Critical Democratic Citizenship: The Effects of Community-Engaged Scholarship and Inequality Content on Student Learning

• In Event: Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: Social Justice Educators Teaching the Lesson

Abstract

Many U.S. postsecondary institutions’ mission statements include goals of graduating students who are committed to civic engagement and the public good. One set of learning outcomes theorized to meet this goal is critical democratic citizenship which includes: participation, openness to multiple perspectives, controversy with civility, active thinking, justice-orientation, and structural thinking about racial inequality. Many universities aim to educate for these outcomes through diversity courses. Some diversity courses incorporate content on the socio-historical causes of inequality and tenets of community-engaged scholarship (mutually beneficial partnerships between universities and communities with the intention to collaboratively develop knowledge to address public issues). This article uses structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between inequality content, community-engaged scholarship, and student learning for civic engagement.

Author

• Cynthia Gordon da Cruz, Saint Mary's College of California