In the last posting, this blog started a more current review
of the literature concerning issues associated with social capital and civic
humanism. The first of these qualities –
social capital – is promoting a societal bias, which is
characterized by having an active, public-spirited citizenry, egalitarian
political relations, and a social environment of trust and cooperation.[1]
As for civic humanism, Isaac Kramnick describes it as follows:
[C]ivic
humanism conceives of man as a political being whose realization of self occurs
only through participation in public life, through active citizenship in a
republic. The virtuous man is concerned
primarily with the public good, res
publica, or commonweal, not with private or selfish ends.[2]
Scott Keeter,
Cliff Zukin, Molly Andolina, and Krista Jenkins offer a set of behaviors that
captures the interests associated with social capital and civic humanism. They are civic, political
voice, and electoral activities.[3] These writers report research that looks at such
factors from political attentiveness to political volunteerism and how they characterized
vis-à-vis these behaviors. Here, below, are some of their summary
findings.
To remind the
reader, the last posting advertised this posting would address civic
literacy. The approach this posting uses
for this purpose is to first look at what would motivate one to attain civic
literacy. One motivation is to improve, through
exercising civic activities, the wellbeing of a citizen’s local community and
advancing a citizen’s self-interest. What
this writer is becoming aware of is that that literature is more extensive than
first thought. Consequently, the
predicted development stated in the last posting will not be met; it will need
more space. But this development
continues by addressing these three types of activities.
Civic activities include belonging to
civically oriented organizations such as fraternal and religious organizations,
volunteer efforts, fundraising efforts for charitable organizations, and other
community problem-solving groups. Of
course, civic literacy is further enhanced if the citizen in question
participates in those groups’ activities.
As for political voice and electoral
activities, the first include those actions citizens can take to politically push
a policy position – signing petitions, communicating with government officials,
writing letters to editors and other media outlets, boycotting, etc. – and the
latter includes voting and other election related behaviors. The general thrust is to advance those
qualities that one can link with social capital by harboring those normative
beliefs associated with civic humanism through actualizing these three activity
types.
The question here is: what does recent research indicate how
Americans are performing in relation to these behaviors? To provide some context, Mary E. Hylton makes
a connection in her report. That is,
that a citizenry that engages in these types of activities add to their
communities’ resources and can be associated with economic resilience.[4]
This was demonstrated in those years
following the onset of the financial crisis of 2008. Communities that had among their citizenry
higher levels of civic engagement were able to recover more readily. While this is a correlational finding, one
cannot help but think that either directly or indirectly there is a mutual
reinforcing dynamic between civic engagement and economic health.
Further strengthening this
connection, one can detect this relationship holding at the individual level. Jonathan Greenblatt reports in a White House
paper: “Volunteering also helps people
develop skills and confidence. A recent
report by the National Conference on Citizenship found the ‘participation in
civil society (such as volunteerism) can develop habits that make individuals
enjoyable and strengthen the networks that help them find jobs.’”[5]
In a study, Malte Klar and Tim Kasser
found that political activism is positively associated with measures of good
feelings (hedonic), a sense of being happy, healthy, and prosperous (eudaimonic),
and social well-being.[6] And college students, according to an Association
of American Colleges and Universities publication, who are civically engaged register
greater levels of satisfaction with their educational experience, enjoy higher
grade point averages, and more apt to gain their degrees than those who are not
so engaged.[7]
With those positive effects – ones
that should function as motivators – this posting will cease. The next posting will report on civic literacy. Still to be addressed, further in the future, is
current research done over social empathy.
[1] A la, Robert Putnam. See Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New
York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
[2] Isaac
Kramnick, “John Locke and Liberal Constitutionalism I,” in Major Problems in American Constitutional History, Volume I: The Colonial Era Through Reconstruction,
ed. Kermit L. Hall (Lexington, MA: D. C.
Heath and Company, 1992), 97-114, 98.
[3] Scott Keeter, Cliff Zukin, Molly Jenkins, and Krista
Jenkins, “The
Civic and Political Health of the Nation: A Generational Portrait,” Center for Information
and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), accessed on May 10,
2018, https://www.unc.edu/courses/2009ss1/poli/472/001/472%20Summer%2009%20course%20CD/Summer%202009%20Readings/Week%205/Civic_Political_Health%5B1%5D.pdf .
[4] Mary E. Hylton, “The Role of Civic Literacy and
Social Empathy on Rates of Civic Engagement among University Students,” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and
Engagement, 2018, vol. 22, 1, 87-106.
[5] Jonathan Greenblatt, “The Benefit of Civic Engagement
for Tomorrow’s Leaders,” White House (of
Barack Obama), April 17, 2012, accessed May 10, 2018, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/04/17/benefits-civic-engagement-tomorrows-leaders .
[6] See Malte Klar and Tim Kasser, “Some Benefits of
Being an Activist: Measuring Activism
and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being,” (abstract), accessed May 10, 2018, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00724.x .
[7] The National Task Force on Civic Learning and
Democratic Engagement, “A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future”
(Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2012), accessed May 7,
2018, http://www.aacu.org/civiclearning/crucible .
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