Civic Engagement and Diversity

Overview of Citizenship and Civic Engagement

Ideas about citizenship and civic engagement are fluid and often debated. Studies designed to examine civic engagement have evolved from measuring [Page 379]conventional political acts (such as voting) to a more holistic view of the multiple ways citizens can participate in the civic sphere (such as group involvement, following public events, discussing issues, or protesting).

During the past decade when the public's interest in civic engagement among young people increased, educators and researchers came to some basic understandings about what it means to be civically engaged. In 2003, the Carnegie Corporation of New York convened a group of practitioners and researchers to develop a paper titled The Civic Mission of Schools. This influential report offered a view of competent and responsible citizenship as encompassing knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes. More specifically, the groups debating these issues agreed that responsible U.S. citizens have a fundamental knowledge of democratic processes, an awareness of community issues, and an understanding of ways to obtain and analyze information. They also participate in their communities (including volunteer activity) and in organizations (at school and in their neighborhoods), are able to employ basic civic-related skills, and are concerned for the rights of others, including tolerance and respect for others' opinions. This characterization is a relatively comprehensive view of what it means to be an active, engaged citizen and is more relevant to the lives of children and adolescents than defining good citizenship as consisting only of knowledge of the structure of government or obeying the law.

Other scholars have delineated somewhat different typologies of citizenship. Lance Bennett and colleagues argued that the model in the United States is shifting from “dutiful citizenship” (civic engagement as a result of feelings of duty) to “actualizing citizenship” (with considerable emphasis on citizens sharing information through electronic social networks). This “actualizing” model is found predominantly among younger citizens and allows a choice of issues for personal engagement, which do not necessarily include issues with relevance to multiculturalism and human rights. In fact, environmental issues are often the choice of this actualizing group, which uses web-based tools to mobilize support for boycotts of products manufactured without concern for the environment.

James A. Banks's views of the meaning of civic engagement are the most closely related to multicultural issues. He distinguishes between legal citizens, who possess rights but do not participate; minimal citizens, who participate in conventional ways, such as voting for candidates who agree with their positions on issues; active citizens, who vote and also take action to organize others; and, finally, transformative or postconventional citizens, who actualize moral principles, sometimes at risk to themselves. Among the best exemplars of transformative citizenship are civil rights activists in the United States starting in the 1960s and democracy advocates during the transitions in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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