Civic Engagement in Changing Contexts: Challenges and Possibilities for Democracy (SpringerBriefs in Citizenship Education for the 21st Century) 9811674949, 9789811674945

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Civic Engagement-What Is It and Why Is It Important?
Historic Meanings of Civic Engagement
New Forms of Civic Engagement
A Broader Lens: Beyond the Political
Civic Engagement Under the Spotlight
Civic Engagement: The Agenda for This Book
Conclusion
References
Chapter 2: Forms of Civic Engagement and the Implications for Education and Development
Introduction
The Political and Social Binary: How Can It Be Understood What Does It Mean?
`Telos´ and `Praxis´ in Civic Engagement
Making Judgements About Civic Engagement
Citizenship Education for Civic Engagement
Citizenship Education and Forms of Civic Engagement
References
Chapter 3: Social Media and Civic Engagement: Salvation or ?
Social Media Use and What It Means
Social Media Engagement: Is It More Than `Slactivism´?
Social Media as Instrument: Civic Utility and Civic Engagement
The `Age of Disinformation´: `Echo Chambers´, `Filter Bubbles´ and Civic Engagement
Live Streaming: Bringing Protests into the Living Room
Citizenship Education and Social Media
References
Chapter 4: Civic Life in Extraordinary Times: The Case of COVID-19
Politics, the Administrative State and the Pandemic
Populism and Democracy
A Liberal Democratic Response
Anti-COVID-19 Cultures and the Restriction of Civic Space
Emergency Powers for New Emergencies
Public Health Regulations in the Administrative State
Anti-pandemic Protests: Against What and Why?
Regulations and Non-COVID Protests
Theories and Theorising the Resistance to COVID-19 Regulations
References
Chapter 5: Is Democracy `Dead´?
Is Democracy Dead? A Review of the Empirical Evidence
Freedom House, 2020
Economic Intelligence Unit
V-Dem
Illiberal Democracy: What Does It Mean and Is It the Future?
Schools and Political Regimes: Constructing Citizenship Education
References
Chapter 6: Democratic Institutions in Times of Stress: How They Support Democratic Development
Institutional and Participatory Approaches to Citizenship
Democracy´s Institutions and Why They Are Important
Conventional and Unconventional Approaches to Citizenship Participation
Teaching and Learning About Democratic Institutions
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: `Leading for Civic Learning´: Principals and Teachers Preparing Students for Civic Engagement
Civic Learning
Exploring the Link Between Leadership and Civic Learning
Development of the Concept of `Leading for Civic Learning´
Curriculum
Classrooms
Extra-curriculum Activities
Community
The Ongoing Work of `Leaders of Civic Learning´
Constraints on `Leaders of Civic Learning´
Conclusion
References

Citation preview

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN EDUC ATION CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY

Kerry J. Kennedy

Civic Engagement in Changing Contexts Challenges and Possibilities for Democracy

SpringerBriefs in Education

SpringerBriefs in Citizenship Education for the 21st Century Series Editor Kerry J Kennedy, Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

In all countries citizenship education (with a variety of different subject names) is a component of the school curriculum. Sometimes it is a school subject, sometimes a cross curriculum theme and sometimes it is focused on extra-curricular activities. Its purpose, in whatever form it takes, is to prepare students to become future citizens. This is as true in democratic societies as it is in authoritarian societies. Visions for the role of citizens in different societies will differ but irrespective of the vision, the role of citizenship education is to support it and prepare young people for the role they are expected to play in the future. Currently, however, there are two key issues that make the expected role of citizenship education problematic. First, the function of citizenship education appears simple: support the values of the society of which young people are a part, equip them with the necessary skills for involvement in that society and ensure that on graduation students can play the role expected of them. Yet even though schools may do all they can to perform this role, they are not the only influence on students. It is acknowledged that such influences are multiple: parents, peers, and traditional media being amongst the most important. More recently social media have been shown to Different students are influenced in different ways by these. Thus school purposes for citizenship education may have to contend with competing values making agreed outcomes difficult to achieve for all students. Second, the broad macro context that characterises most societies have become more unstable and unpredictable. Contentious politics, international terrorism, populism, rising nationalism, fundamentalisms of different kinds and globalizaton all serve to fragment societies and detract from social cohesion. The common vision that is meant to bind societies, and hence form the basis of citizenship education, is thus under threat from different directions. Global values, versus national values, religious values versus secular values, multicultural values versus monocultural values, liberal values versus conservative values: it is these binaries, and others like them, that currently characterise social actions and social exchanges that serve to undermine the development of cohesive societies in many parts of the world. Thus this Series is designed to provide support for policymakers, researchers and teachers who have responsibility for citizenship education in their respective domains. It will help them with new thinking, new ideas and new directions to support the development of citizenship education in the volatile times characterised by the 21st century. Researchers interested in authoring or editing a book for this series are invited to contact the Series Publishing Editor: [email protected]. All proposals will be reviewed by the Series Editors and editorial advisors.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/8914

Kerry J. Kennedy

Civic Engagement in Changing Contexts Challenges and Possibilities for Democracy

Kerry J. Kennedy The Education University of Hong Kong Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong, China

ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Education ISSN 2524-8480 ISSN 2524-8499 (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Citizenship Education for the 21st Century ISBN 978-981-16-7494-5 ISBN 978-981-16-7495-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7495-2 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

I would like to dedicate this book to my co-researchers in citizenship education. I have enjoyed the research partnerships with colleagues at The Education University of Hong Kong and with many others across the globe. I am grateful and indebted to all those with whom I have worked throughout my career. The new idea, the new insight, the new learning: this is the researcher’s reward. Yet such rewards are all the more so when they are shared. My thanks to all my research partners throughout the years.

Contents

1

Civic Engagement—What Is It and Why Is It Important? . . . . . . . . .

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Forms of Civic Engagement and the Implications for Education and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Social Media and Civic Engagement: Salvation or . . .? . . . . . . . . . . . 25

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Civic Life in Extraordinary Times: The Case of COVID-19 . . . . . . . . 43

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Is Democracy ‘Dead’? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

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Democratic Institutions in Times of Stress: How They Support Democratic Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

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‘Leading for Civic Learning’: Principals and Teachers Preparing Students for Civic Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

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List of Figures

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 7.3

Developing an open classroom climate (from Kuang et al., 2018, p. 37) .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. . A multi-level model (schools and students) examining the effects of citizenship self-efficacy and interest in political and social issues on school civic participation and civic knowledge. From Kennedy et al. (2014, p. 200) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . A multi-level model of the effects of school governance and community participation on students’ civic learning. From Li and Kennedy (2016, p. 8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Creating a ‘leading for civic learning’ culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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88 89

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 5.1 Table 7.1

Multiple dimensions of civic engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Indicators of the status of democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Dimensions of civic learning identified in ICCS (2016) . . .. . . . . .. . . 85

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Chapter 1

Civic Engagement—What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Abstract Civic engagement is a widely used term in the civic education literature, and in this chapter, different ways of considering such engagement are considered. From an historical perspective, it is argued that civic engagement, as it took place in ancient societies such as Greece and Rome, was exclusive in nature and therefore not necessarily a prelude to modern forms. It is not until the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century that universal suffrage provides a form of civic engagement for all citizens in democratic societies. Yet broader notions of such engagement have emerged involving not only political but also social engagement. These are the standard ways of considering civic engagement. Critiques of these different forms are considered indicating both the fluidity and the pejorative nature of the construct. Keywords Civic engagement · Political engagement · Social engagement · Good citizen

This book is a response to the multiple influences that have emerged in the twentyfirst century to challenge both civic engagement and democracy. It might even be argued that these terms, that were defined in the twentieth century, have become suspect in the twenty-first century. Having survived the so-called millennium bug problem, the new century provided a sense of optimism signalling a new start. With the collapse of European communism in the 1990s, there had been hope that Fukuyama’s prediction about ‘the end of history’ was being realised—it seemed liberal democracy had triumphed. Yet the 9/11 attacks on the New York Trade Centre were not so much ‘the end of history’ as the beginning of a new era of conflict, accusation, belligerence and dishonesty. This era has involved protracted wars, global financial crises, the re-emergence of authoritarianism, accelerated political protests, extraordinary global mobility and health pandemics. The extent of turbulence stretched the limits of democratic institutions, saw the emergence of new political forces, unsettled the liberal international order and created enormous geopolitical disruptions. It is these contexts that form the backdrop to this book. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 K. J. Kennedy, Civic Engagement in Changing Contexts, SpringerBriefs in Citizenship Education for the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7495-2_1

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Civic Engagement—What Is It and Why Is It Important?

What does civic engagement mean in these contexts? This chapter will review different ways of understanding civic engagement and suggest how it may need to be understood in what could be referred to as the ‘new world order’. This will involve a consideration of the historic meanings of civic engagement and what this means for understanding modern forms of civic engagement

Historic Meanings of Civic Engagement Very often, discussion of early forms of civic engagement hark back to ancient examples in Greece and Rome where participation in government was often encouraged. Despite endorsement from notables such as Aristotle and Plato, however, the civic participation of ancient times cannot really be equated with modern day understandings of civic engagement. This is because it was more civic exclusion than participation. In Greece, for example, women of all classes were excluded, slavery was endorsed, and immigrants were not included. Ancient forms of participation were about the engagement of male elites to the exclusion of everyone else. Hanchard (2018) described Greek: the citizenship regime of Athens after the Persian Wars was a gendered, ethno- national regime. . .(in which) slavery, according to its proponents, made Athenian democracy practicable. (p. 2)

Democratic civic engagement, therefore, cannot be attributed to the ancients. What the West inherited from these ancient cities was not so much democracy as exclusion. This can be seen, for example, in the development of the Italian city states that were certainly not advocates for an inclusive democracy since ‘elections, in theory aiming at recruiting the most competent, in practice restricted the government to the noble and rich’ (Tangian, 2014, p. 57). It was not until the English Puritans argued in the seventeenth century for greater parliamentary representation that the faintest glimpse of democracy appeared in Europe, with the impetus coming from their Christian theology rather than the ancients in Greece and Rome. The concept of civic engagement, therefore, cannot be traced from the exclusionary practices of these ancients. The American and French Revolutions might seem like more obvious starting places, but these were largely middle-class affairs that sought to replace one form of tyranny with another. It is not coincidental, for example, that slavery remained entrenched in the new United States after independence, and women remained an excluded group. The same can be said of the 1688 Revolution in Great Britain after which issues of gender exclusion and human enslavement remained unaddressed for over a century in the case of the latter and for over two centuries in the case of the former. What was missing in these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century political experiments was any notion that struggles against oppression were struggles on behalf of all citizens rather than the vested interests of a few. An exception was the election of the French National Convention in 1792 that allowed all males to vote in recognition

New Forms of Civic Engagement

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of the broader principle. Yet it was not until 1848 that the practice was cemented into the French political system although it took until 1944 for women to be included in the franchise. Yet it was this idea of broad inclusion (delayed considerably in the case of women) that characterises the development of democracies to the point where Douglas (2013) argued that: Voting is the foundational concept for our entire democratic structure. We think of voting as a fundamental-the most fundamental-right in our democracy. When a group of citizens collectively elects its representatives, it affirms the notion that we govern ourselves by free choice. An individual's right to vote ties that person to our social order, even if that person chooses not to exercise that right. Voting represents the beginning; everything else in our democracy follows the right to vote. Participation is more than just a value. It is a foundational virtue of our democracy. (p. 81)

What this suggests, from the point of view of the argument in this book, is that the engagement of all citizens is an essential, if not the essential, component of democracy and marks it out from other political systems. Such civic engagement provides the baseline for any understanding of democracy both over time and currently. Yet once democracies developed the baseline, inclusive electoral voting, came to be seen as the form of civic engagement that most characterised democratic societies. In this sense, voting was not only a hard won right (especially for women and some cultural groups) but also a civic responsibility that in most countries was left to the initiative of individual citizens (only twenty countries have opted for compulsory voting). A persistent issue studied by political scientists and others has been the extent to which this somewhat liberal view of voting has been successful as the key form of civic engagement in democratic societies. This issue will be addressed in the following section.

New Forms of Civic Engagement A Broader Lens: Beyond the Political It was sociologist Robert Putnam who first asked ‘whatever happened to civic engagement’? (Putnam, 1995): We begin with familiar evidence on changing patterns of political participation. Consider the well-known decline in turnout in national elections over the last three decades. From a relative high point in the early 1960s, voter turnout had by 1990 declined by nearly a quarter; tens of millions of Americans had forsaken their parents' habitual readiness to engage in the simplest act of citizenship. (p. 67)

Yet for Putnam, civic engagement was not just about engagement in politics. He documented declines in all forms of social engagement—churches, trade unions, parent–teacher associations and volunteer associations such as Boy Scouts and the Red Cross. Perhaps most famously he documented declines in people attending bowling alleys (thus the title of the article and the subsequent book!). His basic argument was that multiple forms of associationism—both social and political—had

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Civic Engagement—What Is It and Why Is It Important?

Table 1.1 Multiple dimensions of civic engagement Dimension Conventional political participation

Non-conventional political participation

Civic participation

Political and civic engagement

Examples Voting Member of political party Running for public office Protests Signing petitions Writing a letter to the newspaper Helping others in the community Contribution to community service Donating to charities Following political or civic affairs Having political or civic skills Understanding political or civic values

(Based on Barrett & Brunton-Smith, 2014, p. 7)

been declining, and this had negative consequences not just for social networks and the political system but for civic trust and faith in democratic government itself. Putnam did not provide an explicit definition of civic engagement, but his linking together of the political and the social provided a broader lens with which to view the multiple ways democratic citizens engaged with their communities. Yet over time this way of conceiving of civic engagement has been popularised as shown in a recent contribution to the UK’s House of Lords Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement (2018): the term civic engagement is often used to refer to two quite different things. One is volunteering and helping strangers. The other sense, quite different, is about democratic participation. You can do one without the other. Many analysists tend to conflate the two, and a lot of policy development tends to give support to one in the name of helping the other. (p. 10)

This conflation between what might be called the social and political aspects of civic engagement is important if both the forms of participation are considered to be forms of civic engagement. Building on this distinction, some researchers have gone even further in articulating the dimensions of civic engagement (Barrett & BruntonSmith, 2014). An outline is shown in Table 1.1. The dimensions outlined in Table 1.1 support the broad distinction between political and social forms of civic engagement as referred to earlier. Yet there are a number of important extensions: the naming of ‘political’ and ‘civic’ engagement as the distinctive forms of participation, the distinction between conventional and unconventional forms of political engagement and between participation and engagement. In terms of the latter two for example, Barrett and Brunton-Smith (2014) define ‘participation’ as involving action where ‘engagement’ involves more of a psychological orientation (p. 6). These attempts to broaden the idea of civic engagement typify the field, yet they are only a beginning. At the same time, there has been criticism of attempts to blur boundaries or what Berger (2009) called ‘conceptual stretching’ (p. 335). This issue will be explored in some depth in Chap. 2

Civic Engagement Under the Spotlight

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when multiple forms of civic engagement beyond the simple binary of ‘political and ‘social’ will be considered. That there are multiple and diverse views of civic engagement can also be seen in civic and citizenship education.

Civic Engagement Under the Spotlight Civic education has been a fertile ground for considering issues of civic engagement. A particular concern for civic education is how to define ‘the good citizen’ and then develop programmes that can help to produce such citizenship. A well-known framework was developed by Westheimer and Kahn (2004). They provided a broad framework that considered three possibilities for considering how a ‘good citizen’ might be defined: ‘the personally responsible citizen; the participatory citizen; and the justice oriented citizen’ (p. 3). Yet these were not just ‘types of citizen’—they are representations of ‘the good citizen’ that led Westheimer and Kahn (2004) to ask: ‘What kind of citizen do we need to support an effective democratic society?’ (p. 239). Their answer was very clear in framing different conceptions of civic engagement: ‘Personally responsible’ citizens will likely vote, volunteer and contribute to community activities. But these forms of engagement are described as passive with the implication that they are not enough for a vibrant democracy. ‘Participatory citizens’ are portrayed as skilful in becoming engaged in important community activities concerned with democratic ends that can lead to effective change. This form of engagement is described as active citizenship. ‘Justice-oriented citizens’ are not only participatory but are socially aware so that participation takes place in ways that hopefully will address major social justice issues. This will often require a deep understanding of social issues and how they might be addressed. There is little doubt that for Westheimer and Kahn (2004) democracy’s purposes are best served by ‘justice-oriented citizens’. This is a long way from late nineteenth and early twentieth views of democratic engagement that were largely reflected in the centrality of voting. Yet Westheimer and Kahn (2004) were not the only researchers to challenge voting as the centrepiece of a democracy. Dalton (2008) analysed data from the Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy Survey responding to the literature documenting the decline of civic engagement in the United States. He demonstrated that rather than a decline there had in fact been an expansion of civic engagement. Based on his data, he identified two forms of citizenship engagement: ‘duty based’ and ‘engaged’ (p. 81). The former is equivalent to Westheimer and Kahn’s (2004) ‘personally responsible citizen’ and the latter equivalent to the ‘participatory citizen’. Dalton (2008) argued that while there may be a decline in ‘duty based’ engagement, it is more than made up for in more fluid and broader forms of participation:

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The new style of citizenship seeks to place more control over political activity in the hands of citizens. These changes in participation make greater demands on the participants. At the same time, these activities can increase public pressure on political elites. Citizen participation is becoming more closely linked to citizen influence. Rather than democracy being at risk, this represents an opportunity to expand and enrich democratic participation. (p. 94)

These broader forms of participation are important to understand. Yet an important issue is to view them in the social contexts that make them necessary or important. This will be done in the succeeding chapters in order to provide a broader understanding of civic engagement in the challenging times that reflect the twentyfirst century.

Civic Engagement: The Agenda for This Book Traditional writings about civic engagement have witnessed a broadening from an exclusive focus on political engagement to social engagement including participation in social groups as well as volunteering in the community. Often the declining nature of much political engagement is seen to be offset by increases in social engagement so that ‘engagement’ in general in seen to be maintained if different in nature. This is a contested issue that is made even more so by the introduction of broader notions of engagement outside the political system. The issue becomes more complex when illegal forms of civic engagement are considered. These are the major issues for the field and will be discussed in detail in Chap. 2. In addition to expanded ideas about forms of civic engagement, the twenty-first century has witnessed another form of engagement that can be seen as both social and political—and at times, depending on context, both legal and illegal. This new form of engagement is best summed up as use of social media for civic purposes. At the macro level, it was the ‘Arab Spring’ that showed dramatically how social media could facilitate protests and promote democracy. At the micro level, school citizenship education researchers have been quick to see the value of civic-oriented social media engagement. Yet not all researchers agree about the importance of social media. Some have argued, however, that engaging with social media is really just an excuse to be more actively engaged. In Chap. 3, this issue will be taken up and explored in depth in order to make a judgement about social media as potentially the new civic engagement for the twenty-first century. Prior to 2020, civic engagement was contested in different ways including its definition, purposes and extent. Yet a totally unexpected and unpredicted event in the form of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), turned into a pandemic that swept the globe wreaking havoc with individual health, health systems and economies, raised new civic issues for societies. Laws and regulations were designed to limit participation and improve the health environment. Yet social issues such as those related to the Black Lives Movement in the United States and pro-democracy supporters in Hong Kong brought the need for health safety up against what some saw as a fundamental social and political rights related to civic engagement. This issue will

Civic Engagement: The Agenda for This Book

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be dealt with at length in Chap. 4 since it raises new issues about when engagement should be sanctioned and when it should be prohibited and it raises new issues about democracy itself. One of the key issues is the resilience of democracy when confronted with multiple challenges. There is a popular narrative that chronicles the decline, if not the death of democracy. Some of this is formal and appears in the popular academic literature, some of it is in the journalistic literature and some of it is academic. Chapter 5 will focus on these debates and the implications for civic engagement. Given new forms of civic engagement with new social and political contexts, it is important to consider how democratic institutions should respond and what this means for citizenship education. As new forms of civic engagement take hold in difficult times, the issue for democracies is whether traditional democratic institutions can continue to support democracy. Chapter 6 will consider this issue specifically in relation to citizenship education and how it can be shaped to support the growth and development of young citizens. Citizenship education cannot take place in schools or the community without leadership. This may be national leadership provided by governments, but even that may not be successful if schools themselves do not have adequate leadership to support what is often seen as a neglected component of the school curriculum. ‘Leading for civic learning’ will be the focus of Chap. 7. The purpose is to explore the role of school leaders in creating environments that can facilitate students’ citizenship development. Much of the research on civic engagement is aligned to ideas about liberal democracy and much of it is specifically North American in origin. Yet as the global balance of power in the world has shifted to include non-state actors, developing economic giants such as China and India, economic and political collaborations such as the European Union (EU) and the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), there needs to be a new perspective on what civic engagement means in this changing global landscape. This issue will be pursued throughout the remaining chapters since there needs to be a greater understanding of civic engagement outside the context of liberal democracy. Of particular importance in this respect is the re-emergence of authoritarianism as part of the new global landscape. A missed perspective in examining authoritarianism is the role of civic engagement as a regime strategy. Because of the dominance of the liberal democratic perspective on civic engagement, it is often assumed that civic engagement is not an issue to be addressed in other political contexts. Yet it will be shown throughout the remainder of this book that whether civic engagement is largely regime challenging, as is often the case in liberal democracies, or regime supporting, as in authoritarian contexts, it has an important role in today’s world.

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Conclusion Largely a twentieth-century construct, civic engagement needs to be now understood in what is proving to be a traumatic and dysfunctional twenty-first century. The remainder of this book will attempt both to understand civic engagement in its new contexts and to reinterpret its functions in a fast-changing world. New understandings that emerge will need to be factored into citizenship education programmes for schools. Education systems internationally cannot continue with old and outdated attempts to educate future citizens. This is as true for democracies as it is for authoritarian regimes. Increasingly, the contexts that influence societies are globalised—whether they are pandemics, values, trading opportunities or politics—and what matters is how nations and individuals cope with them and whether such influences can be constructed to benefit future citizens.

References Barrett, M., & Brunton-Smith, I. (2014). Political and civic engagement and participation: Towards an integrative perspective. Journal of Civil Society, 10(1), 5–28. Berger, B. (2009). Political theory, politicla science, and the end of civic engagement. Perspectives on Politics, 7(2), 335–350. Dalton, R. (2008). Citizenship norms and the expansion of political participation. Political Studies, 56(3), 76–98. Douglas, J. (2013). The foundational importance of voting: A response to Professor Flanders. UK Law Faculty Scholarly Article. Fall. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://uknowledge. uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1297&context=law_facpub Hanchard, M. (2018). The spectre of race: How discrimination haunts Western democracy. Princeton University Press. House of Lords. (2018). The Ties that bind: Citizenship and civic engagement in the 21st Century. Report of the Select Committee [HL Paper 218]. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld20171 9/ldselect/ldcitizen/118/118.pdf Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Tangian, A. (2014). Mathematical theory of democracy. Springer. Westheimer, J., & Kahn, J. (2004). Educating the “good” citizen: Political choices and pedagogical goals. PS Political Science and Politics, 37(2), 241–247.

Chapter 2

Forms of Civic Engagement and the Implications for Education and Development

Abstract Political scientists have focussed much of their research on particular forms of civic engagement (more often referred to as ‘political behaviour’) such as voting in elections, joining political parties etc. Citizenship education in its various forms and across countries has often followed up with programmes designed to support future engagement in these traditional forms. Yet the results of the International Civics and Citizenship Studies (ICCS) 2016 have shown that across countries intentions to engage in both legal and illegal activities in the future were endorsed by many students. One recent ICCS-related study has also shown that even in China, 10% of students see illegal protest as a possibility in the future. This broader view of future intentions raises issues about both the purpose and procedures of civic engagement and the kind of political socialisation that influences young people. At the same time, the issue of citizenship education also needs to take into consideration the kind of choices that will confront students particularly where society provides the option of engaging in illegal activities. Keywords Legal activities · Illegal activities · Praxis · Political socialisation

Introduction Much of the history of civic engagement has been about reaching an acceptable definition. The political-social dimensions referred to in the previous chapter were a part of this process. Such a binary was given some prominence because Putnam’s (1995) sociological work was regarded as breaking new ground in seeking to understand forms of civic engagement. Yet that was really the beginning of a longer debate as will be shown in this chapter through a consideration of the following: • • • • •

Attitudes to the ‘political’, ‘social’ binary Legal and illegal forms of civic engagement ‘Telos’ and ‘praxis’ in civic engagement Making judgements about civic engagement Citizenship education for the future

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 K. J. Kennedy, Civic Engagement in Changing Contexts, SpringerBriefs in Citizenship Education for the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7495-2_2

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Forms of Civic Engagement and the Implications for Education and Development

The Political and Social Binary: How Can It Be Understood What Does It Mean? The study of political behaviour has been an important topic for political scientists. Its focus has been broad—political knowledge and interests, political culture, electoral activities, political participation and public opinion (Dalton and Klingemann 2013). Some of these areas are related to civic engagement, especially electoral activities and political participation, but others are broader. Yet this straightforward approach to political behaviour was upset by Putnam’s (1995) view that social engagement was a form of civic engagement with implications that even extended to its influence on economic development. In practice, this meant that the pure political behaviour view of civic engagement had been challenged and the amalgam of the social and the political came to be seen as a broadened perspective on civic engagement. Yet such an amalgam also raised critical voices. Berger (2009) not only raises questions about civic engagement as a subtopic of political behaviour research but also raises issues about the usefulness of such a broad construct (Ekman & Amnå, 2012): If civic engagement is used by scholars to mean completely different things, it is basically a useless concept—it confuses more than it illuminates. If the crucial issue for the established democracies has to do with declining levels of ‘civic engagement’, as Putnam and others have argued. . . then we certainly need to be more clear about what it is that is actually declining or what exactly it is that we so desperately need as much of as we can possibly get. (p. 284)

Adler and Goggin (2005) provided a rationale for the broad meaning of civic engagement by referring to it as a continuum including the informal/private forms of engagement on the one end and the political/collective forms on the other end. While this is a useful way to ‘marry’ the social and the political, it also makes particular assumptions about the nature or ontology of civic engagement. All of the activities referred to by Adler and Goggin (2005) are what might be called everyday, practical and legal activities, but with clear distinctions between community activities (‘helping a neighbour’, ‘contributing to a charity’, ‘membership in a religious or community group’, ‘occasional or episodic volunteering’, ‘sustained intensive service’) and political activities (‘engaging in a political discussion with friends’, ‘voting’, ‘advocacy for a policy’, ‘active participation in a party or interest group’, ‘running for public office’) (p. 240). From an ontological perspective, then, civic engagement can be taken to mean participation in the life of a community (town, city, nation) whether it is the political or the social life. This is a somewhat comfortable way to view civic engagement, but it is also limited. It excludes forms of civic engagement that have characterised many communities, especially in times of crisis. Ekman and Amnå (2012) call these ‘extra-parliamentary forms of political participation’ (p. 290) and further subdivide the activities into ‘legal and illegal forms of extra-parliamentary activism’ (p. 290). Naming of the activities in this way is important because it highlights a distinction between institutional and non-institutional forms of civic engagement. In substantive terms, it makes a

The Political and Social Binary: How Can It Be Understood What Does It Mean?

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distinction between what is considered ‘legal’ and what is considered ‘illegal’. This distinction has also been made in the ICCS studies when students (14–15 years old) are asked to indicate what will be their preferred form of civic engagement in the future. Questions used in ICCS (2016) (Schulz et al., 2018) highlighted the legal/ illegal distinction and raised a number of important issues. Students were asked: ‘Would you take part in any of the following activities to express an opinion in the future’ (p. 179). Eleven options were provided, and from the responses , two distinct scales were identified. ‘Students expected participation in legal activities’ [‘talk to others about your views on political or social issues’; ‘contact an elected official’; ‘collect signatures for a petition’, ‘contribute to an online discussion’; ‘organise an online campaign’, ‘participate in an online campaign’] and ‘Students expected participation in illegal activities’ [‘spray painting protest slogans on walls’; ‘stage a protest by blocking traffic’; ‘occupying public building as a sign of protest’] (p. 179). The differentiation of these two constructs— legal and illegal activities—is important, and the results as provided in the international report (Schulz et al., 2017) provide some important insights. The scale scores1 for both the scales were similar, 44–60 for legal activities and 46–59 for illegal activities where the ICCS average was set at 50. These ranges suggest that both the forms of civic engagement were envisaged as possibilities in the future. There were differences between countries. The highest scoring countries were Colombia, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Peru with high average scores (>54) and low scoring countries, Belgium (Flemish), Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (