What is Civnet?
Civnet is a website of Civitas International for civic education practitioners (teachers, teacher trainers, curriculum designers), as well as scholars, policymakers, civic-minded journalists, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting civic education all over the world.
Objective
Any healthy, fully functioning democracy requires a political culture composed of active participants who understand what it means to be democratic citizens. Though there may be free and fair elections in new and emerging democracies, there might not yet exist a democratic culture; i.e., people may be unaccustomed to voting, running for elective office, understanding how their government works, seeking out different sources of information to make informed choices, forming advocacy and public-interest groups to influence political outcomes in a consensus-building, non-coercive political system, and creating voluntary organizations to meet societal needs not met by government or the commercial sector. "Civil society" may be thought of as the third sector, and a foundation on which free, non-coercive, democratic polities must rest.
Moreover, well-established democracies often witness increased apathy, atomization, and a dilution in citizen participation and civic behavior, as civic values are not properly reinforced and are allowed to go stale.
Therefore, civic education at the pre-collegiate and collegiate levels is vital both to newer and older democracies, to ensure that future generations of citizens understand the values, mechanisms, and skills necessary to develop and maintain a democratic political system.
Accordingly, an international coalition of concerned academics and representatives of non-governmental and governmental organizations formed Civitas International association and helped establish Civnet to address these needs by raising the profile of civic education, promoting civic education on the agendas of government policymakers throughout the world, enriching the debate on teaching methodology, establishing teacher-training programs, creating and distributing civics lesson plans, syllabi, curricula, text books, and teaching materials, and enabling civic education practitioners to network and share information, ideas, and resources.
In addition to teachers, educators, and policymakers, many believe that journalists also have a role to play in highlighting solutions and citizen success stories, rather than merely reporting on societal problems.
While Civitas International has many activities to achieve these aims, Civnet is unique in that it provides an international electronic resource where teachers may instantly receive and download teaching resources, scholars may read articles of thought and opinion, and use Civnet's links to find a world of other civic Web resources, and civic educators may read what their colleagues are up to in Civnet news, network with their counterparts in other organizations, and learn about upcoming civic events on the Civnet calendar.
On the national civics assessment, “two-thirds of 12th graders scored below ‘proficient’…and only 9 percent could list two ways a democracy benefits from citizen participation” (O’Connor and Romer 4). The information provided clarifies just how little students know about democracy. Without education on the subject, they are unaware as to how their government contribution is beneficial and why it is needed in the first place. The students, because of their lack of understanding, therefore choose to not take part in their government and fail to carry out their duties as a citizen. The authors provide more research that shows “the better people understand our history and system of government, the more likely they are to vote and participate in the civic life” (O’Connor and Romer 8).
What principles and ideals lie at the heart of a free democratic society? Canadians take pride in their country’s values of tolerance, inclusion, and respect, and over Canada’s guaranteed freedom of expression, including the right to vote (Thevenard & Orend, 2015). In democratic Canada, “all eligible citizens have the right to participate, either directly or indirectly, in making the decisions that affect them” ("Democracy Defined"). Voting, in essence, ensures all citizens receive an equal opportunity to express their views by selecting and supporting a political party of their choice. Such an approach provides freedom of expression for all eligible citizens, allowing for the political party with the most votes to take over the ruling.
The speakers in the film believe that the purpose of education is to create a public where democracy can thrive. This means creating a new generation of young adults that are highly knowledgeable and are able to make informed decisions about political subjects and can make their votes count when they are able to vote. They have the knowledge about how the government works and what they can do as an individual to make a difference in their community. They have the knowle...
4Lopez, Hugo and Benjamin Brown. 2006. Civic Engagement among 2-year and 4-year College Students. Somerville, MA: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
Geer, John G., Wendy J. Schiller, Richard Herrera, and Jeffery A. Segal. Gateways to Democracy: An Introduction to American Government. 3rd ed. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2015. Print.
...roductive, and responsible citizens that a proper civic education should teach basic principles of government, provide insights into representative institutions, and generally from good citizens.” Once again, he believed that in order to build a society that has responsible citizens, the fastest way is to have a good civic education to equip the children with such values. Since they do not have the definite worldview, it is easy to manipulate them in a good way. Lastly, he wanted the common school to do “a delicate political balancing act to cultivate a general political consciousness but not indoctrinate students in partisan political ideology” by believing that the school could perform “its civic, political, and cultural roles in a nonpartisan way.” So once again, he believed that common school has and is able to be a foundation to change the society after all.
Public schooling itself is not the goal, he said, and public schools don't necessarily do better than private schools in educating children to meet the state's interests, which he defined as preparing children for both workforce and democratic participation. Those who joined in the discussion pushed Reich to specify the content of an education for democratic participation. "Some would say reading and writing is enough," he responded. "Personally, I would go a few steps further to say that students should learn to come into dialogue with others on a public stage." Voluntary national standards for civic education suggest "a combination of making sure students know the history and shape of the structure of government, and how to influence public deliberation and policy," he said. Others suggest experience-oriented programs, often called service learning. "My model has been the Socratic dialogue, where the teacher is a leader and p...
Common core subjects of Math, Science and English have become the foundation of America's modern education system, while subjects such as "Civic Learning" get denoted as an elective or a topic simply brushed over in a Social Studies curriculum. "Civic Learning" was once a course that was common in the majority of America's public schools, as many regarded it as an important part in sustaining a democracy through education. Advocates such as Sandra Day O'Connor, a retired associate justice of the Supreme Court, urges for the reestablishment of "Civic Learning" as a mandatory subject in public schools; arguing for a generation of citizens who must "understand our history and system of government" in order to "vote and participate in the civic life."
Sirianni in his book “Investing in Democracy” has examined how government can serve as a civic enabler of productive engagement and collaborative problem solving among civic associations, ordinary citizens, and stakeholder groups. He also tried to find out how the public policy and administration can be designed to help the involvement of the government. Siriannni has argued on the view that in recent era the government’s role is becoming more important due to the increasing complexity of public problems, diversity among the stakeholders, and continued erosion of civic life by the deep cultural and institutional trends. Sirianni tried to reflect the image of the government, local, state, and federal as civic enabler whose work should be to design policy and invest strategically, systematically, and effectively in building civic capacity to enable the daily public life of the citizens. Sirianni has focused on many reasons to argue why government should be the civic enabler. Firstly, due to the long term changes in the civic organization and culture, the capacities for self-government will not simply bubble up from the wellsprings of civic society, and certainly they will not come out through the invisible hand of the market. “Civic changes have been propelled in many cases by profound and irreversible socioeconomics shift, such as the replacement of the highly civic-minded World War II generation, increased female participation in the labor force, and continual spread of technologies that encourage individualized leisure.” [Sirianni. C]. Secondly, it has been often found that government policies and administrative have often tried to disable effective and responsible civic action. So by involving the government the policies can be ...
However, through this course I have also come to recognize that due to the negative perception that is placed on our generation, the political objectives of young people will likely never be given adequate consideration by public officials should we continue to practice engaged citizenship while disregarding electoral participation. My personal definition of citizenship is recognizing the privileges we have as citizens of the United States and contributing to one’s community in whatever way they are able to do so. A responsible citizen is not simply an observer of the political process, but rather an informed
"Better Together, an Initiative of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, Kennedy School of Government." Better Together, an Initiative of the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, Kennedy School of Government. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Green, Donald. "Youth Voting” THE CENTER FOR INFORMATION & RESEARCH ON CIVIC LEARNING AND ENGAGEMENT. Tufts University, 2012. Web. 02 Oct 2013. .
To achieve civic engagement is undertaken in many diverse ways. These are determined by several factors, amongst them the purpose of the civic engagement, the people involved in it, the funds to be involved amongst others. The...
It is through the implementation of advocacy strategies through technology integration that have allowed practice to evolve. According to Edwards and Hoefer (2010), communication technology that allows real-time updates and expansive reach include social networking sites, online journals or blogs, and video sharing technology, like YouTube. Social networking sites are online communities that built on social interactions and relationships. In these environments there are opportunities to share ideas that can lead to large scale changes. Similarly, online journals or blogs present idea sharing for those subscribing or interested in the topic selections. Video sharing adds a facet of sharing information that can complement or strengthen a perspective. According to Tetloff, Hitchcock, Battista, and Lowry (2014), videos can encourage partnership, engage a community, and inspire thinking that is not sculpted by a preconceived notion or faculty of negative influence. The use of these technologies provide a social media venue to share messages and connect people to advocate for change and ultimately affect how and what policies are adopted for local and large scale
Because I am a journalism student, I have talked, researched and discussed with many of my fellow students and faculty members about the topics above. I am choosing to talk about this because I think it is important and they are pertinent issues in the journalism field. I am also very interested in this topic, so I thought it would be fun to take the opportunity you gave us to design our own multi-part question and write about something in journalism that is appealing to me.