We are in the second day of the American Political Science Association’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER), hosted by Tisch College but held online this summer. Twenty excellent engaged political scientists are the participants, and they are interacting with the directors and visitors.

One issue for discussion is the relationship between methodology and civically engaged research. Is engaged research a method? Does it favor one or more methods over others? Or is it methodologically neutral?

I won’t try to characterize the other ICER participants’ views, except to note that they hold diverse and thoughtful opinions on questions like this. For myself, I’d want to resist a tendency (outside of ICER) to equate engaged research with qualitative methods.

I have a biographical reason not to endorse this distinction. My own background is in philosophy, and I succeeded Bill Galston (a political theorist) as the second director of CIRCLE until 2015. CIRCLE is well-known for quantitative research: its own surveys plus analysis of federal data and voting records. Yet CIRCLE has always employed full-time experienced professionals whose main focus is building partnerships and capacity in its partner organizations. I see CIRCLE as a deeply civically engaged research center, in the sense that Amy Cabrera Rasmussen, Robert Lieberman, Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, Rogers Smith, and I propose in a forthcoming article in PS:

Given my background, I’ve always found it natural that engaged research can involve any method, from big-data analytics to randomized field experiments to philosophical inquiry. I would acknowledge a debt to the atmosphere at the University of Maryland in the 1990s, when people like Galston, Steve Elkin, Gar Alperovitz, Linda Williams, and others comfortably combined political theory with empirical research and civic engagement. I also found inspiring models in Elinor Ostrom and Jane Mansbridge.

Meanwhile, I observe that community partners of various kinds are drawn to the full range of methods. Some groups are very comfortable with robust and explicit debates about normative issues. They may connect more easily to the methods of philosophy, political theory, and theology than to qualitative social science. Other groups have big datasets and are already quite good at crunching numbers but would like to collaborate with people situated within universities. Some run interventions and are quite happy to randomize treatment and control groups. Certainly, some are not comfortable with any of those methods, but that doesn’t mean that interviews and focus groups will suit them best.

If anything, engaged research seems an invitation to mix methods and to develop methodological pluralism. Positivism may be an obstacle to engaged research, but “positivism” doesn’t mean quantitative research methods or the application of statistics. Positivism in the problematic sense is a philosophy that sharply distinguishes facts from values, scientists from subjects, and knowledge from power. Qualitative researches can be naive positivists, while number-crunchers can hold nuanced and productive ideas about epistemology.

See also civically engaged research in political science #APSA2019; we should be debating the big social and political paradigms; how to present mixed-methods research; what gives some research methods legitimacy? etc.

How can we renew faith in our institutions and in our neighbors? That is theme of the following public events:

• June 23: Civic Health: Renewing Trust in Our Neighbors with Bruce Mallory, Quixada Moore Vissing, and Martha McCoy of Everyday Democracy (virtual). 
• July 22 A Polarized Country: How Can Schools Help Bridge the Divide? with Peter Levine and Dianna Terrell (virtual)
• Oct. 21 in person at Dartmouth: Renewing Trust: the Role of the Courts in a Democracy with Neal Katyal and Gregg Garre. 
• Dec. 2 in person: Renewing Trust: the Role of the Military in a Democracy with Gen. James Mattis.

Are you looking to collaborate, communicate, and connect with social studies education colleagues and professionals from across the state of Florida? Then please consider presenting, and of course attending, the upcoming FCSS annual conference!

You can expect a great many excellent vendors and some engaging and enlightening sessions (including from your friends here at the Lou Frey Institute/Florida Joint Center for Citizenship!).

You will find links to submit a proposal, register, or sign up as a exhibitor (why not all three!) below.

Click Here to Submit Presentation Proposal

Online Registration

Paper Registration

Exhibitor Online Packet

Exhibitor Paper Packet

The University of Toronto’s Sociology Department posts the reading lists for its PhD comprehensive exams. This is the list of books and articles that the faculty think are required for serious scholarship in these subfields, and it’s a great place to look for syllabus ideas for courses in related fields. (h/t Raul Pacheco-Vega)

• Sociology of Crime and Law
• Gender
• Health and Mental Health
• Immigration, Ethnicity and Race
• Networks and Community
• Political Sociology
• Sociology of Culture
• Work, Stratification and Markets
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Sociological Theory

I’ve had deep connections to the UK since childhood and have always been committed to the idea of Britain in Europe. I believe that the UK has been much better off as a part of the EU, while the EU could benefit from particular British perspectives and institutions. For those reasons, Brexit saddened me.

However, I also believe in polycentricity. As a descriptive theory of the world, it says that there are (almost) always many centers of power, and they need not stack up neatly, with smaller, weaker units inside bigger and stronger ones. Jurisdictions and roles usually overlap and interrelate in complex ways.

As a reform agenda, polycentricity says that things work better when power is divided into many parts that partially overlap. Over-centralization is generally unwise.

“Europe” is already polycentric in this sense. Here is one person‘s diagram of important treaties among European nations. The treaty groups overlap in a classic polycentric way.

This diagram is useful but far from complete. In addition to treaty arrangements, one could add other partnerships among nations, cities, companies, labor unions, universities, parties, professional groups, and more. Also, the image presents each nation as a unit, when many EU member states are federal or otherwise decentralized.

The picture is a little dated; the Union Jack will have to move outside of several circles where it appears above. However, the UK will not move outside of the polycentric network of Europe. Like it or not, Britain is “in.”

To British people who favor European integration, I would say: Brexit was bad. But you are still in Europe. The path forward is to encourage as much participation as possible in a wide range of cooperative ventures, whether among nations or among other kinds of entities. These cooperative activities should extend across Europe but not always be limited to the European continent.

To people who aspire to a federal Europe, I would say: Federalism, as implemented in republics like the USA, Germany, and Brazil, is one approach to combining centralization with decentralization. It assumes a Westphalian sovereign state that has ultimate power and attracts the deepest allegiance from all its citizens, with a neat tessellation of smaller and weaker units inside it that resemble each other and have similar relationships to the whole. This is by no means the only approach to making something large out of many smaller components. In the European context, federalism may have outrun its mandate and potential, at least for now. So everyone who wants to see Europe integrate should be willing to experiment with other overlapping associations.

To Euroskeptic Britons, I would say: You’re in Europe. You always have been, at least since prehistoric French people helped build Stonehenge. Sovereignty is an oversimplification, since power is always polycentric. By overestimating the importance of the national level of government, you have reaped a bunch of unnecessary problems and foreclosed some beautiful solutions, such as a borderless Ireland within the EU. Nevertheless, you and your children and your children’s children must belong to numerous networks and partnerships that cross the Channel. You should be working on making these partnerships work.

See also: Brexit: a personal reflection; modus vivendi theory; avoiding a sharp distinction between the state and the private sphere; British exceptionalism 2: the unique nature of the aristocracy; a range of federalism options for Israel-Palestine.

Are you looking for a free, engaging, self-paced course where you can learn more about civics? Check out the Civics Classroom, a free online learning program open during the summer!

What is the Civics Classroom?

This course series provides educators with online, self-paced, professional learning that develops the knowledge and skills necessary to help students achieve their roles as participants in civic life. Each course will take approximately five hours to complete. While it is recommended that participants complete the courses in order, it is NOT required.

The awarding of a certificate for each course in this series is based on successful completion of the pre and post tests, module quizzes, post course survey  and a passing final grade in the course. Certificates are emailed by staff of the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship at the Lou Frey Institute within two weeks of course completion.

A Prepared Classroom provides teachers with an understanding of:

• Course descriptions and the Civics End-of-Course Test Item Specifications,
• How to utilize curriculum and pacing guides,
• The value of strategic planning and preparing for instruction, and
• Making informed decisions about instruction based on formative and summative data.
  
  

The High School Government Classroom: Building Critical Knowledge course will provide teachers with pedagogy, content and resources for:

• Lesson planning and preparation in social studies
• The principles of American democracy
• The U.S. Constitution
• Founding Documents
• Landmark Cases

The High School US History: Civil War and Reconstruction course will provide teachers with pedagogy, content, and resources for:

• The major ideas of the cause, course, and consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era
• Primary sources and disciplinary literacy
• Strategies and structures for accessible learning

Like with everything else we offer, these course are free and open to everyone! Questions? Email us!

Today’s students know civics is all around them, but being an informed citizen and learning how the government interacts with “We the People ” takes work.  Civics360 provides FREE comprehensive, interactive resources designed to enhance students’ civic knowledge and skills.

Civics360 targets the civic knowledge and skills necessary to succeed on Florida’s Civics End of Course Assessment. The resource is used by more than 250,000 students across the state of Florida and thousands more outside of the state. Over the past couple of years, many districts and teachers have asked if we have the materials ina hard copy format for their students. Well, ask and ye shall receive!

The new Civics360 digital and hard copy textbook review tool can help Florida students improve their understanding of how citizens interact with the government and vice versa. While Civics360 is crafted for Florida students, these resources cover civics and government content that is at the core of courses taught in all fifty states.  

You can learn more about Civics360 by taking a look at this overview here: More Information about Civics360.  

The Civics360 reader and workbook provide resources for 5-12 civic education around 9 topic areas:

The Civics360 Reader contains scripts for every video on the free Civics360 website, as well as content readings in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole, written at a 7th grade reading level. 

The partner workbook has English-language guides for each reading, viewing guides for each associated video on Civics360 (and can be used in conjunction with the scripts contained in the Reader) and vocabulary practice. 

Printed Workbooks and Readers

Product Availability and Pricing

The printed Workbook and Reader are 8.5 x 11. Please note that Xanedu can create custom versions of this resource for you as well!

Contact Xanedu now for pricing or with questions at 800-218-5971 ext. 6623 or dveal@xanedu.com.

If interested, you can also download a free sample of the textbook that includes content from both the workbook and reader!

Check out this resource here! And don’t forget, ALL of the online resources of Civic360 remain 100% free!

On the Tufts Equity Research website is a user-friendly tool that allows anyone to explore data from our May 2021 national survey. The tool requires no specialized background or vocabulary to use. You can just select pairs of variables and see the results.

For instance, I looked at the proportion of Americans who report that other people act afraid of them because of their identity. The graphic shows the result for the whole population. The rate has doubled since last year, and I suspect that’s because we have feared each other during this year of pandemic and political conflict.

One can also look at differences by demographic category. For instance, 33% of Black Americans–versus 15% of whites–believe that they are feared because of their identity.

You can explore hundreds of other combinations on the site.

A few months ago, I published Levine, P. (2020). Theorizing Democracy in a Pandemic, Democratic Theory, 7(2), 134-142, with the following abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic raises questions about the future of democracy and civil society. Some recent predictions seem to use the suffering to score points in ongoing political arguments. As a better example of how to describe the future during a crisis, I cite the prophetic voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. King does not merely predict: he calls for action, joins the action, and makes himself responsible for its success or failure. With these cautions about prediction in mind, I venture two that may guide immediate responses. First, communities may erect or strengthen unjustifiable barriers to outsiders, because boundaries enhance collective action. Second, although the pandemic may not directly change civic behavior, an economic recession will bankrupt some organizations through which people engage.

Today, Faculti released the video of an interview with me based on this article. In the interview, I also mention Levine P. (2021) Why protect civil liberties during a pandemic?. J Public Health Policy. 42(1):154-159. `

By the way, I think my second prediction (or worry) proved too pessimistic, at least in the USA, mainly because of the federal aid packages.