Civic Engagement.pptx file about Civics education

Civic engagement, often synonymous with public participation or community involvement, refers to the various ways in which individuals contribute to the betterment of their society, engage with local or national governance, and participate in processes that influence public decisions and societal outcomes. It is not limited to voting or political activities but encompasses a wide range of actions intended to improve community well-being, address social issues, and ensure that public institutions and policies reflect the interests of citizens. Civic engagement serves as a cornerstone of healthy democratic societies by promoting active citizenship, accountability, and social equity.

This comprehensive examination of civic engagement explores its various forms, significance in modern society, benefits, challenges, and evolving nature in the 21st century.

Forms of Civic Engagement

Civic engagement can be categorized into several distinct forms, each representing different ways that individuals and groups can contribute to public life and influence social, political, and economic systems.

1. Political Participation

Political participation is one of the most direct and widely recognized forms of civic engagement. It refers to activities that enable citizens to influence government decisions and policies. While voting is the most common form of political participation, it encompasses a wide range of actions, including:

Voting: Voting in elections at local, state, or national levels is a fundamental form of civic engagement. It allows individuals to select representatives and influence policies that affect their lives.

Campaign Participation: Beyond voting, individuals may choose to engage by supporting political candidates or parties. This may involve campaigning, fundraising, canvassing, or other forms of electoral advocacy.

Lobbying and Advocacy: Citizens often engage with their elected officials through direct communication, petitioning, or lobbying for policy changes. Advocacy efforts may target specific policies, laws, or social issues, ranging from health care reform to climate action.

Running for Office: Another form of political participation is running for political office at the local, state, or national level. Individuals who take this step often seek to influence policy decisions from within the system.


2. Community Involvement

Community involvement is a vital component of civic engagement, focusing on local-level participation that enhances the social fabric and meets the needs of communities. This form of engagement includes:

Volunteering: Many individuals contribute their time and effort to causes they care about, including volunteering at schools, food banks, homeless shelters, or non-profit organizations. Volunteering not only addresses community needs but also fosters social bonds and a sense of solidarity.

Neighborhood Associations: Joining or participating in neighborhood associations enables citizens to work on local i

1. Civic Engagement

2. Civic Engagement Civic engagement refers to the ways in which citizens participate in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape the community’s future. The word civic, when connected to engagement, implies work, work that is done publicly and benefits the public, and is done in concert with others . a review of some of the key literature on the topic shows that there is a considerable range of definitions of the term . Ramaley notes, how civic engagement is defined depends on the perspective and interests of the definer.

3. Civic Engagement As Community Service Some definitions of civic engagement emphasize participation in voluntary service to one’s local community, either by an individual acting independently or as a participant in a group. For example, “Civic engagement [is] an individual’s duty to embrace the responsibilities of citizenship with the obligation to actively participate, alone or in concert with others, in volunteer service activities that strengthen the local community” (Diller, 2001, p. 21).

4. Civic Engagement As Collective Action Other definitions restrict the term to apply just to action taken collectively to improve society. For example, “Civic engagement is any activity where people come together in their role as citizens” (Diller, 2001, p. 22) and “Civic engagement may be defined as the means by which an individual, through collective action, influences the larger civil society” (Van Benshoten , 2001). Dean Robert Hollister (2002) of Tufts University prefers the term active citizenship to civic engagement, but his definition also emphasizes the importance of collaboration with others in a variety of venues: “Active citizenship is about collective action more than the behavior of individuals. It is about collaboration, about intense joint activity…pursuing community issues through work in all sectors, not just government.”

5. Civic Engagement As Political Involvement Yet other definitions limit the meaning of the term to activities that are not only collective but that are specifically political (i.e., that involve government action): “Civic engagement differs from an individual ethic of service in that it directs individual efforts toward collective action in solving problems through our political process” (Diller, 2001, p. 7). Bernie Ronan (2004), of the Center for Civic Participation, also focuses on the political and the collective dimensions of the term by referring to the historical roots of the words: The Latin word civis has found its way into two words in our language, city and citizen. Civic engagement is about rediscovering politics, the life of the polis, the city where men and women speak and act together, as citizens.

6. Cont.. A definition from the Minnesota Vital Aging Network also makes an explicit distinction between service activities and civic activities and asserts that civic engagement must include a public leadership component: Civic engagement describes citizen participation in civic affairs….Civic mission is not the same thing as service mission. Service implies doing for and civic implies doing with. Service is about meeting people’s needs. Civic is about deliberations and public work aimed at some public issue or challenge. Civic engagement involves active participation and leadership in public life.

7. Civic Engagement As Social Change David Crowley founder of Social Capital, Inc., focuses on the element of social change inherent in civic engagement: “Civic engagement describes how an active citizen participates in the life of the community in order to help shape its future. Ultimately, civic engagement has to include the dimensions of social change.”

8. Other Definitions Michael Della Carpini , who has written extensively on the topic, makes a point of asserting that the term encompasses a wide range of activities of different types: Civic engagement is individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern. Civic engagement can take many forms, from individual voluntarism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. It can include efforts to directly address an issue, work with others in a community to solve a problem, or interact with the institutions of representative democracy. Civic engagement encompasses a range of specific activities such as working in a soup kitchen, serving on a neighborhood association, writing a letter to an elected official or voting.

9. The Continuum of Civic Engagement Informal / Private Individual Action F ormal / Public collective Action Source: Adapted from Crowley

10. Cont … Metzger (2018) argued that civic engagement “encompasses the prosocial values, skills, behaviours and attitudes that orient individuals toward social and political issues and contributions to community ,  which can encapsulate all three dimensions of the more traditional definitions focused on voting, volunteering or activism. “ individual or collective actions in which people participate to improve the well- being of communities or society in general (Cho et al., 2020).

11. Dimensions And Measurement Of Civic Engagement Civic engagement is a complex multifaceted phenomenon, assuming numerous forms and ranging from donating time at a homeless shelter, raising money for charities, calling an official to report a local problem, working for a candidate or a political party, voting and boycotting or buycotting specific products/services (Adler & Goggin, 2005 ). Verba & Nie (1972), organized these behaviours into four distinct dimensions of civic engagement. voting , campaign activity (including membership of, or work for political parties and organizations, and donating money to such entities), contacting public officials and cooperative or communal activity (i.e. working with others on a community problem).

12. More recently, Teorell , Torcal and Montero (2007) developed an all embracing typology along two dimensions : the channel of expression and the mechanism of influence, demarcating five modes of participation: voting , party or campaign activity , contacting , protest activity and consumer participation (which conflates donations, boycotting, political consumption and petition-signing ). Ekman and Amna (2012) advanced the framework by Teorell , Torcal and Montero ( 2007) and identifying four types of action: formal political participation (campaign and contact activities), extra-parliamentary activism (either individual, such as petition-signing and political consumption, or collective, including participation in demonstrations, protests, riots, or building squats), social involvement (concerning attention to, or interest in, political and societal issues) and civic action (involving voluntary or charity work).

13. One of the most comprehensive and relatively simple frameworks of civic engagement analysis is the survey instrument developed by Keeter , Zukin , Andolina , & Jenkins (2002) and applied by Zukin , Keeter , Andolina , Jenkins, and Delli Carpini (2006) among others. It contains 19 items, grouped into three categories

14. Determinants Of Civic Engagement the process of civic engagement occurring on two complementary levels: the individual and the systems . Individual Level people become civically engaged as a result of factors concerning personal attributes, resources and values, as well as personal influences, coming from their parents (Kelly, 2006) or school teachers (McLellan & Youniss , 2003). demographic attributes (age, gender, ethnicity and geographic region) may influence willingness to join and participate in civic activities. For instance, it is argued older people are more likely to participate compared to younger ones (Moy, Manosevitch , Stamm , & Dunsmore , 2005).

15. Cont … Scholars also assert that the size of the community where one lives, or was raised, affects civic engagement prospects. Putnam (2000), for example, believes that social ties in smaller communities predispose their members to engage civically than those in big cities. Personal resources are also important for civic engagement, with affluent and more educated people more likely to participate in civic activities than the less educated and less well-off ( Zukin et al., 2006 ). Interestingly, occupation (particularly the type of occupation) is also an influence on the likelihood of civic engagement (Egerton, 2002 ). Individuals’ social values, political ideologies, religious beliefs and life attitudes can also play a role in determining civic engagement. Pro-social values such as altruism, trust and sociality, reflect generosity, tolerance, sympathy and cooperation, and could be expected to increase civic involvement ( Uslaner , 2003a, 2004).

16. sociality: the intensity of social connections, is also associated with higher levels of civic participation (Rojas , 2008), since it increases information about public matters (Lake & Huckfeldt , 1998) and lowers psychological and social barriers inhibiting collective forms of behaviour (Keller & Berry, 2003 ). Religiosity, defined as religious belief and dedication, also seems to have a positive impact on activities like volunteering, donating and involvement in political and community affairs (Lewis et al., 2013; Putnam & Campbell, 2010 ). System Level research indicates that social structures (families, schools, communities, and societies in which people live, work and pray) have a substantial influence on civic engagement(Warren et al., 2014).

17. The process and outcomes involved are similar to those at the individual level, with factors corroborating civic engagement at a systems level, including the presence of programs encouraging civic activities (covering service-learning in schools, or employee volunteering in businesses and corporations), or of community organizations which recruit members and mentor participants (Flanagan, 2009), with the numbers of individuals involved correlated with the availability of these “opportunity structures” within a social system (Metz & Youniss , 2005; Watts & Flanagan, 2007 ). This engagement will be sustained within social systems that have the values and norms that support and promote it. For example, communities with a strong sense of belonging, trust and solidarity between members will sustain and enhance civic involvement by providing a supportive environment and positive experiences to those who participate ( Lewis et al., 2013). Income disparities can also affect civic engagement, either directly or indirectly, through their effect on trust, since high levels of inequality engender feelings of powerlessness in the poor, erode trust and discourage civic engagement ( Uslaner & Brown, 2005; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009).

18. Civic Engagement, Citizenship And Democracy Political scientists and scholars of democracy have long argued that the extent of civic engagement (of its members) defines a truly democratic society (Putnam , 2000 ). A vibrant civic society contributes to consolidating democracy in a number of ways ( Theiss -Morse & Hibbing, 2005 ). Firstly, it instils fundamental values of a democratic political culture, including tolerance, moderation and respect for opposing viewpoints . Secondly, it stimulates political participation, increasing political efficacy and enhancing democratic awareness and aptitude .

19. Thirdly, it inculcates effectiveness in meeting political and collective challenges (e.g. organizing and motivating people, debating issues, reconciling conflicts and building coalitions) moulding future political leaders . Fourthly, it enables and empowers various groups, including traditionally excluded ones, such as racial or ethnic minorities, to assert their rights. Finally, it monitors and controls the power by the state; holding it accountable and thus protecting individuals from abuse. As such, civic engagement integrates citizens into the political system and binds society together (Paxton, 2002).