Civic Engagement

In today's interconnected world, it's essential that we expand our notions of the who, what, and where of civic engagement. From early ages, young people have important ideas about how their schools, communities, and the larger world might be changed for the better. How do we support children, teens, and emerging adults to be effective and reflective agents of positive social change? What unique opportunities and challenges for civic and political participation are presented by digital and social media? Civic education needs to prepare youth not just for the voting booth but for deep engagement in their communities, with critical problems facing our world, offline and online, and from young ages.

Resources

Article
Humanities Craftsmanship: A Study of 30 Years of Illinois Humanities Council Grant-making
A resource from Humanities & Liberal Arts Assessment (HULA)

Humanities Craftsmanship: A Study of 30 Years of Illinois Humanities Council Grant-making
A resource from Humanities & Liberal Arts Assessment (HULA)

Controversy over the value of the humanities and liberal arts is central to current debates about educational policy. This debate affects the work of humanists in all contexts—K-12, higher education, and public humanities programming. The Humanities and Liberal Arts Assessment project (HULA) has developed new research methodologies for deepening our understanding of just how humanistic pedagogy works, what humanists expect it to accomplish, and what our methods for assessing it might be.

In this report, we present our analysis of an archive of works produced by professional humanists between 1981 and 2012: 92 grant proposals submitted to and awarded funding by the Illinois Humanities Council over that time period. This archive is neither complete, nor necessarily representative. Rather, the Illinois Humanities Council selected grants from across the full chronological range of its grant-making for the sake of a pilot project whose purpose was to ascertain whether the HULA research methods could shed useful light on the past practices of the IHC and its grantees. The IHC had the same executive director across the whole of this time range, suggesting some degree of continuity in its work.

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Article
Finding Our Way
A resource from Globalizing the Classroom, Interdisciplinary & Global Studies, Nurturing Global Competence in the Early Years, Educating Global Citizens through a US and China Lens, Signature Pedagogies in Global Education & Global Children

Finding Our Way
A resource from Globalizing the Classroom, Interdisciplinary & Global Studies, Nurturing Global Competence in the Early Years, Educating Global Citizens through a US and China Lens, Signature Pedagogies in Global Education & Global Children

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Book
Children Are Citizens Book 2015
A resource from Children Are Citizens

Children Are Citizens Book 2015
A resource from Children Are Citizens

From the Introduction:
People from all around the world know about Washington, DC. They talk about it, write about it, draw it, and make movies and TV shows about it. But almost always, we hear only the opinions and ideas of grownups. For this book we invited some of our youngest citizens — children from Sacred Heart School, School Within School at Goding (DCPS), Seaton Elementary School (DCPS), the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, and Washington International School — to tell us what they think of our city. We asked them to share their ideas in order to help other children (and adults) know what they think is important about DC. We asked their teachers to help students research the city and discuss their ideas with classmates and children from the other schools. Each teacher guided their students in di!erent ways. The results are thoughtful, informative, and sometimes surprising. You can learn a lot about our city from reading this book.

Download the Book

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Tool
The Good Collaboration Toolkit
A resource from The Good Project

The Good Collaboration Toolkit
A resource from The Good Project

The Good Collaboration Toolkit, a collection of materials designed to help individuals develop, nurture, and reflect on good collaborations. One can use this Toolkit for a variety of different reasons. Reasons why you may find it useful to work with the Toolkit are: →You have started a collaboration but are uncertain about who should provide leadership. →You have a launched a collaboration and are discovering that the values of your organization clash with those of another member organization. →You have held a series of meetings, and at each one, the time seems wasted.

The Good Collaboration Toolkit

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Video
Children as Citizens Video
A resource from Children Are Citizens & Making Learning Visible

Children as Citizens Video
A resource from Children Are Citizens & Making Learning Visible

2-minute video of Mardell and Krechevsky discussing documentation and young children as citizens.

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