Small-Scale Community Engagement in Comparative Perspective

• In Event: TLC at APSA Technology and Innovative Pedagogy Track Panel 1: Community Engagement and Experiential Science

Abstract

How can students develop a deeper understanding of course concepts that makes course content relevant to their lives? Fostering deep, relevant engagement is critical in comparative politics courses where students often lack background familiarity about course material. Community engaged courses have been proposed as one way to make learning more meaningful for students and to teach civic engagement topics. In comparative politics, these interventions are often extensive, relying on either semester-long internships or study abroad trips to facilitate community engaged learning. However, many instructors lack the infrastructure to set-up these in-depth partnerships because of financial or practicality constraints. I develop a series of small-scale community engaged course components designed to help students apply comparative politics concepts to their lives. I test the effectiveness of these interventions using a pre- and post-test design that examines civic and community attitudes in a representation and identity undergraduate course. I suggest that this simpler model of small-scale community engagement still produces many of the benefits of more complex, longer-term community engagement activities. I also discuss the impact small-scale community engagement has on community partners and how some types of community partners may be especially interested in this form of community engagement. Given this year’s conference theme and in a time where marginalized groups lack political voice, this project provides ways for students to grapple with unfamiliar comparative politics topics using a method that is applicable to a wide variety of instructors.

Author

• William O'Brochta, Louisiana Tech University