In the K-12 social studies classroom, the goal is to create the well-informed citizenry that is essential to a functioning democracy. Preparing students for a lifetime of active citizenship is a complex undertaking, one that demands that students be given opportunities to integrate classroom learning with experiential learning in the larger world where political debate and decision making occur...

This study explores community life on a black social network site, BlackPlanet, to see whether and how participants engage in public discussions; if these discussions center on issues considered to be critical to the black community; and if so, the extent to which participants’ online networks are used to foster some level of civic engagement. Participation analysis, content analysis, and a the...

This study examines if Facebook, one of the most popular social network sites among college students in the U.S., is related to attitudes and behaviors that enhance individuals’ social capital. Using data from a random web survey of college students across Texas (n = 2, 603), we find positive relationships between intensity of Facebook use and students’ life satisfaction, social trust, civic en...

Collaboration with citizens and users plays an increasing role in the transformation of public services towards new forms of production and delivery. Thus there is a need to modernize the civil service to accelerate innovation in governments, as civil servants will also have an important role to play. Digital civic engagement platforms can provide a more attractive and accessible means for part...

Are There Civic Returns to Education? " …since the achievement of American Independence, the universal and ever-repeated argument in favor of Free Schools has been, that the general intelligence which they are capable of diffusing, and which can be imparted by no other human instrumentality, is indispensable to a republican form of government. " Horace Mann (1846) INTRODUCTION Economists typica...

Two explanations for the importance of trusting constitutions are offe-red : First, constitutions that convey trust towards citizens have posi-tive effects by fostering civic virtue. A crucial factor of a trusting con-stitution is the extent to which the citizens are allowed to actively par-ticipate in the political process. We present empirical evidence thatparticipation vi...

Design for civic participation in the “smart” city requires examination of the algorithms by which computational processes organize and present geospatial information to inhabitants. How does awareness of these algorithms positively or negatively affect use? A renewed approach to one popular twentieth-century model for city design reveals potential paths for answering this question. The paper e...

Introduction Can individuals in emerging democracies learn democratic values and skills through participation in civic education programs? Certainly the U.S. government expects the answer to be yes. The State Department's Agency for International Development (USAID) and other governmental organizations spend tens of millions of dollars annually on civic education programs as part of their effor...

This paper examines the relationship between architecture and civil participation by specifically looking at the formal attributes of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, its development as a public urban space, its nationally symbolic meaning, and its civic role. A major conclusion of this study is that public assembly and the physical space in which it occurs are indivisible, revealing architecture’s un...