3.+Literature+Review


 * These are the titles that we are tentatively reviewing. This page is by no means a true Literature Review yet, and as articles are subjected to review, this page will change.**

ERIC #: ED496740 Authors: Torres, Maria de los Angeles Publication Date: 2006-00-00 Pub Types: Reports - Descriptive Journal Name: Chapin Hall Center for Children Journal Citation: Publisher: Chapin Hall Center for Children. 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637. Tel: 773-753-5900; Fax: 773-753-5940; Web site: http://www.chapinhall.org article: http://www.chapinhall.org/research/report/youth-activists-age-postmodern-globalization Descriptors: Global Approach; Local Issues; Stereotypes; Politics; Community Organizations; Activism; Citizenship Education; Adolescents; Citizen Participation; Interviews; Parent Child Relationship; Self Concept; African Americans; Hispanic Americans
 * Title: Youth Activists in the Age of Postmodern Globalization: Notes from an Ongoing Project. Chapin Hall Working Paper**

A resurgence of engaging youth with civic education is currently underway in the United States, as well as Europe, as youth begin to disconnect with their nation states and instead begin to identify more with their multiple identities. This paper opens with the idea that while schools were fixated on the notion of producing good citizens in the early 1900s, they drifted from that path in an effort to allow more privacy in youth's lives, and only now are we starting to refocus educational goals on civic education in order to produce greater civic engagement, and focusing on the future development of democracies. In general, many studies ahve found low levels of civic engagement among youth.
 * Notes:**

The paper is a study of how youth that are involved defend themselves, how they became engaged, and how that might be used to encourage other youth with common experiences to become engaged. (//**Ben thinks this is great for our project, because it focuses on the same sort of "how" questions that we want to know).**//

The author of the study noted that one commonality among all of the students that wanted to participate in her project all came from homes in which politics was actively discussed (over dinner, throughout the week, etc.) and the parents made of point of instilling a sense of civic duty in their children to vote. Only 2 of the families in the study had parents that would be considered "activist" (taking their children to rallies, seeking out ways to be involved with a campaign or issue), but many parents simply just made sure their children were aware of their civic and political obligations and at least engaged them with ideas and allowed them to voice their opinions. (**//Ben thinks It would be interesting if we were to do a more indepth follow up project, or conduct studies of our student participants, if our super stars were also in the same sort of nurturing environment for independent thought and support//)** //Ben's thoughts:// The author makes a GREAT point at the end of the introduction that perhaps studies of youth activism should also be focused on parents and how they relate to their children.

Some of the participants denoted that their ethnic and racial differences caused an area of dissension and unrest and as they grew older found themselves battling against the racism from many communities, and thus couldn't get their voices heard. **(Ben's Thought for the Extension of the Project: I'm curious, if perhaps having a "color blind" system like we had in which there were very few ways to discern a person's ethnicity or race, if that would eliminate those pressures.** **However, for many of the youth in this study, identifying their membership to a certain ethnic or racial group was a matter of pride, so it might be interesting to see how the two could co-exist in future versions of the project.)**

There were a lot of feelings expressed about how stereotypes and gender inequalities also played upon a youth's sense of well being. **(Thoughts for Application in Other Projects: Perhaps focus more on the gender or age inequality within our own schools and communities, instead of trying to bring a global perspective to it. This area of the MDGs was one of the least acted on, and had the lowest frequency of occurrence. However, the students were drawn more to direct actions that they could complete offline and online, so perhaps starting with an offline/online action in their local community would lead to a greater understanding and engagement in a global sense.)**


 * (Thoughts for Discussion section: What was most evident from the comments left by participants on the actions that touched on issues of poverty is that they were inline with the findings of this study as well. Youth in America have a certain sense of obligation and/or superiority in that they recognize poverty and other inequities with youth in other nations, and feel as though America, or the people living here, should do soemething about it. We even had one small exchange among participants about what role the U.S. government should have in dispersing aid funds, with some students becoming upset that more wasn't being done.)**

In the paper a contributing factor to the definition of a citizen is someone who has a notion of their rights' and responsibilities **(Should include in the Terms section)**. Having a right to participate in government might also be included in the definition, as well as the right to protest. Some of the students in this study also mentioned the right to a "fine education" which is not something laid out in the constitution.


 * Limitations of Our Project: The focus of this project was to interview and examine students that were already a part of various social and civic activism projects with a focus on creating some sort of informational product (movies), enacting some sort of change, or participating in an advocacy group. Our project was instead focused on raising students awareness level, and thus we were at a disadvantage by not having some sort of culminating project, or a goal with which we were striving for. This was a serious limitation and disadvantage of our project's design.**

ERIC #: EJ850383 Authors: Daro, Vinci E. F. Publication Date: 2009-00-00 Pub Types: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative Journal Name: McGill Journal of Education Journal Citation: v44 n1 p39-54 2009 Publisher: McGill Journal of Education. McGill University, 3700 McTavish Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1Y2, Canada. Tel: 514-398-4246; Fax: 514-398-4529; Web site: http://mje.mcgill.ca article: http://mje.mcgill.ca/issue/view/272 Descriptors: Social Change; Social Justice; Cultural Pluralism; Cultural Differences; Social Differences; Cultural Awareness; Models; Activism
 * Title: Global Justice Protest Events and the Production of Knowledge about Differences**

ERIC #: ED459089 Authors: Mohamed, Inca A.; Wheeler, Wendy Publication Date: 2001-00-00 Pub Types: Information Analyses Journal Name: Journal Citation: Publisher: Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development, 7100 Connecticut Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815-4999. Tel: 301-961-2837; Fax: 301-961-2831; e-mail: info@theinnovationcenter.org. For full text: http://www.theinnovationcenter.org/yldipublications.htm. Descriptors: Activism; Citizen Participation; Citizenship Education; Community Organizations; Elementary Secondary Education; Experiential Learning; Leadership Training; Social Studies; Youth; Youth Programs ERIC Full-Text: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED459089
 * Title: Broadening the Bounds of Youth Development: Youth as Engaged Citizens.**

Kira’s notes: Civic Activism: “Defined as direct action in support of or in opposition to an issue related to civil affairs of people at the neighborhood, local, regional, state, national and global levels.” “…it validates a growing recognition within the philanthropic community and among leadership theorists that personal and social development are essential conditions for strengthening a community’s capacity to respond to its problems and build its future.” (pg. 3) My thoughts: developing younth leadership will help improve the condition of the local community. “A complementary strategy is civic engagement, which has re-emerged as a viable means for young people to develop and exercise leadership while effecting concrete changes in their communities. ..Through civic engagement, young people’s ideas and energy can contribute meaningfully as they participate in community building, work toward social change, and apply their leadership skills, all the while gaining access to services, supports, and opportunities that facilitate their own development.” (pg. 3-4) A great argument for why students should engage in “community service” or whatever you want to call it. “For these marginalized young people, youth leadership and civic engagement, it seems, can be successfully combined into an effective strategy for achieving youth development outcomes.” (pg. 4) A case for benefits to students who need positive engagement somehow beyond the traditional institutional options. “They argued that the term “youth development” refers to the ongoing process in which all yound people are engaged and invested – even in the absence of family supports and formal programs. All young people will seek ways to: 1) Meet their basic physical and social needs; and 2) Build the individual assets or competencies (knowledge, skills, relationships, values) they feel are needed to participate successfully in adolescence and adult life.” (pg. 6-7) “In other words, youth development is an inevitable process, and depending on the influences young people are exposed to, their development can either be negative or positive.” (pg. 7) Why not make that experience positive for all young people if possible? Three guiding principles as quotes from Pittman and Irby pg. 7 Page 10 basically makes the argument for why it’s important to facilitate an opportunity where students can have a positive social, academic, relational experience with adults and community that promotes positive interaction. Using civic activism as a culminating project in the future. As in, here.. we’ve given you something to think about. Now what are you going to do about it? “It is the information age; as a result of technological advances in communications, no longer do adults necessarily have greater access to information and thus greater knowledge…” (pg. 11) Continuum of youth participation “youth roday are ‘choosing to be civiallt engaged through direct, one-on-one service in and on behalf of their communities, rather than through efforts to change broad social institutions like their predecessors.” (pg. 12 – Gibson 2000)

“The US civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century is a prominent example of the power and possibility of youth activism, one that continues to inspire its successors. That struggle wrought enormous positive changes…” (pg. 11)

Youth Service/service-learning – young people as volunteers perform helpful, humanitarian deeds. It can be seen as the experiential component of civic education; it can help students to see a connection between classroom learning and the ‘real world.’ Indicators of success in this case include increased academic performance, increased interest in school and an increase in feelings of altruism.” Is this why we found success with “application” type actions in the real world as opposed to all the others? The paper advocates for a more “deliberate and change-oriented action” which is at the other end of the youth participation continuum. This would be civic activism which has young people engaged in supporting or opposing “an issue relating to the civil affairs of people” at any level local to global. The argument is that young people need to understand why the change is necessary not just to be a cog in the machine of change. (pg. 12) CONTINUUM: Service-learning -> peer education -> youth leadership development -> youth governance -> youth in philanthropy -> civic activism. //I think we hit service-learning and peer education. There is a possibility this could move toward youth leadership development// Service-learning and peer education are a majority of what our actions were. This might lead to an improved vision of what we will do with Take Action.

ERIC #: ED475453 Authors: Wyman, Miriam; Shulman, David; Ham, Laurie Publication Date: 2000-08-00 Pub Types: Reports - Research Journal Name: Journal Citation: Publisher: For full text: http://www.cprn.com/docs/corporate/lte_e.pdf. Descriptors: Activism; Adult Education; Citizen Participation; Citizen Role; Citizenship Responsibility; Community Education; Community Involvement; Democracy; Global Education; Government Role; Political Attitudes; Social Change; Trust (Psychology) ERIC Full-Text: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED475453
 * Title: Learning to Engage: Experiences with Civic Engagement in Canada.**

Notes: This paper explores the disconnect among government and the citizens that has become more and more apparent in recent years, with a focus on 6 case studies in which the government and/or citizen groups worked to tackle major issues. There are certain areas involving environmentalism, native rights, and health reform that were of interest to us for our paper. The rest involved financial matters, and other concerns that are tangentially connected to our project, but yielded few results. Thoughts for Comparison to Literature Review: One of the recommended outcomes of this case study was for “Governments and other organizations conducting citizen engagement processes maximize the use of teachers, students and educational technology in order to offer authentic opportunities to learn about participation, policy formulation and deliberation” - This mirrors the results that we found in which participants were more apt to complete an action, as well as leave a comment on weekdays and with actions that they had specifically been led through with a teacher as opposed to completing on their own. Definition of Terminology - I really like this definition they gave for engagment, and I think it’s something we should consider adopting as well - “Citizen engagement differs from more traditional forms of consultation by encouraging reflection and learning, promoting a focus on common ground, assuming that citizens will add value, allowing new options will emerge, and taking the time necessary”

“In recent years, as citizens have become more vocal in their concerns over government policies, governments have begun to recognize that a one-way flow of information is not always adequate. Citizens’ expectations and demands are changing, and governments are struggling to respond. The consultative processes surrounding the Immigration Review and the National Forum on Health represent both traditional and changing forms of citizen engagement.” Thoughts for Implications for Future Applications - Providing for a two way street is essential, but also to frame any collaboration in a way that does not hand over all authority and control to a disparate group of individuals. A consultation is needed, rather than just a system to educate and inform. Citizens are looking for a much stronger voice, and a way to interact with government or combat issues rather than just learn and spread more information about it. Perhaps finding a way to include actual governmental and/or NGO officials, rather than just cooperating partners in future projects might yield better engagement and participation.

Thoughts for Extension of Our Project - The study of the Health Care Forum that took place int he mid 1990s produced as one of it’s outcomes, the fact that having participants prepared with documentation, papers, and other background information before participating in a study group, helped tremendously. Perhaps it might be mandated that all projects have some sort of offline component that would bring participants to a “critical mass”, so that they would be better prepared to become engaged during the project. In a way, perhaps the Take Action project could serve as a format to deliver that back ground knowledge before a project starts, with a more formalized process and/or lesson plan for presenting each day’s action.

Extension of Our Project: A generic deck of slides was produced in one of the case studies to help create presentations on public dialogue. Perhaps a more robust set of tools for teachers involved with the Take Action project might be better in providing a template for presenting materials.

“Educational institutions strive to make training programs for the non-profit sector more accessible to community organizations by reflecting their resource and staffing constraints when programming and scheduling.” - Implications for other projects - This was a startlingly outcome recommendation of this study, and it struck me as a brilliant idea for the focus of a future Global Program project. Providing a training program that exists online, accessible from anywhere, and capable of being started and/or completed at any time, given proper measures of assessment and quality control.

“Make deliberative techniques, such as study circles or dialogue groups, central to all engagement processes.” - Extension of project could be the formation of groups pre-project, on specific MDGs, or at least have a more formal way to communicate, or perhaps more structured, than just the open comments each and every day.

ERIC #: ED452116 Authors: Torney-Purta, Judith; Lehmann, Rainer; Oswald, Hans; Schulz, Wolfram Publication Date: 2001-00-00 Pub Types: Numerical/Quantitative Data; Reports - Research Journal Name: Journal Citation: Publisher: IEA Secretariat, Herengracht 487, 1017 BT, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: + 31 20 625 3625; Fax: + 31 20 420 7136; e-mail: Department@IEA.nl; Web site: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~iea/. Descriptors: Adolescents; Attitude Measures; Citizenship; Citizenship Education; Democracy; Foreign Countries; Global Approach; Political Issues; Questionnaires; Secondary Education; Social Studies; Statistical Analysis; Student Attitudes; Student Surveys; Teacher Surveys ERIC Full-Text: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED452116
 * Title: Citizenship and Education in Twenty-Eight Countries: Civic Knowledge and Engagement at Age Fourteen.**

Shuler, C. (2009). **Pockets of Potential: Using Mobile Technologies to Promote Children’s Learning**, New York: The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.

Robinson, Cecil. **"Technologized democracy: A critique on technology's place in social studies education** //THEN: Journal// (2007), http://thenjournal.org/feature/131/. (accessed February 28, 2010).


 * Notes:** Very curious in the opening statements about technology and how to use it as a neutral tool, " When a field of study fails to interrogate its historical assumptions and proceeds as if computers and the Internet are neutral appliances to serve the desires and needs of human beings, the detrimental effects are not well understood and often compounded." Technology is also mentioned in regards to "technology as a tool". (Ben's thoughts: While a tool is inherently neutral, depending on the user to impart connotations of bias or imbalance, a tool can always be handled and use clumsily or misused with malicious intent to produce a very biased outcome.)

The paper provides ample resources as to technology and computers lending themselves increasing to be effective tools for creating democratic citizens (e.g. Berson & Berson, 2000; Berson, Lee & Stuckart, 2001; Bolick, Berson, Coutts & Heinecke, 2003; Fairey, Lee, & Bennett, 2000; Glenn, 1990; Mason, Berson, Diem, Hicks, Lee & Dralle, 2000; Rose & Ferdinand, 1997; Van Benschoten, 2000; White, 1997; Whitworth & Berson, 2003). While many goals and studies have focused on the ways that technology helps preserve a diverse community of thought, ideas, and voices, this paper is actually focused on the observations that technology has served to segment individuals and reduce the amount of diversity and discourse.

Interesting, they are arguing that technology in many institutions is being used to expand and perpetuate hierarchical control over institutions, " Feenberg (1999) identified this condition within certain American institutions: "In medicine, education, and administration, technical devices prescribe norms to which the individual is tacitly committed by organizational belonging. Technocracy is the use of technical delegations to conserve and legitimate an expanding system of hierarchical control" (p. 75)" One way communication is being suggested as a killer of debate. And of course, they go on to say that by using a piece of technology to express yourself as a democratic citizen, you've already given up a small amount of control to the technocrats. Presumably that would be the people who built the machine, manage the network, etc. It's true, that some control is given up. As technological tools and databases are created, curated, and managed by humans, then those tools would be subject to the same biases we humans are.

A question is also raised in that technology use does not automatically lead to progress. I would imagine that just like any tool, technology can be used improperly; I could try to build a house with just a saw, no hammer or nails, but it's not going to be a very good house. Likewise, you could allow students to research using debate forums and chat rooms, but it might not be the best-informed debate.

Great Thought Here! " The existing literature suggests that social education has blindly accepted the use of technology within the classroom as a given good; so much so that it is willing to devote over half of its technology-related articles to descriptions of Internet resources without questioning the efficacy of these resources in the classroom."

Does our ability to manipulate and control technology mean that anything we produce will be inherently flawed, and biased towards our own cultural, political, and philosophical preferences? " Such statements are consistent with the state of the field where, as stated above, more than half of technology-related articles simply describe Internet resources and uses of technology with little attention paid to empirical research exploring the effects of technology on gender differences, attitudes or achievement."

Apparently, too often the failure with technology are blamed on the use of the technology, not the limitations of the technology (something we should be aware of when writing up our limitations), and the potential for the technology being used. A few quotes offer up the fact that our access to information has increased dramatically, making us better informed citizens, but implies that our ability to use critical thought is still what's paramount. This is evident in so many ways in our schools, that we want our students to use technology "in a certain way" to produce a project, or new understanding, rather than give them a more free-form, bank slate approach.

"The //Guidelines for Using Technology to Prepare Social Studies Teachers// advocate for preservice teachers to "not simply acquire skills that make them proficient at using technology, but also learn how to use technology to make their teaching better" (Mason et al., 2000, p. 109)." - **Ben's thoughts: A-MEN!** Wow, I love that they make a great point in saying that too often we treat any information that can be put into a database as highly credible, and that we are looking for information online, and that democratic behavior is a data driven one.

" Labaree (1992) argues that professionalization of teaching involved the rationalization of classroom instruction which Promotes a vision of scientifically generated professional knowledge that draws heavily on the movement's roots in formal rationality.... Teaching would become more standardized – that is, more technically proficient according to scientifically established criteria for accepted professional practices. (p. 147)" - THis would fly in the face of trying to create a diverse environment, because that wouldn't be the most efficient way to disseminate information in tiny packets, and systemically make teaching a science-driven profession.

"More and more we have adjusted to a culture dominated by expert opinion while our confidence in our own abilities to make complex social judgments continues to erode.... Life appears so complex that the average person abandons political action for personal development and survival.... Citizenship is reduced to surviving, following rules, and occasionally voting. (Stanley & Whitson, p. 58) " This might speak to the lack of motivation and/or empowerment. Makes a decent point about people diconnecting locally.

"We posit that one way forward is that social education researchers need to explicitly foreground diversity, as teachers and students have been long indoctrinated into the explicit, traditional, and non-diverse accounts as true and good and hence outside of questioning. " //Ben is thinking that perhaps the karma system might actually be perpetuating this occurrence, encouraging participants to emulate others with lots of Karma. That is a danger, as it also helps reinforce the risks of new ideas as well.//

" Dewey's vision of a progressive democratic society problematizes claims that more information is necessary for democratic citizenry because these claims do not ensure that 'more information' is not 'more of the same information.' To sustain its democratic health, society must seek out variation—differing opinions, ideas and worldviews." //There is value in replicating and echoing some thoughts in order to spread them, but there does exist a point at which it becomes tiresome, as evidenced by the downward trend in participation as the project went on.//


 * " Multicultural democracy explicitly acknowledges socio-cultural differences and treats diversity as essential for democracy because it protects liberty and challenges the status quo (Marri, 2003a; Parker, 1996). Within this multicultural frame, //e pluribus unum// is not translated '//from// many, one,' but '//with// many, one' (Parker, 1996). Such translation focuses on //diversity and unity// and allows "larger publics" and "little publics" to coexist. Larger publics are "the normative grid that binds citizens together in a broad political comradeship" (Parker, 1996, p. 118). Little publics are "associations based on religion, ethnicity, language, race, hobbies, labor -- interests of all sorts, some of which are incompatible from one group to another" (Parker, p. 118). These publics come together on difficult issues on creative democratic paths and are a necessary part of the continuing public discussion, not a means to sustain predetermined democratic //ends// (Dewey, 1916). Parker argues that multicultural democracy "has no end other than the path itself. Ends arise on the path" (1996, p. 114). He continues, "Viewed as a creative, constructive process, democracy is not already accomplished, in which case citizens today need only to celebrate and protect it, but a trek that citizens in a pluralist society make together" (p. 114). Multicultural democracy enables national discussions to remain open to views that conflict with the "dominant" or "mainstream" common sense perspective, so that democracy does not diminish to the point of irrelevancy. This discussion does not come easy (Gay, 1997), but it is through this struggle of learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable and by "associating and resolving issues with people whose views are different from one's own that democracy is learned" (Marri, 2003a, p. 273). " **

Closing remarks focus on finding ways to move away from "technology for technology's sake" to a more inclusive model of all teaching strategies that utilize technology when appropriate, but not in ways that make using technology a means for it to control what we do in our classrooms.

Kulla-Abbott, Therese. **"Engaging student voice and fulfilling curriculum goals with digital stories** //THEN: Journal// (2008), http://thenjournal.org/feature/160/. (accessed February 28, 2010).


 * Notes:** The forms of writing and communications we expected from our participants is much more informal than that laid out in this study. The motion of using six traits, or any other type of formal writing process was never addressed, as the informal nature of commenting without limits or requirement was utilized. Perhaps that would be a limitation in not setting out proper goals. It was interesting, that in producing digital stories, 61% of the girls decided to produce stories about family and friends, versus the 50% of boys. Perhaps the willingness of girls to share stories about their interactions and experiences with others was a key factor in the sharing of thoughts and actions by girls in our project.

In regards to voice, it would make sense that students following traditional story telling methods would have found their voices. We noticed in our project that very few participants found their own voice, and would quite often echo or repeat comments made by others. We should examine our "superstars" to see if the was a clear voice coming from the content of their comments, and whether those served as sounding boards for other comments, or if they expanded upon others' thoughts. Even is some semblence of voice was achieved, it would be curious to see if any mastery was obtained. Another ways to improve the project for the next time, would be to incorporate some writing elements to help participants craft their own voice as well as cogent arguments, and or explanations of their thoughts and feelings while participating.

The use of prior knowledge of how students interact with the environment in the digital story telling project that involved the environment follows good common practice in many studies. We should find out if actions related to the environment were in fact a top response and/or action getter for the participants.

Fluency, voice, and effective communication skills were not goals of our project. Instead we focused on motivation, viewpoints, and awareness of topics. Perhaps an element of communication that focuses on establishing critical thought might benefit the project as it did in these digital stories.

Great paragraph here talking about how students became more detached when they began working on something less personal like the environment: " Students would "do" an assignment, but didn't really care about it or appropriate the practices. With the production of a personal story, many students wanted to express themselves in a way that they had not done before. Telling a story about themselves mattered more deeply to them, so their appropriation drove their mastery of how and why to include emotion in their story. This insight was made clearer when they created the third movie about an environmental topic. Students such as Betty commented that they didn't feel emotion about it. They couldn't find the "hook" that made them want to make a message about the topic their own and portray that in their writing. Therefore, they had difficulty trying to use their personal voices to persuade people. They expressed that they became aware, maybe for the first time, that something was missing, and in this case it was a strongly positive stance toward and emotional connection to the topic that had an impact on their writing, which in turn affected the audience impact. " We had the commenting system setup so that it would be very easy for participants to share their "personal story", and hopefully build a collective thread from those personal stories.

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