refereed publications – Erhardt Graeff

Locating Empowerment and Technical Intuition in how we frame U.S. Civic Education

12 May 202330 January 2024Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Citation

Graeff, E. 2023 “Locating Empowerment and Technical Intuition in how we frame U.S. Civic Education.” In Haste, H & Bempechat, J, eds., New civics, new citizens: Critical, competent and responsible agents. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.

Link

https://brill.com/display/book/9789004538320/BP000024.xml

Introduction

This chapter argues for defining a good civic education in terms of empowerment and technical intuition. Synthesizing the debates surrounding two recent theories of civic learning, Danielle Allen’s book Education and Equality and essay “What is Education for?” and Ethan Zuckerman’s article “New Media, New Civics?”, I investigate the growing importance to contemporary democracy of developing specific abilities for digital civic engagement, having authentic civic and political experiences, and making citizen voice and influence synonymous. I find a strong thread tying digital civic engagement and civic education together with questions such as: How do we best enhance the civic efficacy and empowerment of young people, and of citizens more generally? I conclude that the goal for designers of civic education programs should be to model their efforts on what Sara Evans and Harry Boyte call “free spaces”.

Democracy as citizen-centered governance requires citizen empowerment (sometimes called “civic agency”), and empowered citizens need certain skills, knowledge, attitudes, and habits that lead to effective civic engagement. Empowering experiences and learning opportunities can promote a virtuous cycle of reinforcing citizen empowerment and strengthening democracy. Spaces like town hall meetings, protest marches, the voting booth, and the civic education classroom traditionally represent where these experiences and opportunities take place. The emergence of networked digital media have created new, pervasive civic spaces – the networked public sphere. Whereas public spaces offline have seen a decline in the U.S.,2 their online replacements, largely private spaces like Facebook, have grown to astounding size and influence with limited accountability to governments and the public. This means the definition of an empowered citizen has stretched beyond traditional capabilities and contexts to encompass a broad range of digital capabilities and experiences.

This chapter seeks to articulate this broadened definition by being in dialogue with and synthesizing recent debates in U.S. civic education and civic engagement scholarship, specifically those surrounding Danielle Allen’s book Education and Equality and Ethan Zuckerman’s article “New Media, New Civics?” In the end, I propose that designers of civic education programs aim forcivic empowerment that incorporates what Alix Dunn (2018) calls “technical intuition” and create opportunities to practice civics in online and offline contexts modeled on what Sara Evans and Harry Boyte call “free spaces”.

Undergraduate Engineering as Civic Professionalism

29 August 202214 July 2023Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Graeff, Erhardt, and Alison Wood. 2021. “Undergraduate Engineering as Civic Professionalism.” The Good Society 30, no. 1: 76-95. muse.jhu.edu/article/862840.

Link

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/862840

Abstract

Undergraduate engineering education is not doing enough to address engineering’s culture of disengagement—a culture that inhibits modern society’s ability to serve the public interest and mitigate the threat of technologies amplifying harm. We argue for visions of undergraduate engineering that purposefully embrace the humanities and make civic education integral in order to educate engineers as civic professionals. Two case studies from our college, one curricular and one extracurricular, illustrate how we are building toward a new vision by offering learning experiences in which students can evolve their personal and professional commitments to the common good and practice technical skills in ways responsible to democracy and society.

Care and Liberation in Creating a Student-Led Public Interest Technology Clinic (TSM)

3 September 20213 September 2021Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Recommended Citation

S. Chowdhary, S. Daitzman, R. Eisenbud, E. Pan and E. Graeff, “Care and Liberation in Creating a Student-Led Public Interest Technology Clinic,” in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 50-52, Sept. 2021, doi: 10.1109/MTS.2021.3101915.

Link

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9527371

Abstract

Engineers disengage from public welfare concerns during undergraduate engineering education [1]. In her widely cited study, Erin Cech argued that this arises from a culture of depoliticization in engineering that dismisses “nontechnical” concerns and competencies, reifying a false technical/social dichotomy and meritocratic ideology that justifies existing social structures. Our college, Olin College of Engineering, was part of that study, displaying similar patterns to more traditional schools. We are resisting that trend by embracing “public interest technology” (PIT) [2], which we believe offers a response to the culture of disengagement. In our application, PIT represents a community of practice that encourages engineers to fully engage with context, inequity, and uncertainty; to connect technical work to their own lives and environment; and to prioritize the common good while minimizing public harms.

Care and Liberation in Creating a Student-Led Public Interest Technology Clinic (ISTAS)

14 November 20203 September 2021Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Recommended Citation

S. Chowdhary, S. Daitzman, R. Eisenbud, E. Pan and E. Graeff, “Care and Liberation in Creating a Student-Led Public Interest Technology Clinic,” 2020 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS), 2020, pp. 164-175, doi: 10.1109/ISTAS50296.2020.9462188.

Link

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9462188

Abstract

The emerging field of Public Interest Technology contains the seeds for an engineering practice that embodies the ethic of care and undergraduate engineering educational experiences in the mold of liberatory education. We realized these opportunities by creating an undergraduate, student-led public interest technology clinic. Using autoethnography, we reflect on our effort to create the clinic and find that we prioritized emotions and relationships, embraced slowness and deliberation, and claimed student ownership. These practices define public interest technology and redefine engineering in ways centering care and equity, which enabled us to create the inclusive and effective engineering and public interest technology educational experiences we wanted for ourselves.

Monitorial Citizenship

9 May 20193 September 2021Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Recommended Citation

Graeff, E. 2019. ‘Monitorial Citizenship.’ In Hobbs, R & Mihailidis, P, eds., International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy Education. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Link

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118978238.ieml0169

Abstract

Monitorial citizenship is a form of civic engagement in which people collect information about their surroundings or track issues of local or personal interest in order to improve their communities and pursue justice. Common activities of the monitorial citizen include collecting information, sharing stories and insights, coordinating with networks of other civic actors, and pursuing accountability for institutions and elite individuals and their perceived responsibilities. The term originates in Michael Schudson’s 1998 book The Good Citizen. Schudson proposes monitorial citizenship as a successor to the “informed citizenship” paradigm to better account for our current age of information overload, arguing “the obligation of citizens to know enough to participate intelligently in governmental affairs be understood as a monitorial obligation” (p. 310). This original concept positioned monitorial citizens as “defensive rather than proactive” (p. 311). The idea of citizens paying attention to public affairs and serving a monitorial role pre‐dates Schudson and, of course, the Internet. What is different now is that technologies like the Internet and smartphones enable the average person to be more effective at monitoring topics of interest and powerful actors in society through the construction of distributed networks and ongoing campaigns that can leverage sophisticated narrative strategies with data to hold them to account. Some contemporary scholars believe monitorial citizenship may be one answer to revitalizing civics in an age of mistrust (Zuckerman, 2014), an effort media literacy can support.