Lou Frey Institute/Florida Joint Center for Citizenship Updated Website!

So some news, friends. You may be a user of our Florida Citizen website (we hope you are, it has most of what you need to teach civics!) , and if so we hope that you find our resources useful!

We recently relaunched the site, to better align with University of Central Florida style guides. Most of the material is the same but the look is different!

So as you can see here, we do need you to re-register on the site to access the materials, which of course remain free! Click the embedded video at the top of this post to learn about the registration process and some of the changes.

One of the new features we are excited about is in our Civics in Real Life section. It is now searchable by tag and subject! Just type in the civics content you are looking for and it will populate a list of one page Civics in Real Life resources, and you can preview without downloading.

Take a look and see what you find!

The site will continue to be updated over the next few weeks, and of course it all is free.

Looking for the lesson plans? Click resources, then Middle School Applied Civics Resources!

They are available there for you, so this should look familiar from our old site.

Any questions or issues, please email us anytime!!!

Activities and ideas for activists

Just lately, I have been writing copy for a new Civic Studies website (more than for this blog). It began as a companion to my forthcoming book, What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life. I wanted to summarize some core ideas from the book and link them to activities and practical tools that readers might find useful. I’ll be happy if the site gradually evolves away from the book to reflect changes in the world, the publication of new research, and other people’s contributions.

The backbone is this navigable “learning map,” which poses recurrent questions that confront groups of people who try to make change:

I anticipate roughly doubling the number of entries over the next month or so. (Requests are welcome.) And then I would hope to see it grow more gradually, with input from others.

Synergia Launches New MOOC for System-Change Economics

If you're up for a serious deep dive into new-economy ideas and action, check out the 4th edition of the Synergia Institute online course. It's an eight-module designed for activist-minded progressives that starts on February 7 and runs through June 24.

Each module runs for 2 weeks and requires between 1.5 and 3 hours a week, depending on the study track that you choose. Self-designated "Explorers" can expect to commit 1.5 hours per week while "Changemakers" will spend 3 hours per week studying and engaging with peers. "Deep Divers" will engage with experienced changemakers and supplementary materials. 

The Synergia course is a MOOC -- a Massive Open Online Course -- that brings together some carefully selected readings, videos and other materials to show what progressive system-change can look like. The 2019 edition of the course had 1,060 registrants from 42 countries, and focused on such topics as co-operatives, alternative finance, degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy, among many others.

The new updated, upgraded course, "Toward Co-operative Commonwealth: Transition in a Perilous Century," focuses on four overarching themes -- solidarity, co-operation, reciprocity, and sustainability. It offers a rare opportunity to dig into the practical, legal, and policy particulars in a rigorous way, augmented by study circles and action groups of other learners.

Special attention is paid to six key economic sectors: Land and Housing, Food and Agriculture, Energy, Work, Social Care and Finance, with the following overarching themes:

  • resilience over economic growth
  • co-operation over competition
  • sufficiency over efficiency
  • well-being over the right to possess
  • fairness and equity over the primacy of markets, trade, and capital
  • decentralized and democratic ownership over centralized power and private ownership
  • the commons over the rights of private property, and
  • our dependence upon nature over our right to dominate it. 

The full fee for the course is CA$140, but for those who can't afford that there is a reduced fee of CA$70, and a solidarity fee to ensure that anyone interested can participate.

The Synergia Co-operative Institute is an international network of experienced practitioners and educators who are focused on catalyzing system-change. The Institute was cofounded by three Canadians -- John Restakis, Michael Lewis, Mike Gismondi -- and American money and finance expert Pat Conaty, each of whom has extensive experience with co-operatives, community development, and community education.

More info at the Synergia website or at synergiainstitute /at/gmail.com.

 

 

Synergia Launches New MOOC for System-Change Economics

If you're up for a serious deep dive into new-economy ideas and action, check out the 4th edition of the Synergia Institute online course. It's an eight-module designed for activist-minded progressives that starts on February 7 and runs through June 24.

Each module runs for 2 weeks and requires between 1.5 and 3 hours a week, depending on the study track that you choose. Self-designated "Explorers" can expect to commit 1.5 hours per week while "Changemakers" will spend 3 hours per week studying and engaging with peers. "Deep Divers" will engage with experienced changemakers and supplementary materials. 

The Synergia course is a MOOC -- a Massive Open Online Course -- that brings together some carefully selected readings, videos and other materials to show what progressive system-change can look like. The 2019 edition of the course had 1,060 registrants from 42 countries, and focused on such topics as co-operatives, alternative finance, degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy, among many others.

The new updated, upgraded course, "Toward Co-operative Commonwealth: Transition in a Perilous Century," focuses on four overarching themes -- solidarity, co-operation, reciprocity, and sustainability. It offers a rare opportunity to dig into the practical, legal, and policy particulars in a rigorous way, augmented by study circles and action groups of other learners.

Special attention is paid to six key economic sectors: Land and Housing, Food and Agriculture, Energy, Work, Social Care and Finance, with the following overarching themes:

  • resilience over economic growth
  • co-operation over competition
  • sufficiency over efficiency
  • well-being over the right to possess
  • fairness and equity over the primacy of markets, trade, and capital
  • decentralized and democratic ownership over centralized power and private ownership
  • the commons over the rights of private property, and
  • our dependence upon nature over our right to dominate it. 

The full fee for the course is CA$140, but for those who can't afford that there is a reduced fee of CA$70, and a solidarity fee to ensure that anyone interested can participate.

The Synergia Co-operative Institute is an international network of experienced practitioners and educators who are focused on catalyzing system-change. The Institute was cofounded by three Canadians -- John Restakis, Michael Lewis, Mike Gismondi -- and American money and finance expert Pat Conaty, each of whom has extensive experience with co-operatives, community development, and community education.

More info at the Synergia website or at synergiainstitute /at/gmail.com.

 

 

assessing equity in health, wealth, and civic engagement

Newly published and open-access: Stopka, T.J., Feng, W., Corlin, L., King, E, Mistry, J. Mansfield, W, Wang, Y, Levine, P. & Allen, J. Assessing equity in health, wealth, and civic engagement: a nationally representative survey, United States, 2020Int J Equity Health 2112 (2022). The abstract is below. The project website, with interactive tools for exploring the data, is here.

I am proud that our model includes “evaluative criteria” (normative principles) along with empirical information and causal arrows. One of my most basic beliefs is that these domains must be integrated in order to decide what to do in the world. I would acknowledge, however, that our approach is cross-sectional–it’s all about similarities and differences in the present. It therefore obscures historic injustices, which are central to many of our most important current debates about social justice.

Background

The principle of equity is fundamental to many current debates about social issues and plays an important role in community and individual health. Traditional research has focused on singular dimensions of equity (e.g., wealth), and often lacks a comprehensive perspective. The goal of this study was to assess relationships among three domains of equity, health, wealth, and civic engagement, in a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents.

Methods

We developed a conceptual framework to guide our inquiry of equity across health, wealth, and civic engagement constructs to generate a broad but nuanced understanding of equity. Through Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel service, we conducted a cross-sectional, online survey between May 29–June 20, 2020 designed to be representative of the adult U.S. population. Based on our conceptual framework, we assessed the population-weighted prevalence of health outcomes and behaviors, as well as measures of wealth and civic engagement. We linked individual-level data with population-level environmental and social context variables. Using structural equation modeling, we developed latent constructs for wealth and civic engagement, to assess associations with a measured health variable.

Results

We found that the distribution of sociodemographic, health, and wealth measures in our sample (n =?1267) were comparable to those from other national surveys. Our quantitative illustration of the relationships among the domains of health, wealth, and civic engagement provided support for the interrelationships of constructs within our conceptual model. Latent constructs for wealth and civic engagement were significantly correlated (p =?0.013), and both constructs were used to predict self-reported health. Beta coefficients for all indicators of health, wealth, and civic engagement had the expected direction (positive or negative associations).

Conclusion

Through development and assessment of our comprehensive equity framework, we found significant associations among key equity domains. Our conceptual framework and results can serve as a guide for future equity research, encouraging a more thorough assessment of equity.

The Florida Joint Center for Citizenship at the Lou Frey Institute is looking for help!

Hey friends, are you teaching K-12 social studies in Florida? Do you have experience with lessons and other curricular materials development (especially including videos)? Do you want to make some extra money? While we WILL be posting for multiple full time positions soon (watch this space!), we are ALSO offering stipends to those that may choose not to leave the classroom but still want to contribute to the development of K-12 civics and government resources relating to the 2023-2024 civics and government benchmarks!

If you are interested in getting on our outreach list for this, please complete this form by 14 February 22. Please note that we will need to get approval from the Florida Department of Education before providing the stipend opportunity, as this is a grant funded position. We are ESPECIALLY looking for folks with experience K-5! Hope to hear from you!

Apply for the 2022 Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER)

The American Political Science Associations’ Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER) is a four-day, residential institute that provides political scientists with training to conduct ethical and rigorous civically engaged research. Up to 20 scholars will be selected as ICER Fellows and invited to attend the 2022 Summer Institute. ICER Fellows will network with other like-minded political scientists, and together, learn best practices for conducting academically robust, mutually beneficial scholarship in collaboration with communities, organizations, and agencies outside of academia.

The first Summer Institute was organized in partnership with Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life in 2019. ICER was canceled in 2020 due to COVID-19 and hosted virtually in 2021. For 2022, we anticipate holding the Institute in person at Tufts University, outside of Boston, MA, from June 20-23.

The Institute will take place on campus at Tufts University from June 20-23. Approximately twenty fellows will meet each day for intensive discussions and workshops. Thanks to support from the Ivywood Foundation, participation in the Institute for Civically Engaged Research is free, housing on the Tufts campus will be provided, and scholarships are available to defray costs of meals and travel. Applicants are expected to seek financial support from their home institution, but admission to the Institute will not be affected by financial need.

To apply, please complete this form. Application deadline: March 1, 2022.

Note: The Institute will operate according to the recommendations and requirements of federal and local public health authorities. We plan for the Institute to be held in person at Tufts University but reserve the right to change these plans as the public health situation warrants.

we must be able to disagree about pandemic policies

The social media and news sources that I follow are full of strong statements about masking rules, vaccine mandates, school closings and other pandemic policies. Some people argue that proponents of loose policies are callous, scientifically ignorant, or even racist because morbidity and mortality rates have been disproportionately high among people of color. Others argue that mandates reflect the arrogance of elites or the creeping power of state bureaucracies. On that side of the argument are some libertarians who would usually be placed on the right, but also some leftist thinkers who are skeptical of science and state power, in the tradition of Horkheimer & Adorno, Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, Giorgio Agamben, et al. There is also a partisan layer in this debate, with caution about the pandemic being coded as Democratic, and skepticism about its seriousness as Republican.

I rarely depict “both sides” in US politics as equally extreme and polarized. I generally believe that the left wing of the Democratic party represents valid perspectives within a constitutional order while the Trumpian right presents a threat to that order. Still, a recent survey finds, “Nearly half (48%) of Democratic voters think federal and state governments should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications.” This statistic comes from a right-leaning pollster. I don’t have any reason to doubt the concrete result, but I would have investigated possible intolerance on the other side of the debate as well. I would guess that significant numbers of respondents would support locking up school boards that mandate masks and prosecuting Dr. Fauci. Meanwhile, some serious writers on both sides reject the legitimacy of disagreement and use opposing arguments about COVID-19 as evidence that our whole political system is fundamentally broken.

Our system may indeed be close to breaking down, but not because individuals have the temerity to disagree about COVID-19 policies.

A caveat: it is not clear that the real debate is as hot, personalized, and divided as my media feed suggests. Twitter attracts controversialists with strong, ideological perspectives, whereas many Americans are apolitical. The news media covers controversy and gives little attention to routine decision-making. Outrageous threats at a school board meeting can attract national attention while a boring agreement will draw low-key local coverage, at most. However, there are plenty of serious people who publicly deny the legitimacy of disagreement about COVID-19, and they require a response.

I would start with a general view of politics. All types and layers of governments and other institutions–including firms–constantly make grave decisions. They imprison people, fire them, and give or deny them crucial services. Even routine decisions, such as zoning regulations or the development of new products, can profoundly affect people’s welfare. Although some decisions are simply good or bad, many are debatable. They have both winners and losers, they involve conflicting values, and their consequences are unpredictable. Nor is it safe to do nothing, for that can sometimes be a harmful failure.

Americans don’t particularly like disagreement, especially when it involves conflicts of principle and identity under conditions of uncertainty. Therefore, we place many consequential decisions out of view. For instance, we have dramatically reduced the number of jury trials (which require regular citizens to make choices) in favor of plea-bargaining. And decisions about matters like zoning are made in forums that draw very little attention.

COVID-19 has forced such decisions into the open. Like other issues, it involves conflicting values and interests under uncertain conditions. Yes, vaccines are highly effective and safe, and critics do themselves no credit when they doubt such findings. A large, randomized, double-blind experiment with a mass-produced chemical product presents an exceptional opportunity to resolve empirical uncertainty. However, there is plenty of room for doubt about the empirics of other matters, such as school closings and masks, and even about mandates for vaccines.

Indeed, the evidence about the effects of policies on the pandemic is murky. You can tell it’s confusing just by glancing at the ten states with the highest per capita cumulative death rates so far, which include Mississippi and Oklahoma but also New Jersey and New York. (Among the best-off so far: Utah and Nebraska as well as Vermont and Hawaii.) Of course, one should control for factors other than state policies. A typical study that uses controls finds small effects: e.g., mask mandates reduce the growth of cases by 2 percentage points. I think that finding counts in favor of a mask mandate, but with many caveats; it certainly does not neutralize all concerns or close the case. For one thing, the virus itself keeps changing, as do other circumstances, such as the percentage of people with immunity. Also, the pandemic has rolled out in regional waves, which means that the same methodology will yield different results depending on when the study is conducted. We won’t have a clear picture until it is clearly over.

If you believe in democracy, you should be glad that people can influence public decisions. If you believe in pluralism or polycentricity, you should be glad that there are many different forums for decision-making: federal, state, and local governments; executive, legislative, and judicial bodies; corporations and nonprofit institutions; professional and scientific bodies; and transnational organizations. You should see disagreement as evidence of liberty, diversity, and participation.

But you won’t get the policies you want. If you’re fortunate, you may be aligned with public opinion and the decision-makers in your own community. Then you will appreciate local policies and will probably observe reasonably high levels of voluntary compliance. However, in a polycentric world, you will not see the policies you support enacted or obeyed everywhere else. Communities will vary. Yet the policies adopted in other places may affect you. So the variation will be frustrating and even angering.

People are entitled to strong views and emotions, including anger. But it is important to distinguish process from outcomes. State and local governments in the US may decide whether to require masks or not. Some decisions may be wiser than others, but the unwise ones are still legitimate. If some people have to wear mask when they don’t believe in them–or attend schools where masks are absent even though they do believe in them–that is democracy at work. The health risks may be serious, but governments constantly make decisions that affect health, and even life. People walking around in mandatory masks are not serfs to a tyrannical state, but communities that have eschewed masks are not idiotic. We disagree. Decisions must be made. It is good that we the people can make them.

Here are some tips to consider:

  • Don’t threaten or bully individuals. Certainly, do not try to jail them for their opinions.
  • Obey politically legitimate policies even if you disagree with them unless they violate your core principles, but be careful about mistaking your opinions for sacred principles. Usually, decisions require some to compromise what we want and believe.
  • If you are on the winning side, acknowledge that the losing side is being asked to sacrifice.
  • Protect others’ freedom of speech, not only from censorship but also from the tyranny of majority opinion.
  • Pay attention to equity and structural forms of injustice, but don’t assume that you know what people believe (or what is good for them) based on their demographics.
  • To address scientific issues, look for the most recent and rigorous scientific publications. Googling around for opinions is not “research.” On the other hand, do not overstate the policy significance of specific scientific papers, and do not use empirical findings to squelch normative disagreements. For instance, if mask mandates reduce the spread of COVID-19, it does not automatically follow that a state’s governor should require masks in all public schools.
  • Hold onto your general political and philosophical views (if you wish), but don’t use the pandemic as an opportunity to score debating points on behalf of your philosophy. We should be trying to do the right thing here and now. Besides, the current pandemic may prove more of an exception than a proof-point for several leading ideologies. Libertarians should recognize that libertarian thinkers have often endorsed restrictions during epidemics. Critics of mainstream science should acknowledge the enormous value of the corporate-produced vaccines. Progressives (like me) should ask why well-funded public scientific agencies have performed so poorly in several respects.
  • Keep an eye open for arguments and evidence that trouble your own assumptions, but don’t give up on trying to decide what’s really best to do under the circumstances, with the evidence that we have at hand.

See also: collected posts on the COVID-19 pandemic, and in particular, vaccination, masking, political polarization, and the authority of science; why protect civil liberties in a pandemic?; and theorizing democracy in a pandemic.

modeling a political discussion

In 2015, students at my university, Tufts, and at Kansas State University discussed the same topic–the social determinants of health–in online forums. Colleagues and I analyzed the text in a novel way. The underlying theory is that conversations can be modeled as networks, where the nodes are specific ideas and the links are reasons and other connections that people assert. Specifically, we sought to use Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) to model and compare the conversations. ENA is now very easy to use online and I have been playing with it for other purposes. One of its distinctive features is its ability to locate specific ideas at meaningful locations on a two-dimensional graph so that you can see dimensions of agreement and disagreement.

Our results are now published as Peter Levine, Brendan Eagan & David Williamson Shaffer, “Deliberation as an Epistemic Network: A Method for Analyzing Discussion,” in Barbara Wasson and Szilvia Zörgo (eds.), Advances in Quantitative Ethnography, proceedings of the Third International Conference, ICQE 2021 Virtual Event, November 6–11, 2021 (Springer Switzerland, 2022), pp. 17-33.

The image I reproduce with this post shows one particular ENA visualization of the discussions. The one at Tufts is in blue; the one at KSU is in red; and the one in the middle shows the difference between them (literally, the Tufts network subtracted from the KSU network).

You would have to read our paper to get a full explanation, but here is a glimpse. Basically, the Tufts students tended to connect inequities in health with race and class. Some of the KSU students also made those connections, but some of them drew connections between bad health outcomes and personal behavior, for which they blamed individuals’ upbringings. Thus the KSU discussion roughly looks like a triangle with three corners (race and class, personal choices, and health outcomes), while the Tufts discussion omits one of those corners.

The same result might have been clear enough from a conventional approach–reading, interpreting, and (possibly) coding the transcripts. However, we argue that the plausibility of the ENA findings validates the method, which can then be used to model other discussions.

CIRCLE’s 2022 Election Center

CIRCLE’s 2022 Election Center is up. Watch that page for all kinds of research and data on youth in this year’s campaigns. To begin, CIRCLE has posted their rankings of the 10 senatorial and 10 gubernatorial races where youth are poised to make the most difference to the outcomes, due to the likely turnout in each state, the distinctiveness of the youth vote compared to older voters, and the projected closeness of the race, among other factors. Pennsylvania tops both lists.

Candidates, parties, activists, and reporters should pay attention to youth voting in all states, districts, and small localities, but CIRCLE’s Youth Electoral Significance Index (YESI) encourages people who want to influence politics at least to pay attention to the pivotal states for the youth vote.