Disembodied citizens and communities: How new technologies are changing how students learn, collaborate and construct civic identities

Hans Ibold, Indiana UniversityJenna McWilliams, Indiana University

Facilitators: Mary F. Price, IUPUI and Daniel T. Hickey, Indiana University

Civic Learning in Action?

Planting Seeds…• How does one measure civic learning in a virtual

context?

• How is social media and other information & communication technologies shaping & materializing shifts in how we define and act as citizens and community members?

• What do these cultural and generations shifts mean for the practice of and research on service learning (and civic learning more broadly)?

Planting Seeds…•What are the knowledge, skills, capacities

associated with civic engagement online—are they the same as F2F CE/SL experiences?

•In what ways is the developing movement in Digital Civic Engagement align with the direction and goals of SL?

Shifts in Civic “Styles”

The “Dutiful” Citizen (Bennett 2008)•Sense of obligation to participate in

government-centered activities •Voting as the core democratic act,

supported by surrounding knowledge and contact with government

•Mass media news informs about issues and government

•Joins civil society organizations and/or expresses interests through political parties or interest groups that typically employ one-way conventional communication to mobilize supporters

The “Actualizing” Citizen (Bennett 2008)• Diminished sense of government obligation—

higher sense of individual purpose • Voting is less meaningful than other, more

personally defined acts such as consumerism, community volunteering, or transnational activism

• Mistrust of media and politicians is reinforced by negative mass media environment.

• Favors loose networks of community action—often established or sustained through friendships and peer relations and thin social ties maintained by interactive information technologies

Possibilities for Crossing Boundaries

Collaboration, Yes---but across perceived difference?

It’s a Flat World ---really???

Some Key Questions for Investigation:1. What are the strategies that SL/CE

educators can employ to:▫ Foster the development of virtual spaces

for students to create and engage in 'authentic' civic dialogue?

AND▫ focus their attention to key issues, realities,

and knowledge areas that lay outside of Gen Y, Z preferences but which may be essential to their civic development?

Some Key Questions-con’t:2. What do we (practitioner-scholars) need

to learn in order to be a partner with students in this process?

3. Where do community residents and partners fit into these spaces?

Styles of Citizenship (Lance Bennett 2008)

Dutiful Actualizing

• Sense of obligation to participate in government-centered activities

• Voting as the core democratic act, supported by surrounding knowledge and contact with government

• Mass media news informs about issues and government

• Joins civil society organizations and/or expresses interests through political parties or interest groups that typically employ one-way conventional communication to mobilize supporters

• Diminished sense of government obligation—higher sense of individual purpose

• Voting is less meaningful than other, more personally defined acts such as consumerism, community volunteering, or transnational activism

• Mistrust of media and politicians is reinforced by negative mass media environment.

• Favors loose networks of community action—often established or sustained through friendships and peer relations and thin social ties maintained by interactive information technologies

•http://www.engagedyouth.org/research/reports/