Browsing by Subject "Civic education"
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Item Citizen making in religious spaces : encountering the "other"/each other on school mission trips(2020-06-22) Kim, Esther June; Brown, Anthony L. (Associate professor); Salinas, Cynthia; Payne, Katherina; Hsu, Madeline; Adair, Jennifer; Wang, DavidThis dissertation focuses on ideologies that shape the civic agency of students and how ideologies that divide between human beings might be deconstructed both at home and abroad. Using Sylvia Wynter’s (1995) hybrid human, and her application of subjective understanding to examine what makes a moment in history possible (e.g. Columbus’ voyage), as well as Thomas Holt’s (1995) analysis of race and racism in the everyday, this ethnography took place alongside students, teachers, and parents from a religious high school. The context is the intersection between ideology and civic education, where the following questions may be explored: how do ideologies shape the interactions between students, teachers and “others” on short term missions, and, how might ideologies shift? While multiple dilemmas emerged around doing civic work in religious spaces, three themes related to ideological movement emerged. Shifts were often facilitated by a combination of teacher mediation, the consistent leaving of home, and steadfast engagement with counter narratives offered by insiders from “other” communities. A constant dilemma, however, was the barrier of racism within the school community. Participants of color across race and grade levels expressed a shared pain in their racialized encounters with classmates and teachers. A common sentiment of feeling alone in a predominantly white space facilitated the formation of theories on their own or within their church communities to make sense of the injustices they and their families both faced and witnessed. My research with this community builds on the work of scholars who study race and ideology in the classroom, specifically how ideological shifts occur in schools (Giroux, 1991; Philip, 2011). I extend this in my research by considering how a confluence of identities and ideologies, including religion, come together and how they may be deconstructed by students and teachers.Item Civic education as an approach to democracy in Russia and Ukraine(2021-05-06) Orr, Matthew Rutland; Garza, Thomas J.This thesis uses historical and qualitative content analysis to understand the role that civic education has played in the development of democracy in Russia and Ukraine since the fall of the Soviet Union. It draws on global and regional discourses of democratization to argue that civic education has been an underappreciated factor by politicians, policymakers, and scholars seeking to shape or explain the political past, present, and future of Russia and Ukraine. Specifically, it argues that civics curriculum in both countries has been plagued by fundamental flaws stimming from their common Soviet history, the reaction to which has shaped each country’s modern political trajectory. While Ukraine has made great strides in recent years to reform civics, Russia’s civic education regime remains startlingly underdeveloped over the past 30 years, a fundamental obstacle that those interested in Russia’s democratization have failed to draw sufficient attention toItem Developing democratic civic virtues through aesthetic education and design in public schools(2014-08) Orsinger, Ann Kathryn; Gregg, Benjamin Greenwood, 1954-By consciously re-crafting K-12 American public schools through aesthetic design, the United States can improve civic education. Specifically, by paying attention to how school environments affect students through each of their five senses, Americans can create learning environments that encourage the development of civic virtues necessary to support four essential criteria identified by John Dewey as foundational for an ideal democracy: individual expression, communicated experience, associated living, and consciousness of the connection between individuals, their behaviors, and their choices. By examining Dewey’s theory of ideal democracy, and the civic virtues that it requires, I delineate and analyze specific criteria by which to improve American civic education in public schools. Then I show that creating beautiful schools can meet the specified criteria and develop civic virtues in students. These virtues are necessary – although not by themselves sufficient – for healthy democratic citizenship. America today is far from an ideal democracy. Split in our beliefs, unengaged in the civic process, disconnected from fellow citizens, and often unaware of the harm caused by our lack of participation, care, and responsibility, we have a long way to go before our democracy approaches the ideal form proposed by Dewey. Far from deterring our efforts, however, these facts should motivate us to find new and improved ways to educate our young citizens during their years in public schooling. This thesis aims to convince the reader that the conscious crafting of school aesthetics can provide a unique and irreplaceable contribution to that end.Item Making virtue reign : citizenship and civic education in the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau(2019-08-16) Bennett, Zachary Richard; Pangle, Thomas L.; Pangle, Lorraine S; Stauffer, Devin A; Viroli, Maurizio; Kelly, ChristopherThis dissertation is a study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s conceptions of citizenship and civic education. Its basic conceit is that the former—what it means to be a citizen—can be understood fully only in light of the latter—what it means to become a citizen. It argues that Rousseau’s conception of civic education—a denaturing, psychically transformative process whereby human beings become citizens who virtuously exercise their rights and fulfill their duties under the social contract—poses a critical, yet, in a way, friendly, challenge to us as liberal democrats. For as radically as Rousseauian civic education differs from ours, it is grounded in premises that we, as liberal democrats, affirm, i.e., that human beings are naturally free and equal and therefore that the only authority to which human beings may be legitimately subject is that to which they consent. Hence, our own premises compel us to confront the challenge posed by Rousseau’s writings on citizenship and civic education. Contemporary disillusionment with citizenship across the liberal-democratic West makes doing this only more urgent and potentially illuminating and fruitful. Consisting in careful textual analysis of the various works and passages in which Rousseau treats civic education, the dissertation is organized around a heretofore insufficiently examined distinction between a preliminary stage of civic education and civic education proper. Whereas, in the former, future citizens are persuaded by legislators effectively to enact wise laws by means of ingenious yet disingenuous appeals to divine authority, in the latter, dutifulness to such authority is replaced as the moral basis for civic virtue with patriotism. The thesis of the dissertation is that, in order to understand the limits and possibilities of Rousseauian citizenship, it is necessary to understand this shift that lies at the heart of Rousseauian civic education.