors. It extends discussions regarding the physical locations of youth civic engagement to include the activities, perceptions, and interactions within them. Drawing on archival materials from 2 multiyear projects, this article explores the role of community-based organizations in mediating youth civic action and understanding the characteristics and qualities of the organizations that facilitate youth engagement in community action and social change. We use this analysis of empirical examples to develop a conceptual framework for strengthening practice.     

Neofunctionalism and Neoinstitutionalism: Human Agency and Interest in Institutional Change

Neofunctionalism and neoinstitutionalism suffer from a macro bias that impairs recognition of human agency and interest in institutional change. A preliminary micro corrective organized around the concepts of institutional entrepreneurs and institutional projects is proposed. These concepts are elaborated to address three related problems: the content of institutional change; power, coalitions, and conflict in institutional change; and entrepreneurs use of accounts to legitimate their projects.