Civic engagement

Civic engagement or civic participation has been defined as "Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern."^[1]

Forms

Civic engagement can take many forms— from individual volunteerism 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.

Another way of describing this concept is the sense of personal responsibility individuals should feel to uphold their obligations as part of any community.

"Youth civic engagement" has identical aims, only with consideration for youth voice.

Activities

In a study published by CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts divided into 3 categories: civic, electoral, and political voice.^[2]

Measures of Civic Engagement[2]
Civic	Electoral	Political Voice
Community problem solving	Regular voting	Contacting officials
Regular volunteering for a non-electoral organization	Persuading others to vote	Contacting the print media
Active membership in a group or association	Displaying buttons, signs, stickers	Contacting the broadcast media
Participation in fund-raising run/walk/ride	Campaign contributions	Protesting
Other fund-raising for charity	Volunteering for candidate or political organizations	Email petitions
		Written petitions
		Boycotting
		Buycotting
		Canvassing

See also

• Community building
• Community development
• Civic courage
• Civic virtue
• Civics
• Civil society
• Service-learning
• Social capital
• Youth empowerment

References

1. ^ "Civic engagement", American Psychological Association. Retrieved 11/26/07.
2. ^ ^{a b} Ketter, S., Zukin, C., Andolina, M., and Jenkins, K. (2002) "The Civic and Political Health of a Nation: A Generational Portrait" CIRCLE and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

External links

• The Citizen's Handbook
• Community University Engagement
• Center for Civic Engagement at University of South Florida, St. Petersburg
• Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship & Public Service, Tufts University
• Civic engagement through City Wikis and Civic Wikis. - PortlandWiki's City Wiki page.
• Northumberland Civic Engagement
• Civic Engagement Center at Central Washington University
• WHYY Civic Engagement Project
• Penn Project for Civic Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
• The Center for Future Civic Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Center for Civic Engagement at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.
• Student Voices a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania