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Civic Engagement Essay Sample: Academic Reflective Blog

Civic Engagement Essay Sample 

Academic Reflective Blog 

Introduction

This discussion features a number of blog entries on the topic of civic engagement to better understand the process and what it brings to those who take part in it. The first blog of the series considers what civic engagement is and what my volunteering effort was comprised of. The second post explores motivations for volunteering, by comparing and contrasting my own drivers with those that can be seen within the literature. The third blog post examines how I contributed to improving the service and my challenges and limitations in doing so. Finally, the last post will discuss the application of learning as a result of the process to my future nursing practice.

This blog post examines what civic engagement is, and my own civic engagement at a local organisation. It is helpful within this discussion to understand what is meant by the term “civic engagement”. Civic engagement does not have one single definition that everyone agrees with, but a definition that helps to encompass what it is might be: people coming together to take group action to address factors of concern for the public (Battistoni, 2017). It involves building skills and knowledge to create change and make a difference (Griffen, 2020). Civic engagement can take a variety of different forms, according to Bee and Guerrina (2017). For example, Bee and Guerrina (2017) argue that civic engagement includes everything from voting through to fundraising for good causes or undertaking types of community service. It includes volunteering at charities

For my civic engagement, I chose to volunteer at the charity organisation that is my local church. There are a number of different types of help that the church provides to the local community. These include operating a youth group, giving guidance to those in need and providing support to those that may need it – such as food, for example. The church also runs various community events with some regularity, to bring people together and also to raise awareness and funds.

I was assigned to work in the children’s department at my church. My activities included teaching children about God and about good behaviour in society. This required me to develop lessons and activities for the children. I needed to be organised and creative to undertake preparation for classes. I wanted to deliver classes that would be interesting and engaging as well as age appropriate for the children I was teaching. The ages that I worked with differed over the time period of my volunteering at the church. My activities also included assisting other teachers as needed.

I was somewhat nervous at the start of my activities volunteering with the church because I had not really taught children before, though I had experienced the teaching of other church teachers when I was a child. As Sagiv et al. (2022) point out, this can be the case at the start of the process. However, through being faced with new situations and different challenges, volunteers can draw on their creativity to deliver what is needed of them (Sagiv et al., 2022). Despite my anxieties, I was excited about getting started and I was hopeful and optimistic that I would be able to do a sufficient, or ideally, a good job. I hoped that this would help me to achieve new levels of personal potential through volunteering, as Brady et al. (2020) highlight can be possible.

This blog post will explore motivation for civic engagement, examining why people volunteer and why I volunteered. It will consider what I hoped to achieve through my civic engagement activities. There are different perspectives within the research on why people choose to volunteer. To some level, this depends on what they are volunteering on. For example, Silva et al. (2015, p. 48) argue that volunteers in disaster zones are motivated due to proximity and a “need to act”. While proximity was an advantage in my case, a drive to act was not, and neither motivator really explains my own civic engagement process effectively.

From considering the analysis of Loth et al. (2020) which suggests that altruism is one motivating factor for volunteering, I would say that this was an important driver in my situation. I wanted that whatever I did, it would be something good, and that I would be able to feel good about what I did. A research study by Johnson et al. (2018) on volunteer motivations with regard to tree monitoring in New York City identified that personal values were an important reason for volunteering, as is contributing to one’s own community. While my period of volunteering had nothing to do with tree monitoring, the motivations presented by Johnson et al. (2018) resonate clearly with me. I wanted to contribute to the community by helping to teach children the differences between right and wrong as the church sees them. Given that I am a committed Christian, this was closely linked to my own values of doing right and wrong and wanting to promote a better society as a result of my actions.

There are also other reasons that people tend to volunteer. For example, Loth et al. (2020) also argue that personal gain is one motivator for volunteers, particularly with regard to gaining new skills (Arnett, 2016). Research by Fernandes et al. (2021) also concurs on this point, suggesting that personal development is an important motivator for volunteering. These are commonly cited reasons for volunteering, but they were not particularly pertinent for me, except for on one specific point. What I did want to accomplish was to get to know potential service users in my local community and gain improved cultural competence with regard to understanding them and being more aware of differences between people. This was somewhat of a motivator but not the main one. Interestingly, as Guntert et al. (2021) argue, two people doing the same form of volunteering can have vastly different motivations. Therefore, someone working alongside me, volunteering in a similar role could for example, be motivated by learning how to teach, with a view to becoming a teacher in the future. However, in my case, my motivation was largely about helping others.

In this blog post I will examine lessons that I learned, what I contributed to improve the service, and my own limitations and challenges with civic engagement. Starting with contributions, I believe that an important contribution that I made was setting up a shared spreadsheet within which different teachers could log the subjects of classes taught on any given session. This was motivated by an issue I experienced early on in my teaching, when the children in a particular class said that I was teaching them a lesson that they covered very recently. There was no way that I could have known that as the teacher had moved away. I thought that such a spreadsheet would not only help avoid this problem but would also spark ideas for other teachers. Smith et al. (2021) argue that for organisations, this can be one of the advantages of having volunteers – that they may bring new ideas for improved ways of working. As Steden and Mehlbaum (2019) suggest, this can lead to more efficient work approaches. I was grateful to receive positive feedback for this effort.

One of the challenges of my volunteering experience was the fact that I knew by its very nature it would need to be a non-permanent experience because once I graduate I will have to work on shifts and will not be able to commit to regular teaching sessions. Rochester et al. (2016) argue that longer term commitment to volunteering is more often the case in more recent forms of volunteering, when compared with the past. This can create challenges for volunteers and volunteering organisations (Rochester et al., 2016). For example, I found it difficult to build bonds with children towards the end of the volunteering period, knowing that I would not be continuing to teach them in the future. I do not believe that this impacted on the quality of my efforts, but it did impact on my emotional involvement in some cases.

Another limitation that impacted on my volunteering is that while I knew it was improving my well-being (Wray-Lake et al., 2019), it did also add a certain element of stress into my life at the same time. Volunteering was one activity that I did among an array of other tasks and activities that I needed to juggle. For example, I was also studying and working, and I also have family commitments. I found it a bit challenging during my period of volunteering to manage time effectively to ensure that I was able to balance everything and do a decent job of my volunteering too. I believe I did achieve this, but I did notice that the retired volunteers did not appear to exhibit as much stress, as those of us that were working. This may be a factor for consideration for organisations seeking volunteers in regard to volunteer time commitments and limitations in this regard.

This final blog post will consider how I will apply what I learnt during my civic engagement to my nursing practice.

I feel that during my period of volunteering, I became more self-aware of my personal values, These include being responsible and accountable, innovating, being self-motivated and empowering others, as well as having a passion for what I do. These values directly correlate with nursing practice, from my perspective. For example, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2018) Code of practice requires that nurses empower patients to help them to make decisions. I felt that during my time volunteering, this was something that I gained experience with, especially in my work with young people (rather than the very young children). Another example of this is my noticing areas for improvement and introducing innovative ideas. Finkelman (2020) describes how nurses are expected to introduce quality improvements to ensure that the standard of care can be enhanced for service users. The NMC (2018) Code supports this in the sense that it requires nurses continually work to improve their practice and that of their team. My experience of doing this at the church led me to better understand how to go about this and to avoid resistance in introducing change, which I can apply to my future role as a nurse.

During my volunteering experience, I regularly had to engage with a diverse range of people, both children and their parents, about their time at the church lessons. Through this, I believe I did gain a certain level of capability in understanding people of diverse backgrounds that I had not come across before in other realms of my life. Kersey-Matusiak (2018) argues that being able to work with a diverse range of people is a key skill for nurses, in understanding others and providing care that is respectful and fair to people of different backgrounds. While everyone I interacted with did share common Christian values, the range of people I worked with was all very different, so I can bring improved care to my nursing practice as a result. Nies and McEwen (2022) highlight that nurses that better understand diversity are more equipped to relate to different kinds of patients.

In short, I have learnt a lot from my volunteering experience, and have gained directly transferable skills as well, such as improved time management. I anticipate that in the future, I will want to volunteer again.

Civic engagement is a process through which people come together to act to improve communities and society. My own volunteering to achieve this was at my local church, where I supported the team as a teacher of children. My motivation was largely altruistic, and despite the fact that I did not set out motivated by a desire to gain new skills, I did anyway – and many of these will benefit me in my future nursing career. I have gained greater self-awareness during the volunteering process and have developed an understanding of how personal values and organisational values may benefit from being aligned. I believe this will be the case when I am a nurse in the future too, for the reasons highlighted within this series of blogs.

Arnett, J.J. (2016) The Oxford Handbook of Emerging Adulthood , Oxford: OUP

Battistoni, R.M. (2017) Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum , Boston: Campus Compact

Bee, C. and Guerrina, R. (2017) Framing Civic Engagement, Political Participation and Active Citizenship in Europe, London: Taylor & Francis

Brady, B., Chaskin, R.J. and McGregor, C. (2020) Promoting civic and political engagement among marginalized urban youth in three cities: Strategies and challenges, Children and Youth Services Review , 116, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105184

Fernandes, A., Proenca, T., Ferreira, M.R. and Paco, A. (2021) Does youth civic engagement enhance social and academic performance ? International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing , 18 (1) 273-293

Griffen, A.J. (2020) Challenges to Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs in Organizations, Hersey: IGI Global

Guntert, S.T., Wehner, T. and Mieg, H.A. (2021)  Organisational, Motivational and Cultural Contexts of Volunteering – The European View , New York: Springer Publishing

Johnson, M.J., Campbell, L.K., Svendsen, E.S. and Silva, P. (2018) Why Count Trees? Volunteer Motivations and Experiences with Tree Monitoring in New York City, Arboriculture & Urban Forestry , 44 (2) 59-72

Kersey-Matusiak, G. (2018) Delivering Culturally Competent Nursing Care , New York: Springer Publishing Company

Loth, C.C., Namisango, E., Powell, R., Pabst, K., Leng, M., Hamada, M. and Radbruch, L. (2020) “From good hearted community members we get volunteers” – an exploratory study of palliative care volunteers across Africa, BMC Palliative Care , 19 (48) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-020-00545-w

Nies, M.A. and McEwen, M. (2022) Community / Public Health Nursing , London: Elsevier Health Sciences

NMC (2018) The Code, London: NMC

Rochester, C., Paine, A., Howlett, S. and Zimmeck, M. (2016) Volunteering and Society in the 21 st Century, London: Palgrave Macmilla 

Sagiv, I.B., Goldner, L. and Carmel, Y. (2022) The civic engagement community participation thriving model: A multi-faceted thriving model to promote socially excluded young adult women, Frontiers in Psychology, 13 (1) DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389%2Ffpsyg.2022.955777

Silva, C.N. (2015) Emerging Issues, Challenges and Opportunities in Urban E-Planning, Hersey: IGI Global 

Smith, K.A., Holmes, K., Lockstone-Binney, L. and Shipway, R. (2021) The Routledge Handbook of Volunteering in Events, Sport and Tourism, London: Taylor & Francis

Steden, R. and Mehlbaum, S.M. (2019) Police volunteers in the Netherlands: a study on policy and practice, Policing and Society , 29 (4) 420-433

Wray-Lake, L., DeHaan, C.R., Shubert, J. and Ryan, R.M. (2018) Examining links from civic engagement to daily well-being from a self-determination theory perspective, The Journal of Positive Psychology , 14 (2) 166-177

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How To Write the Princeton Civic Engagement Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Elias Miller in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.

What’s Covered:

Overview of the prompt, connecting your values and experiences to the prompt, how does service differ from civic engagement.

Princeton requires all applicants to complete multiple supplemental essays . The civic engagement prompt reads as follows:

“Princeton has a long-standing commitment to service and civic engagement. Tell us how your story intersects or will intersect with these ideals. (Recommended 250 words.)”

This prompt is meant to better illustrate your personal values as an applicant. The prompt gives you some background on one particular campus value and asks you to reflect on your own experiences and how they align with Princeton’s commitment to service. Keep in mind that the keyword in the prompt is story. This prompt is not an invitation to list all your achievements in community service like you would on your resume. With a 250-word limit, it’s important that you convey relevant details from your story as effectively and concisely as possible.

This question is twofold. The admissions committee wants to learn about a deeply held part of your identity from which you are motivated to perform civic engagement and service. The prompt also asks you to reflect on how your values intersect with Princeton’s values, so it is OK to devote some space in this essay to discussing specific programs that do align with your interests.

Don’t be afraid to call out different clubs, classes, programs, or initiatives on campus that connect with your particular interests and how they intersect with service. Do focus on one particular interest or concern if you can. With only 250 words to spare, less is more, and focusing on one key experience or aspect of your identity will demonstrate more thought and effort than just listing several experiences from your resume. 

As you write, think deeply about what service means to you. It’s important not to fill up space by simply regurgitating the prompt or using buzzwords. Be specific in both your connection to Princeton’s values and your own unique experiences. Consider Princeton’s culture and opportunities unique to the university. Perhaps you’re planning to delve into research or create socially conscious art. Think about what you will bring to the campus and its broader community.

Be specific and authentic. Discussing broad issues like global poverty or homelessness are unlikely to set your essay apart and can potentially come off as impersonal, particularly if your extracurriculars and accomplishments don’t align with these service areas. Instead, pick a subset of a larger issue that seems manageable, such as providing essential services to homeless individuals in your area. Drilling down into a smaller issue that you can have a meaningful impact on will help you create a stronger, more personal response.

Once you’ve identified an issue or initiative that resonates with you, think about how studying at Princeton will enable you to reach your goal. Perhaps there are student organizations with similar missions or current student activism projects that you find interesting. Discuss how those opportunities would allow you to apply your skills in the best way.

The terms “service” and “civic engagement” are often used interchangeably. Service is often associated with volunteering or unpaid work. However, there is also “public service,” a term which is often used to describe the work that politicians or certain types of government workers perform. However, the blanket term “service” typically describes volunteer or community service projects aimed at providing important goods or services to the public.

Civic engagement is a little bit broader and is not limited to volunteer work. Civic engagement can describe almost anything you do to be an active part of your community. That could include voting, participating in a local town hall or community meeting, specialized internships, or working on an election campaign, to name a few examples.

Whether you’ve volunteered hundreds of hours or only two, writing a strong community service essay can be quite the feat. Check out this post for more tips on writing a standout community service essay.

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Achieving Lasting Impact

By  Julie E. Wollman

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Colleges and universities across the country are turning their attention to expanding civic engagement opportunities for students. In part, this growing attention is a result of a renewed focus on the traditional mission of higher education to develop good citizens -- a mission with heightened importance in our current sociopolitical context. It is also a response to a resurgence of student interest in social activism and an expressed commitment among students to make a difference in the world. While these aims are commendable, I question whether those of us who work in higher education have developed the best approaches to achieve them.

An article in Inside Higher Ed described the growing emphasis on civic engagement in college curricula “in response to an erosion of public discourse.” The article notes that institutions are working to address what a 2012 Department of Education report termed a “civic recession” by involving students in service projects and experiential learning with the goals of enhancing civic discourse and political engagement and satisfying students’ desire to participate in service to “accomplish something in the world.”

As Alan Solomont of Tufts University states in the article, students need the structure colleges and universities provide, because without that they are uncertain about how to turn their activism into lasting change. I agree, and I’m concerned that we may be missing the opportunity to achieve our goals with students because we are not doing enough to intentionally design a structure that facilitates the desired outcome.

Today’s students will be better prepared and disposed to be good citizens who accomplish lasting change if they are more than involved in civic discourse on trending topics, do more than participate in politics and vote regularly, and experience more than discrete service projects or service learning courses. Those experiences, while important, can and should be framed by larger issues so they become more than self-fulfilling or exotic experiences of helping small numbers of people in need. Lasting change comes with a clear understanding and appreciation that such discrete activities exist in a social context that cannot be changed without systemic reform. We have great potential to make a difference precisely because students are eager to explore their concerns, often through social media, and to express their hopes and expectations through campus demonstrations, sit-ins and petitions. Many are actively engaged.

Yet we know that our current efforts are not working as well as we had hoped. Campus projects to encourage student voting have not succeeded in getting students who turn out in large numbers for presidential elections to vote in the off years, although the issues that drive them to the polls aren’t solved through voting for a single political leader in one election. And students return from service-learning trips and activities elated by the adventure, feeling as if they’ve made a difference and connected with people very different from themselves, but often without the tools to contextualize their experience in the framework of global problems or to stimulate them to continue their deep engagement as citizens.

What can we do to enhance the long-term impact of college and university-sponsored civic engagement activities? We can start by asking, “What for?” and “What are we doing to point intentionally toward the purpose implied in that first question?” If we are clear about the purpose and context for these efforts and systemic in our framing and design, our students are far more likely to develop lifelong civic responsibility for bringing about lasting, systemic change.

Identify the fundamental issue. We should encourage the explicit design of civic engagement projects, whether local or global, around major issues. Such design entails framing activities not simply as work in a food pantry but also as work to diminish food insecurity and malnutrition, not simply as helping build schools but also as addressing the issue of educational inequities, not simply as establishing a pro bono community clinic but also as providing equitable access to health care. In short, we have to broaden the focus from applying learning in the real world and what the student gains in this hands-on process to include an explicit focus on the larger societal problem the student is working to solve.

Understand the issue in its broader context. We will not successfully resolve hunger with a food drive or a service-learning trip, because hunger is a complex problem that is systemically entwined with other social and economic issues. To be effective in tackling societal issues, we have to understand them deeply and broadly enough to know what needs to change. Colleges and university are well positioned to teach students about issues like hunger as enduring, complex systemic problems. Institutions that already take that approach know that the academic component of civic engagement activities is central to making sure these activities are understood as more than discrete projects. Students should learn about the issue and the community in depth before engaging in service projects so they are not just there as helpers or partners but can also envision their work as an effort to address a larger problem and appreciate their potential efficacy in addressing it.

A postexperience follow-up that circles back to the pre-experience academic study is also important in linking the civic engagement activity to the larger problem, why it is so entrenched and how to address it systemically. Perhaps ideally, students could begin to study major local and global problems in depth in their first year through a problem-themed general education program that would lay the groundwork for a deeper and broader understanding of civic engagement work from the start of their undergraduate experience.

Support faculty work across disciplines. As the notion of a problem-themed general education program suggests, the issues we are trying to address through civic engagement projects are complex and nuanced and cannot be fully understood or effectively tackled from any single disciplinary perspective. For example, environmental sustainability is best considered from the multifaceted perspectives of science, law, business, sociology, communications and engineering, to name a few key disciplines. To help our students frame their activity, we must support our faculty’s interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship and ensure that our institutions value this work in personnel decisions like reappointment, promotion and tenure.

Develop leaders. An important component of solving complex problems is leadership. If we want students to develop a civic engagement stance that has an impact on major problems, we must also foster their acquisition of tools and dispositions to make a difference with the knowledge and experience they have gained through civic engagement activities. We should guide them to discover their own leadership skills, to explore ethical and servant leadership concepts (leading with a singular focus on empowering others and addressing others’ needs), and to understand the power of quiet leaders, those without formal leadership positions who lead by example in their daily actions and decisions. Students must develop a personal sense of leadership and responsibility to be leaders in their own lives. At my institution, Widener University, the Oskin Leadership Institute offers all students a leadership certificate and an interdisciplinary leadership minor. Connecting service activities with leadership development is important to developing a lifelong commitment to civic engagement.

Strive for lifetime impact. The ultimate goal should be that our students will be poised for a lifetime of engagement in civic participation to solve local and global problems. Regardless of their career paths, students who have the tools to lead and who have learned to understand and think about their civic engagement activities in the framework of larger problems -- who understand what those activities are for beyond their own discrete experience -- will be better able to achieve the outcomes we all hope for: accomplishing something significant by making a difference in the world.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, how can i discuss civic engagement in my college essay.

Hey folks! I've been very involved in civic activities throughout high school, such as volunteering, community service, and campaign work. I want to write an essay about my passion for civic engagement, but I'm not quite sure how to approach it. Can anyone share their experience or give me some pointers on this matter? Thanks!

Hello! It's fantastic that you're passionate about civic engagement and want to incorporate it into your college essay. Here are some suggestions on how to approach writing about civic engagement:

1. Focus on a specific story or experience: Instead of giving an overview of all your civic engagement activities, choose one that was particularly meaningful or transformative. This will allow you to showcase your passion and the personal impact civic engagement has had on you.

2. Determine your essay's central theme: Reflect on what common thread connects your chosen experience with your overall growth and personal development. Consider how your civic engagement has shaped your identity, values, or understanding of the world.

3. Explore the reasons behind your passion for civic engagement: Share your personal motivation for getting involved in volunteering, community service, or campaign work. Explain how these experiences have helped you gain a deeper understanding of the issues you care about or develop valuable skills.

4. Discuss the impact of your civic engagement on others: Describe how your efforts have made a difference in your community or the lives of others. This could include helping to improve local facilities, advocating for important causes, or empowering marginalized groups.

5. Avoid cliches and generalizations: Be sure to focus on personal experiences rather than generic statements about the importance of civic engagement or volunteering. Write in a way that provides a unique perspective and showcases your authentic voice.

For example, you might write about a specific campaign you were involved in, focusing on your role, the skills you learned, and the impact it had on the community. You could discuss the challenges you faced and how overcoming them reinforced your commitment to addressing important issues in your community.

Remember to be reflective and honest in your essay, as colleges value your self-awareness and ability to communicate your personal growth. Good luck with your college essay, and I hope these suggestions help you craft a compelling and memorable piece!

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Supporting Critical Reflection in Community-Engaged Learning

Compiled by Kathryn Van Zanen, Engaged Learning Graduate Consultant

Reflection is a critical component of community-engaged courses and programs. Reflection supports meaning-making, and regular reflection activities help students connect their community engagement experience to course or program learning objectives. Studies show that reflection can strengthen critical thinking 1 and enhance student development on measures of civic values and personal growth . 2     Reflection can come in many forms, but it’s most advantageous when it’s ongoing. Continuous, connected, challenging, and contextualized reflection helps students negotiate the stages of community engagement and supports them to prepare for and process their experiences. 3

The resources below offer guidance, examples and further reading around reflection. We would be glad to work with you to incorporate any of these resources into your community-engaged efforts.

• Contact us at  [email protected] or if you have any questions about these resources.
• Use our  Support Request Form  to request a consultation or workshop.  
• Join our  Academic Partner mailing list  to stay informed about upcoming events and opportunities!

How can I promote reflection with my students?

• Make reflection a regular– and rewarded– part of your course. You don’t have to grade the quality of students’ reflections, but giving them credit for doing it signals how important reflection is for their learning and your course objectives.
• Give feedback on student reflections, especially at the early stages. Reflection helps you to collect data about your students’ experiences and prompt them to deepen their thinking. Learn more about assessing reflection from Bradley (1995) and IUPUI.
• Reflect in a variety of ways. Invite multiple modes of reflection for students, from text to audio to video to artistic representation, and make time for students to reflect together and with you (Mabry 1998). The Northwest Service Academy Toolkit offers a wide range of possible activities organized by time commitment, while Clemson University organizes activities by the kind of learning they promote.
• Talk to students about why reflection is important. Many of the reflection models and resource lists linked below provide language for talking to students about why reflection matters; modeling reflective practices in your instructor role also underscores their value for your students. What are you learning from community engagement?

Additional Resources

• Peruse excerpts from the instructor manual or use specific reflection prompts that target personal, civic, and academic learning, respectively.
• Brock University’s Center for Pedagogical Innovation has a helpful website that compiles various reflection models (including DEAL) and assignment formats.
• Mine the ORID Model for questions to guide students from observation to integration of new knowledge and perspectives, plus tips for aligning reflection activities with your learning goals.
• Explore how to integrate reflection throughout your course or design a course-specific reflection project . 
• Explore our resources on Assessing Student Learning

What are some examples of reflection activities I can use?

Explore a range of reflection activities that can be used in many different ways, organized from shortest to longest: 

Reflection Guidebook, Santa Monica College This 5-page piece explains the basics of reflection and provides brief descriptions of many different kinds of reflection, as well as tips on what to consider as you determine what fits your course and learning goals.

Reflection toolkit, Northwest Service Academy This toolkit, designed for leaders facilitating reflection for the first time, explains what reflection is and why it’s important, and provides guidance for leading a variety of reflection activities. The activities are categorized by time commitment.

Reflection resources, Clemson University A collection of 28 different reflection activities for instructors, organized by category: reflection activities for prior knowledge (to use before engagement), cognition, metacognition, competency, and personal growth & change. Activities are marked for formative and graded, summative assessment.

Reflection activities: Service-Learning’s not-so-secret weapon , Katie Halcrow This 13-page piece outlines 33 different reflection activities for classroom use, grouped by “Reflection Activities In and Out of Class,” “Rigorous Academic Links,” and “Presenting Culmination of Experience.” The list includes group work, written activities, discussion activities, artwork, and ways to showcase students’ work.

Service-Learning Reflection Journal, Purdue University This student-facing handbook includes an initial assessment scale, pre-service project planning documents, a daily or weekly journal template, a final reflection assignment prompt, and a post-assessment.

International Service-Learning Reflection Journal, Purdue University This handbook, explicitly directed to students studying abroad, includes a pre-entry reflection and assignment, public affairs scale, daily/weekly journal template, reflective paper prompt, re-entry reflection and assignment, and a post-assessment public affairs scale.

What are some articles I can explore for further reading?

Below is a list of peer-reviewed articles about reflection (most recent first) 

Reflective Practice, Campus Compact

An extensive bibliography with links to peer-reviewed research on reflective practice in community-engaged learning.

Richard, D., Keen, C., Hatcher, J.A., and Pease, H. A. (2016). Pathways to Adult Civic Engagement: Benefits of Reflection and Dialogue across Difference in Higher Education Service-Learning Programs . Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 23(1), 60-74.

Drawing from a 30-campus, 1000+ participant dataset, Richard et al. explore the relationship between college engagement experiences and civic outcomes after college. They found that “dialogue with others across difference was the strongest predictor of cultivating civic outcomes after college. In addition, both structured and informal reflection independently contributed to civic outcomes (i.e., civic-mindedness, voluntary action, civic action).”

van Goethem, A., van Hoof, A., Orobio de Castro, B., Van Aken, M., & Hart, D. (2014). The role of reflection in the effects of community service on adolescent development: a meta-analysis. Child development, 85(6), 2114–2130. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12274

This meta-analysis of 49 studies finds again that reflection is essential to the positive academic, personal, social, and civic outcomes of service-learning. Positive effects of service-learning increased with greater reflection and particularly reflection on academic content.

Ash S.L., Clayton P.H. (2004). The Articulated Learning: An Approach to Guided Reflection and Assessment . Innovative Higher Education 29(2), 137–54.

The academic article that originated the DEAL reflection framework, this text describes the Articulated Learning framework’s three main components: description of an experience, analysis in accordance with relevant learning categories, and articulation of learning outcomes. It also considers applications for the framework in research and faculty development.

Hatcher, J.A, Bringle, R.G, & Muthiah, R. (2004). Designing effective reflection: What matters to service learning? Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 11(1), 38-46.

This study, based on survey responses of undergraduate students, found that successful courses included reflection activities that (a) clarified personal values, (b) were a regular part of the course, and (c) were structured with clear guidelines and directions. The paper also discusses implications for practice.

Eyler J. (2002). Reflection: Linking Service and Learning—Linking Students and Communities . Journal of Social Issues, 58(3), 517–34.

This article reviews research on reflection practices in service-learning and collects concrete suggestions for attaining service-learning learning goals. It includes the reflection map from Eyler (2001) that can guide faculty to support students in multiple dimensions of reflection, including reflecting alone, with classmates, and with partners as well as before, during, and after service. 

Eyler, J. (2001). Creating Your Reflection Map . In M. Canada (ed. ) Service-learning: Practical advice and models. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, New Directions for Higher Education, 2001(114), 35–43.

This piece outlines the how and why or reflection in a guide to using the reflection map, a “tool to help practitioners organize their thinking about integrating continuous reflective processes into their service-learning practice.” The tool invites faculty to think about reflection in a matrix of time and interaction: reflecting alone, with classmates, and with partners, as well as before, during, and after service. 

Bringle, R.G. and J.A. Hatcher (1999). Reflection in Service Learning: Making Meaning of Experience . Educational Horizons, Summer, 179-185.

This brief article offers an easy introduction to service-learning, including narrative about the philosophical basis for reflection, types of reflection for service learning, assessing reflection, and consequences of reflection.

References:

1. Eyler, J., & Giles Jr., D.E. (1999). Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 2. Ash, S.L.; Clayton, P.H.; Atkinson, M.P. (2005). Integrating Reflection and Assessment to Capture and Improve Student Learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning 11(2), 49-60. 3. Eyler, J., Giles Jr., D.E., and Schmiede, A. (1996). A Practitioner’s Guide to Reflection in Service-Learning: Student Voices and Reflections. Vanderbilt University.

Reflections on Civics Education: What I’ve learned about the power of engagement

By Meghan Volcy, Project Coordinator, The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy

With less than a week until the 2020 election, Rennie's Meghan Volcy takes a close look at the history and current state of civics education, examines the importance of giving young people the tools to engage in the democratic process, and reflects on her own journey in civic engagement.  

I did not have access to a formal civics class when I was in school, but I’m sure if I had, it would have given English a run for its money in the competition for my favorite class. Though I didn't start my civic education journey until well after high school, I’ve been making up for lost time.

After attending college in Boston, I remained on campus for the summer after graduation to manage a community service program that organized service education opportunities in surrounding communities, including my own hometown of Malden. I felt confident in my knowledge of my city and its public affairs while I held that position; however, when I moved back to Malden last September, I found myself in a place I barely recognized. I felt familiarity when revisiting certain parks and pizza places, but I felt like a visitor when passing new apartment complexes and businesses. In search of answers, I turned to civics.

Several elections were taking place at the local level and it was at debates and city meetings where I began to feel at home again. Exploring the spectrum of civic engagement (volunteering and substitute teaching at my old K-8 school, applying to serve on a city commission) and feeling like I have a stake in where I live has made me feel more connected to my home than I have in years. In the last seven months, when I have felt the most powerless and frustrated, I have found a surge of hope in civic engagement and civic education—working at the polls, holding elected officials accountable, bringing awareness to opportunities to engage, marching shoulder to shoulder for racial justice, and of course, casting my vote.

Similar to my civic journey, every person would benefit from resources, empowerment, and education to engage in their communities. Young people, in particular, deserve quality civic education and access to opportunities for civic empowerment, and any of us who claim to have a stake in children’s growth and development owe them this through conversations about social justice, service learning opportunities, and purposeful lessons about how politics affect everyday life. According to “High Quality Civic Education: What Is It and Who Gets It?” civic education not only “ explicitly teaches the knowledge, skills, and values believed necessary for democratic citizenship ,” but it also prepares young people for everyday interactions at work, school, and home.

The History and State of Civics Education Since the 1960s, American education has undergone many policy and priority shifts, including a shift away from “ skills, knowledge, and thinking specific to civic participation and deliberation ” (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008). For instance, emphasis on and required assessments in math, English language arts, and science have put pressure on districts to spend significantly less time on civics education. The alarming decline in the presence of civics education in schools has been accompanied by an even more alarming low voter turnout rate, seen in how youth voter turnout decreased from 50% to 39% from 1972 to 2016 . A disheartening lack of education in civic skills and empowerment deprives young people of a comprehensive educational experience, tools to connect with their communities in a meaningful way, and opportunities to further develop agency in their lives.

To address this shortcoming in the Massachusetts education system, An Act to promote and enhance civic engagement was signed into law in 2018. Among other things, the law requires public schools to provide “at least one student-led, non-partisan civics project” in middle school and another in high school. But while this law is an important step, more thoughtful planning about the types of civic education that students experience is necessary in order to maximize its benefits for all students.

Why does it matter? According to the Center for American Progress, states that prioritize civics courses tend to have the highest rates of civic engagement among youth . The decline in civics education is correlated with a decline in civic participation, and without an engaged electorate, the policies we live under will not be responsive to the needs of all—and they will further the inequities that persist in our world.

Not only is civic education—and the skills and empowerment that come with it—important as students and young people develop agency and become contributing citizens in society, civic skills also have a direct connection to those needed to succeed in postsecondary life. There is considerable overlap between civic skills and skills required for employment, as there is a correlation between having a high-quality civics education and twenty-first-century competencies. The Harvard Business Review report “ The Business Case for Civics Education ” uses quantitative and qualitative research to bring light to the fact that workplaces desire and benefit from employees who possess emotional intelligence, are empathetic, debate, engage with their surroundings, understand political processes, and understand, respect, and work with diverse groups of people and perspectives—all of which are civics skills.

The decline of civic education in the classroom particularly affects young people and students of color. Similar to the well-known achievement gap in education, there is also a striking civic engagement gap between non-white, less affluent, less-educated and/or immigrant youth and their whiter, more affluent, college-educated counterparts. Without a quality civics education, marginalized students are losing one of strongest avenues to personal and civic empowerment, and are further relegated to the margins of public discourse and policymaking. According to “ The Engagement Gap ”, these gaps start at a young age, as upper-middle-class children are being "groomed—through private investment and cultivation—to thrive in the competitive, knowledge-based economy that they will inherit" and will " enter adulthood as practiced citizens ready to participate in democracy and to collaborate with others ," while their working-class peers remain unable to access social mobility. This gap is aggravated by a valid historical mistrust among marginalized people in government systems and officials, who have long dismissed their needs people—or worse, targeted them with harmful policies. This failure of institutions and systems worsens societal inequities that we see every day and perpetuates a cycle of young people not knowing how to use or not believing in the system as a viable path to change and being written off as apathetic by elected officials not responding to their needs.

However, it is important to note that there is no correlation between lack of civic engagement opportunities and lack of interest. There are young people of color across the country and across the world creating space for themselves and people who look like them every day. Young people are organizing marches, running for office, and leveraging their collective power to effect change, whether or not institutions like schools or governments are supporting them in doing so. We must center marginalized populations in civic education efforts and acknowledge how civic life has failed them. With culturally responsive civics and history courses, marginalized students can see the historical playing field and know how to better take action in the interest of a more equitable society.

What Can We Do? It is important to remember that incorporating civics education will not take time away from literacy and math. Civics can be incorporated into any and every subject! For example, English classes can read and analyze political texts, foreign language classes can incorporate comparative political analysis or conversations about immigration, science classes can address environmental ethics and global warming, and math classes can use election examples to engage students in statistics or create localized lesson plans about eligibility for free and reduced price lunch. Schools don’t have to do this alone. Organizations such as Generation Citizen , Teaching Tolerance , and Discovering Justice partner with schools and provide resources for a robust civics curriculum, including resources that can be applied in a remote learning environment .

Service learning can be incorporated into curriculum in a mutually beneficial way where students can engage in community service and staff from community partners can come to schools and speak to students directly. Outside of the classroom, students can create school councils or other governing bodies and host voter pre-registration/registration drives, and educators and administrators can support them as they do so.

However, it is not only the responsibility for schools to provide civic education, as there are young people who are not in school who deserve pathways to civic engagement and education as well. Municipal governments, community organizations, and businesses can also use their resources and power to support civic engagement. For example, according to a recent report, there will be a vacuum of jobs in the public sector as older and whiter staff prepare to retire, creating a critical opportunity to diversify the public sector with capable and passionate young people who better reflect the increasing diversity of the area. But for this to be accomplished, young people need to be supported in learning about and pursuing this work.

In my experience substitute teaching at the 8th grade level, I’ve assisted in a couple of Social Studies classes. I have a distinct memory of one class where groups were presenting on different civics topics. Outside of the academic motivation, it was clear that they were passionate about issues relevant to them, like data security and lowering the voting age to 16. This was a moving moment for me, seeing students get the civics education I so craved in the same seats I used to fill not so long ago.

As the recent state civic education law takes root, I hope the long-term effects will produce critical lessons for all of us to learn from and apply more broadly about what constitutes effective and equity-centered civic education. Yet, in the meantime, there is much we can do. In the last few years, in place of the downward trend in youth voting seen through 2016, youth voter turnout has soared —and it does not seem to show any signs of slowing. We are just one week away from one of the most important elections in many of our lifetimes, and it is crucial that we all do what is in our locus of control to support youth participation in a free and fair election.

We can ensure that we and the young people in our lives who are eligible to vote have a plan to do so – either by mail or by mask. With the expanded access to voting by mail passed this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, young people should know where to request their ballot (by October 28), where they can drop it off (via mail, drop box, or bringing it directly to the election department), by when (postmarked by November 3), and how to track it to ensure that it has been counted. If voting by mask, young people need to know when they are to vote (either the Early Voting period from October 17th-30th or on election day on November 3rd), what they’re voting on and where , and how to do so safely .

We should also be encouraging the young people in our lives to work at the polls as translators or clerks –young people can participate in democracy not only by casting a vote, but also by ensuring that others can do so as well. Plus, it’s a lot of fun, if I do say so myself. And as for the young people in our lives who are not yet able to vote, we can advance the work of Growing Voters by getting young people preregistered or excited to vote, engaging them in political conversation, and uplifting their voices as they participate and lead in overcoming societal injustices.

I write this to you as a young, Black woman who believes a better society is attainable, and in our reach. To silence young people’s voices and not support them—or rather, to not support us—in our civic education and to write us off as apathetic in the same breath is unproductive and tired. Our voices need to be respected and uplifted, and we need to be seen for who we really are: not just a serious voting bloc, but more importantly, people growing up in a world imperiled by issues like climate change, food insecurity, racial inequality, threats to democracy, educational inequity, social security, housing, and much more. Our world is in a precarious place, and we need the empowerment, the tools, and the civic education to salvage it.

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Reflection and Action for Civic Participation

Published: April 25, 2017

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At a Glance

• Civics & Citizenship
• Democracy & Civic Engagement

About This Lesson

Political philosopher Danielle Allen describes democracy as “a combination of ideals and institutions that work to put power in the hands of ordinary people.” Further, she argues that the essence of democracy is the active involvement of people. She also emphasizes the importance of listening to young people in order to address the future of democracy. 

Young people "see the shape of our world presently" as they learn, grow, and anticipate the ways that they will pursue their future careers and provide for their well-being as well as their family’s. In this lesson, students will consider the importance of young people in making democracy work, and then they will use a framework of questions created by Allen and her colleagues at the Youth Participatory Politics Action Frame to analyze stories of individuals who participated positively in the world around them.

Essential Questions

What role can young people play in making democracy work?

What’s Included

This lesson is designed to fit into one 50-minute class period one 50-minute class periodand includes:

2 activities 1 audio

Save this resource for easy access later.

Lesson plan.

Consider the Importance of Youth in Democracy

Listen to the audio clip Danielle Allen on Youth in Democracy , and then use the following questions for reflection and class discussion.

What does Allen say about the role of young people? Why does she think the voices of young people are crucial to a democracy? Do you agree with her? Why or why not? How do we “let young people set the agenda for the issues we should be paying attention to”? Who else should help to set the agenda? According to Allen, once the voices of young people are heard, what else is needed to help bring about the changes young people envision?

Related Materials

• Audio Danielle Allen on Youth in Democracy

Introduce Allen’s “Reflection and Action” Framework for Civic Participation

More and more, young people want to participate in civic spaces—including spaces that are online. Allen suggests that when people choose to take action to strengthen their communities, they should consider ten important questions. She and her colleagues write: “Whether you’re creating your first Facebook page to support a cause you care about, or seeking to engage your friends, associates, and even strangers in a new platform aimed to achieve civic ends, these ten questions will help frame your decisions. Use them to shape your strategy and to check whether you’re doing everything in your power to achieve maximum impact.” 1

These ten questions are called the Youth Participatory Politics (or YPP) Framework. Share them with students:

Why does it matter to me? How much [about myself] should I share? How do I make it about more than myself? Where do we start? How can we make it easy and engaging? How do [we] get wisdom from crowds? How do [we] handle the downside of crowds? Does raising voices count as [civic and] political action? How do we get from voice to change? How can we find allies?

One way to help students think more deeply about this framework and envision how they might use it in their own civic participation is by observing how others have answered them. As students reflect on each of the stories below, they might consider how these actions and strategies they learn about could strengthen democracy. 

Choose one or more of the following readings from Chapter 12: Choosing to Participate of Holocaust and Human Behavior , and ask students to think about how the individuals featured in each reading might have answered Allen’s ten questions:

Not in Our Town The Voices of Millions Can a Word Make a Difference? Seeking a Strategy That Works Believing in Others

You might finish the lesson by discussing what students have determined about the usefulness of the framework. What do these questions suggest about the potential opportunities and difficulties in making positive social change and building a stronger democracy?

• 1 " Why the YPP Action Frame? ," Harvard University Youth Participatory Politics Research Network, accessed July 15, 2016.
• Lesson Choosing to Participate
• Reading Not in Our Town
• Reading The Voices of Millions
• Reading What Difference Can a Word Make?
• Reading Seeking a Strategy that Works
• Reading Believing in Others

Materials and Downloads

Explore the materials, choosing to participate, danielle allen on youth in democracy, not in our town, the voices of millions, what difference can a word make, seeking a strategy that works, believing in others, responding to difference in democracy.

Literature and Imagination Make Democracy Work

Additional Resources

Related resources, 10 questions for young changemakers, you might also be interested in…, 10 questions for the future: student action project, 10 questions for the present: parkland student activism, getting to know the 10 questions, voting rights in the united states, how to read the news like a fact checker, confronting apartheid, introducing the concept of race, addressing racist and dehumanising language, creating a society in which everyone can thrive, mob violence, human behavior, and the capitol insurrection, resources for civic education in california, unlimited access to learning. more added every month..

Facing History & Ourselves is designed for educators who want to help students explore identity, think critically, grow emotionally, act ethically, and participate in civic life. It’s hard work, so we’ve developed some go-to professional learning opportunities to help you along the way.

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Global Honors Student Leads Discussion Among Postgraduates at 2024 Notre Dame Peace Conference

Global Honors   students at the University of Washington Tacoma   (UWT) are known to be exceptionally outgoing when it comes to academic opportunities outside of the classroom, often attending regional and national conferences but this year however, the Global Honors program had a first. Global Honors undergraduate student, Reese Ramirez, had his work accepted to the 2024 Notre Dame Student Peace Conference , a conference comprised primarily of graduate and doctoral students. Thanks to the generous support of The Bamford Foundation and UWT’s Center for Student Involvement, Reese traveled to Indiana in April where he led discussion based on his paper, “Understanding Urban Warfare: A Defiance of Humanitarian Law”. 

Reese shared this thoughtful reflection with IDEATE on his time at the 2024 Notre Dame Peace Conference:

“The 2024 Notre Dame Student Peace Conference was an incredible experience and an opportunity to learn about advancing peace around the world. At the conference, I had the chance to hear master's and PhD students share their research on peacebuilding on various topics from Columbian cinema to youth representation in the African Union. Not only was it a great place for learning, but also for meeting people who could share their experiences and perspectives. 

In a field that feels desperately hopeful at times, seeing the impacts of academic work was inspiring. At the end of the first day, we heard a powerful talk from Dr. Sa'ed Atshan. He is a Queer, Quaker, Palestinian professor of peace at Notre Dame University. He challenged us to hold onto hope through the dismal and disheartening realities of a violent conflict-ridden world. "It is easy to go on living a simple life," said Dr. Atshan, "It is much harder to give up that simple life to fight for those who can't."   His talk inspired me to recognize desperate hope not as the condition of someone studying peace, but rather as a powerful motivator in a cause worth fighting for. 

I am incredibly grateful to Liz Hunt and Conor Leary for organizing travel and accommodations, Dr. Divya McMillin for her support in funding the trip, Dr. Ben Meiches for advising my research, and the team at Notre Dame for planning and hosting the conference.”

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