When the American Democracy Project met in New Orleans last month, founder George Mehaffy described some early civic engagement efforts as “marginal, episodic, and celebratory.” David Hoffman, assistant director of student life for civic agency, responded to Mehaffy’s comments by suggesting language to describe positive attributes of civic learning and democratic engagement efforts.
“We need equally clear and concise language to describe the positive attributes of profoundly valuable and impactful civic learning and democratic engagement efforts,” Hoffman wrote on the American Democracy Project’s website. He proposed four attributes that should describe civic engagement efforts, including integral, relational, organic, and generative.
“Our civic learning and democratic engagement efforts are strongest when they embody all four of these attributes,” Hoffman said. “To the extent that one or more of them is missing, we risk teaching and learning lessons we do not intend about the intractability of our problems, the rigidity of our roles and relationships, and the limits of human agency and democracy itself.”
Read “Describing Transformative Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement Practices” on American Democracy Project.
Tags: BreakingGround, StudentAffairs
