Good Participation: Exploring Civic Engagement in the Digital Age

by Carrie James

When the militant group, Boko Haram, abducted hundreds of Nigerian school girls last month, the major news outlets began to report the story. Yet worldwide awareness of the crisis didn’t reach a tipping point until the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls began to circulate across Twitter and Facebook. As of May 13, the hashtag was used 3.3 million times on Twitter alone. While some skeptics question whether “hashtag activism” can lead to real world impact, the potential of social media to shine a spotlight on an urgent issue seems clear.

The growing use of social media sites to call attention to political crises and broader social issues is a current area of research for the Good Project. Our research team is part of the MacArthur Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP) research network, an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners who are exploring how digital life affords new modes of participation with civic and political issues.

The YPP network has identified five core “participatory practices” which, while not new in and of themselves, are facilitated in new ways by the digital technologies, social media, and other aspects of the internet. These practices include:

– investigation: researching social issues in order to become more informed
– production: producing content that contains a civic or political message
– circulation: sharing civically- or politically-oriented content created by others
– dialogue and feedback: engaging in discussion of social issues and giving feedback to powerholders
– mobilization: inciting others to take action on behalf of a cause

As part of the YPP network, our Good Participation research team has been conducting qualitative interview studies with civically active youth focused on how they engage these practices online. For instance, we’ve spoken with youth who produce videos or blog posts in which they seek to inform others about issues such as child sex trafficking. We’ve looked at how youth leverage sites like Change.org to mobilize people to sign petitions. We’ve explored how civic youth use Facebook to circulate words or images that signal their beliefs about issues such as gun control, environmental issues, or marriage equality. We’ve found that civically engaged youth are excited by the potentials of digital media for action in the world. Yet, we also find that expressing the civic voice in the digital space – especially given its public, networked nature – can pose challenges and dilemmas, including unintended audiences, uncivil dialogue, and even backlash.

Our work on these issues is being shared in different forms. Researcher Emily Weinstein published an article in the International Journal of Communication about how civic youth manage dilemmas of voice online. Margaret Rundle is the lead author of a forthcoming paper about different approaches youth take to digital civics. In my forthcoming book, Disconnected: Youth, New Media, and the Ethics Gap, I point to broader moral and ethical dilemmas in digital life that are relevant to civic uses of the web as well.

Finally, in an educational initiative called Educating for Participatory Politics, our team is working with Facing History and Ourselves to develop classroom materials that address both the opportunities and challenges for civic participation posed by digital life. We look forward to sharing these materials with our educator community in the near future.

If you are excited to learn more, consider joining us at Project Zero’s San Francisco conference, October 10-12, 2014. The implications of growing up in the digital age for civic education will be a featured theme.

A Reflective Space, A Just Space: Good Work in Extracurricular Activities

A guest post by Jia Wen He

Jia Wen He is a high school teacher in Singapore. She is a 2013-2014 Foreign Fulbright Student and currently pursuing a Master in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Jia Wen is interested in educational psychology and evidence-based pedagogy.

In Fall 2013, I was part of Howard Gardner’s HSGE course ‘Good Work in Education’. Among the topics we explored, I was especially interested in how good work is manifested in education and the professions. In this blog, I discuss the sharing of Good Work.

I have taught high school in Singapore for seven years, a time when students are on the cusp of college and professional training. I wondered about the intersection between school and the workplace: how schools cultivated in students the work ethics they will employ in the future.

 Pressures at work, pressures in school

The principal investigators of The Good Work Project noted that most workers want to do good work, but formidable obstacles make it difficult to do so. Pressures from the market, from the field, from peers, from juggling multiple commitments, make it tempting to cut corners.

The pressures on working professionals are similar to what students experience in schools. In an age of high-stakes testing and diversifying curricular programs, schooling can seem like a blur of demands competing for students’ attention. The school day is portioned out in subjects and programs—often for logistical rather than pedagogical reasons—and it can be challenging for students to see a more coherent “why” of their education.

However, developing healthy work habits requires sustained opportunities for reflection. Piaget and Dewey believe that learning and growth are essentially dependent on activity – from doing something, thinking about the doing, and doing it again. Hence, if we hope for students to do good work in the future, habits of contemplation need to be cultivated in school. 

The ECA effect

School-based extracurricular activities (ECAs) are rich spaces for students to experiment with the “how” of doing good work. All schools offer a range of activities from waterpolo, choir, drama club, to student government bodies – and most students devote up to ten hours each week to their chosen ECA. Through membership, students go through a constant cycle of acting and reflecting on their behavior, their motivations and their relations with others. ECAs make powerful engines for development, since learning is based on observation and activity, quite different from the classroom’s more top-down instruction.

Using the Good Work framework, I set out to study how ECAs could develop student capacities for excellent, ethical, and engaging work. I interviewed young alumni from a Singapore high school about their ECA experiences. All were committed members who spend up to ten hours a week in their ECAs.

We spoke at length about how these activities years ago had impacted them. A theme that emerged from the conversations was how vital teachers and coaches were as designers of ECA experiences that could promote Good Work.

First, ECA teachers and coaches who created regular opportunities for reflection maximized the impact of learning. Whatever form or duration these reflections were, the consistent space to think led students to retain very nuanced impressions of their ECAs. Zoe spoke of how the supervising teacher held 10-minute reflection sessions after every practice. “She made me able to put my experience into words. Simply because she forced us everyday to think about what we were doing and tell it to the teammates.” Reflection led to connection building between the experience and the students’ developing work ethic.

Second, adult mentors who ensured fairness, and arbitrated in unfair situations, created a necessary condition for learning to occur. High schoolers might have greater autonomy in their ECAs, but a fair environment is one aspect they have limited control over. Kegan had a particularly vivid memory of stepping up to finish a project for an irresponsible student member: “I don’t feel the supervising teachers were a source of support or advice. They could have played a bigger role when people were not pulling their weight. They could actually intervene.”

Interestingly, those who experienced unfairness without teacher intervention went on to express disillusionment with colleagues – Kegan admits how his experience “in some ways broke my trust in people’s capability.” On the other hand, those who experienced fair and nurturing ECA environments developed a strong sense of trust. Although fairness in the workplace cannot be guaranteed, the latter group had the foundation to buffer them from minor slights. 

Teachers as designers

We know what happens when adult mentors encourage limited or flawed definitions of success – the worst iterations can be found in some elite youth sport where winning is encouraged at all costs.

Yet a less considered but no less essential concern are inattentive mentors: these adults leave much of the ECA design to students, especially if students are competent and old enough to handle the running of the group. Schools do pay attention to ECA quality, but in reality, academic programs are prioritized. ECA mentors are only accountable for the most basic of guidelines for the legal running of the groups.

At this point, I wish to flip the table on the accountability conversation. Teacher accountability is important, but the discussion tends to place teachers on the receiving and passive end of the spectrum. This research made me think about how teachers can take ownership and run personal, simple, and low-stakes accountability tests – following up with the students we had taught.

Well-designed learning experiences should be more than “good-to-haves”. If we want students to learn to do good work, and if ECAs are precious avenues to practice good habits, we need to become dedicated mentors, collecting our data and designing experiences mindfully.

Do Students Really Remember What They Learn in School? Life and Career after Exposure to the Good Work Course

by Daniel Mucinskas and Victoria Nichols

At the end of a typical university semester, professors will hand out evaluations to students with the hope of garnering insightful and constructive feedback about a course. Unfortunately, professors will typically distribute these evaluations in the final moments of class or in conjunction with an examination. As such, students will frequently dismiss the questions, providing vague or incomplete responses as they aren’t allowed the time necessary to produce thoughtful answers. Moreover, students are almost never given time to pause and reflect on their experiences before providing an evaluation; rather, the process is sudden and soon over. By requesting responses immediately upon the termination of a course, professors are limiting the scope of student surveys. If instructors were to administer surveys years after students complete a course, the answers would conceivably provide insight into the long-term personal and professional impact of the material. With this in mind, Dr. Howard Gardner, along with a team of Harvard University researchers, set out to investigate the long-term effects of a course on Good Work by surveying a wide range of former students.

At the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), Gardner has been teaching a course for 15 years on “Good Work in Education: When Excellence, Ethics, and Engagement Meet.” The course is an overview of the Good Work Project with two major components: in-class discussions of topical events through a Good Work lens and an extensive research paper on a Good Work-related topic. In the fall of 2013, a survey of eight questions was sent via email to 101 former H-175 students, soliciting their feedback on the course. The questions prompted the recipients to recall the most memorable course content and to discuss whether H-175 had changed how they approached situations in their professional and/or personal lives. A total of 47 substantive responses were received. Two graders (the authors of this blog) then scored all answers on a 0-to-3 point scale for five separate measures: assignments/readings/discussions; research paper; professional influence; personal influence; and Good Work concepts. As newly tuned social scientists, we had a crash course in achieving reliability. And, indeed, after many rounds of independent scoring, we eventually reached agreement.

Once scoring was completed, the highest-scored responses were ultimately analyzed for overarching thematic concepts. Detailed coding revealed significant and positive trends amongst former students, with 79% of responses at least mentioning, and many illustrating in anecdotes, how the course has been professionally and/or personally influential. The most rewarding part of the experience was seeing the number of former students who felt as though the course was a key part of their graduate education and that it had given them tools with which to navigate particular situations in their later lives. For example, one former student described using the Good Work framework as a part of her job while selecting recipients of grants, while another alum discussed reevaluating what it means to be personally and professionally successful and where those two realms overlap. As one student said, “My participation in the Good Work course helped me to begin to understand the complexities of ethics and ethical action.” Moreover, 45% of students stated that the final research paper was a powerful experience.

This method of assessment, however, does have limitations. While evaluating a class from the perspective of several months or years after completion appears to provide unique and helpful insights, there is the possibility that participants’ memories may be inaccurate, flawed, or incomplete. It should also be noted that not all students who have taken H-175 were emailed; moreover, not all former students who were contacted responded. In turn, there may have been a participant bias in that those who responded to the survey may have also been those who had the most profound and beneficial experiences in the course.

Nonetheless, student responses revealed that H-175 had a lasting impact on the majority of students’ lives and career. Upon reviewing the results from this survey, Gardner plans to make changes in the H175 course. Educators at all levels would undoubtedly also find it useful to engage in long-term assessment of former students in order to evaluate the effects of assignments and curricula over time. This is particularly true of a course like Good Work. Since the material is practical and adaptable across a wide variety of situations, assessment and evaluation are best done from a vantage of several years By that point, former students can assess whether, and if so, how they have employed the Good Work framework in their lives as a whole.

Re-Inventing the Wheel in the Study of Human Character

by Howard Gardner and colleagues

James Heckman, Nobel Prize winning economist, has just published a 435 page collection called The Myth of Achievement Tests.  On the surface it is a well-documented critique of the GED (General Educational Development) examination. But as one leafs through the volume, it turns out to be a 400+  page hymn-of-praise to character education. Heckman and his three co-editors see the development of character as at least as important as IQ/SAT measures, if not more so.   

As a psychologist who has worked for decades in the area of human development and education, I was stunned by a striking omission in the book.  Nowhere in the book does one find a substantive discussion of the areas of moral development, character development, moral and character education—areas initially investigated by Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, and studied in more recent times by many outstanding scholars , such as  James Arthur, Marvin Berkowitz, Anne Colby, William Damon, Carol Gilligan,  Helen Haste,  Thomas Lickona,  Elliot Turiel, Richard Weissbourd, just to name a few known to me personally. (Angela Duckworth, a younger researcher, is mentioned; I note that she has been a collaborator of Heckman’s)

I wrote to several of my colleagues in psychology, and one economist, to see if they had an explanation for what struck me as an inexplicable lacuna. Here, slightly edited, anonymous, and in italics, are their responses:

The world view of economists

Economists live on a quite different planet in another universe called The Rational Way (rather than the Milky Way) but just occasionally, as they get older, or become grandparents, they ‘discover’ humanity, virtue, etc. But as their planet doesn’t have suitable libraries, they usually ‘remember’ their childhood experiences with teachers, nuns, parents, pop TV, etc. and the kinds of films that John Wayne starred in. Maybe a small dash of dilute Aristotle, filtered through pre-adolescent Christian or Jewish religious classes, or maybe Scouts….

Disciplinary silos

Economists aren’t the only ones to stick to their own disciplines — or even sub disciplines (e.g. Social psychologists).

The self-satisfaction of celebrity scholars

People who have been highly celebrated often think they can solve a problem without paying attention to what others have tried to do about it. Zillions of successful businessmen and celebrities do this in education all the time. I mentioned an outstanding program of character development to a well known social entrepreneur when he was starting a similar program, and he showed absolutely no interest in the earlier work.

Remember the dreadful William Shockley, a Nobel prize winner in electronic engineering, who set himself up as an ‘expert’ in race and IQ? And who, when he was challenged on this (and other social) issues, fished his Nobel Prize out of his pocket and said, ‘ When you have one of these, you can criticize me.’

Problems with the field itself 

Moral and character education in particular is a field divided into an infinity of approaches, many of which actually are antagonistic to one another, so people often don’t even want to know what others are doing because they assume it’s probably worthless.
Different methods

I went to a conference where economists had simply replicated work done in psychology forty  years ago. When one of the conference hosts pointed that out, the economists showed no interest. In fairness to them, they no doubt would reject the methods I used, and the feeling is mutual, which is kind of the point.

A different focus

Heckman is primarily focused on performance character, not moral character. And I’m very concerned in general not only by the fact that much recent work on character is ignored but by the degree to which moral character in particular is evaporating in conversation about teaching and raising kids. Grit and other performance characteristics are, of course, the rage right now, and too often I have conversations with educators where “character” has been equated with just performance character. Even empathy is often discussed only instrumentally, as a way of increasing one’s own achievement and well-being. 

It would be interesting to know how students and teachers interpret the KIPP motto to ‘be nice.’ My guess is that Bernie Madoff was very nice, that is how he charmed people. I doubt that anyone would say President Lyndon Johnson was ‘nice,’ but he accomplished a great deal against the odds.

I was just a discussant on moral “performance” and civic character strengths. One reason I think that rather arbitrary classification is useful is that it reminds people that the instrumental ones aren’t the only ones that are important and that positive outcomes in advancing the individual aren’t the only reasons character strengths are important.

To hell with them

My reaction in these cases is the same advice Virgil gave Dante as they were walking in one of the bottom circles of Hell, where the damned were doing some gruesome things to each other that attracted Dante’s attention: “Non ti curar di lor,” Virgil tells him, “ma guarda e passa.” In other words, Do not bother with them, just look and keep walking . . .

And from an economist of my acquaintance:

I too find it unsettling that the new wave of researchers on “character” seems blissfully and maybe willfully ignorant of their predecessors in these interests. There is a certain amount of brand creation going on here. And a certain amount of “scientism” as well. In Heckman’s’s case, that may be less the concern than that he shares the familiar economist’s vice that if an economist didn’t say it, it was never really said. Fortunately there are exceptions to that rule!

Closing comment: 

I think that this range of responses covers the likely possibilities for this striking omission. I might add that the phrases ‘moral’ and ‘character education’ have sometimes had a moralistic or religious connotation and  that had scared off parts of the scholarly community. Of course, if readers can think of other possible explanations, I hope that they will respond to this blog.

As a scholar, I have lingering questions: 

1) How can a book by a major scholar, with a major press, go to press without anyone noticing, and in some fashion addressing, this glaring hole? What’s the responsibility of reviewers and editors to correct omissions?

2) In this era of powerful search engines, what can we as scholars do to minimize our ignorance of significant work on a topic of interest in related fields?  What should we do?  What mechanisms ought to be created to blow up the silos manifest throughout the Heckman volume…. And no doubt in many other volumes coming from scholars in many other fields?

Indian Values in an Era of Change: Can the Good Project have an Influence?

by Paromita De

Apeejay teacher Ritesh Sharma discusses a “Good Work Approach to Sustainability” with her high school Biology students.

“As you are of Indian origin, I think we can vouch for the values. We  already have a very good value system and if we preserve that, I think we will go a long way.” A teacher relayed me this conviction before my fourteenth trip to India. Each trip means seeing Kolkata’s city lights and making merry with relatives (read: teasing each other), but this visit gave me a unique opportunity: to meet teachers who earned Good Work certification from the Good Project and tGELF two years earlier. In response, the person of Indian origin in me nodded, acknowledging understanding of this “value system”. Upon conversation’s end, however, the researcher in me sought details. I set off for school visits in Delhi/Gurgaon with a question in mind: what are “Indian values”?

“Indian values” are contoured by the 21st century’s sweeping changes. The middle-class India my dad left 43 years ago knew only job shortages, street bazaars, and food ration cards, and couldn’t foreshadow its present economic boom, megamalls, and even microwaves.

India is reaping prosperity’s fruits, but increasing competitiveness presents challenges. Does one choose consumerism over thrift? How does one balance work/life? Should one overlook corruption?

If Indian society’s transformation is akin to a storm, then at its eye is India’s youth. They will inherit India’s growth, yet are lost in a results-driven frenzy. How do we teach youth to confront today’s issues?

Enter the Good Project: it has come when Indian schools want to embrace ethical thinking. I will describe Good Project initiatives of four schools and how they shape student’s identities.

Although I didn’t visit Delhi Public School – Sector 45 (DPS), through interviews I learned of ways in which educator Archana Singh and her students engage with society. We may liken engagement to individual passion, but factor in the other two E’s – excellence and ethics – and we see how full engagement in one’s work is cognizant of its societal influence. The DPS students fulfill both individual and social connotations of engagement. Singh is a Chemistry teacher, but she still manages to incorporate the Good Work Toolkit materials into class. Singh always encourages students to examine multiple perspectives and appreciate collaboration. Students find relevance in the Toolkit’s narratives and remark that the dilemmas they read about are actual issues that have come up for them as well.

Singh also founded DPS’ Good Work Club. The club consists of leaders from different service groups, whose projects include tutoring in villages, designing art with Cancer patients, and promoting school health. Members share lessons learned in leadership and team up on school-wide social initiatives, such as a street play on littering. When it comes to enhancing community service, the Good Work Club looks no further than the 3 E’s. One student said that she is “happy to be a part of the initiative, as it is suited to how I think.”

At Apeejay School, teacher Ritesh Sharma weaves Good Work into her Biology lessons and student leadership initiatives. For a natural resources lesson, Sharma incorporated Good Work-inspired activities, such as comparing materials needed for class to the waste in a class’ trash (the answer is that they are one in the same) and asking students about tradeoffs (like buying an organic or cheap product). These activities motivated Sharma’s students to consider what the implications are of the resource usage and what responsibilities they have for future generations.

Outside of the classroom, Sharma continues to use Good Work to foster caring attitudes.  The Buddy Project, for instance, pairs high-achieving students with students in need of academic support. They provide homework assistance and serve as confidantes on tough issues. This project evokes the concept of mentors, who guide mentees’ progress in a field. One certainty is that mentors will learn much as well. As one student said, “Good Work has helped… to improve myself and become less self-centered…. I have become more sensitive than selfish.”

Geeta Bedi, a mathematics teacher at Scottish High International School, has been a tremendous influence in sharing Good Work with colleagues across all grade levels. Pre-K pupils have already proven themselves capable of designing their own “class rules” to promote mutual respect. Pre-K -8 students also discuss how the 3 E’s can be used to tackle social issues and how one can analyze value alignment.

9-12 graders at Scottish High have taken Good Work to the streets, literally, through plays. The performers enact scenarios of trials that a young person may face: lack of parental attention, drugs, academic pressures, and bullying to name a few. Between the scenarios the performers would break out into song, asking “What are we doing, who will we be?” One student took on the character of a humorous devil, who revels in a teenager’s decision-making confusion. In the street plays, I found a connection with an idea that catalyzed development of the Good Work Toolkit: individuals will be more comfortable reflecting on their own ethical dilemmas after they first discuss another person’s similar dilemma. By showcasing these scenarios, the students inform their peers that they are not alone in their concerns and prompt them to reflect on what actions the protagonist and/or they would take.

I visited mathematics teacher Ishita Mukherjee and her LGBTQI rights student group at Tagore International School only a week after Section 377 – which bans homosexuality – was reinstated by the Indian Supreme Court. A student summed up the disappointment by saying “One day we are getting an award for something (referring to a prize from November 2013’s tGELF competition), the next day it gets criminalized!” The group, modeled after the certification course’s collaboration project, educates peers on sexuality and advocates for LGBTQI rights – no easy task, given its taboo status. Mukherjee is proud of her students’ poise when faced with incessant questions. For instance, when asked if they themselves are gay, the students respond, “It’s not only about me, we have this LGBTQI community and…we have to work for them, because they’re being mistreated.” To me, these students’ resolve exemplifies responsibility: regardless of sexual orientation, these students view themselves as members of a greater society and feel obligated to protect its fellow citizen’s rights.

Returning to the question, “What are Indian values?”, a common theme in these Good Project initiatives reminded me of an Indian tradition: the “Namaste” greeting. This act recognizes that oneself and the other person are worthy of respect. Whether it is a classmate or a person they’ve never met before, Good Project students want their actions to accord respect for themselves and others. The kinds of discussions and reflections that these students are having through the Good Project are allowing them to draw attention to issues of national importance – pollution, corruption, discrimination, etc. – and figure out which solutions will align with the vision they have for their country. If we continue to cultivate this awareness of and attention to action in young people, I can agree with that teacher in believing they will go a long way.

Follow Paromita De on Twitter @ParomitaDe