{"id":4330,"date":"2003-11-14T13:17:15","date_gmt":"2003-11-14T13:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4330"},"modified":"2003-11-14T13:17:15","modified_gmt":"2003-11-14T13:17:15","slug":"measuring-civic-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4330","title":{"rendered":"measuring civic engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

My organization, CIRCLE, promotes a set of 19 "core<\/p>\n

indicators of civic engagement<\/a>" as a way of measuring<\/p>\n

the level of engagement of any youthful group or community,<\/p>\n

and also as a way of assessing the civic impact of a program, class,<\/p>\n

or project. These 19 indicators were chosen after an elaborate national<\/p>\n

research project managed by Scott Keeter, Cliff Zukin, Molly Andolina,<\/p>\n

and Krista Jenkins, who talked to practitioners and young people in<\/p>\n

focus groups and then conducted a national survey. Despite its empirical<\/p>\n

rigor, their list of indicators provokes an interesting and important<\/p>\n

controversy. I have heard the following views expressed:<\/p>\n

    \n


    \n1. This is (roughly) the right list, because it emerged from a study<\/p>\n

    of real young people and captures the forms of engagement that are<\/p>\n

    reasonably common among youth today. Most of these behaviors are becoming<\/p>\n

    less common over time, but that is a reality that we should face squarely<\/p>\n

    and not sidestep. <\/p>\n

    2. These indicators measure an average group of Americans, but they<\/p>\n

    mask our great diversity. For example, on an Indian reservation, the<\/p>\n

    important forms of engagement would include participation with the<\/p>\n

    tribal council, which is not measured on the survey. For Native Americans<\/p>\n

    and many <\/em>other subcultures, the list of indicators is inappropriate. <\/p>\n

    3. This is the right list for assessing the civic engagement of all<\/p>\n

    Americans over time, but it’s the wrong list to use in program evaluation,<\/p>\n

    because it is unrealistic to expect a class or other project to change<\/p>\n

    these variables. <\/p>\n

    4. This is generally the wrong list, because it weighs old-fashioned<\/p>\n

    forms of civic engagement (like wearing political buttons) too heavily,<\/p>\n

    and omits the novel forms that young people are developing today:<\/p>\n

    transnational protests, blogs and email lists, low-budget documentaries<\/p>\n

    and public-service announcements, boycotts, poetry slams. The obvious<\/p>\n

    response is that such forms of participation are not common enough<\/p>\n

    to show up on surveys. But perhaps they are the most historically<\/p>\n

    important developments of the present era, and they should be measured<\/p>\n

    in program evaluations. Perhaps failing to measure them "sends<\/p>\n

    a message" that what we want is a return to old-fashioned, adult-dominated<\/p>\n

    politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My organization, CIRCLE, promotes a set of 19 "core indicators of civic engagement" as a way of measuring the level of engagement of any youthful group or community, and also as a way of assessing the civic impact of a program, class, or project. These 19 indicators were chosen after an elaborate national research project […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocating-civic-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}