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Tag: civic education

The Digital Good demands Civic-minded Technologists

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Citation

Graeff, E. 2024. “The Digital Good demands Civic-minded Technologists.” Presented at EASST-4S 2024: Making & Doing Transformations, Amsterdam, Netherlands, NY, Jul 17.

Presentation

Abstract

Engineering’s “culture of disengagement” (Cech 2014) casts a long shadow on society. The anemic civic philosophy, preached by lauded tech heroes, pretends politics and power don’t apply to technology, that we can reduce most problems to technical challenges, and that meritocracy is justice. There are bright spots—individual, civic-minded technologists; the Tech Workers Coalition; and the Integrity Institute, a community of practice for “trust and integrity” professionals from technology companies. But it’s insufficient. To solve the challenges of contemporary society and democracy, entwined with sociotechnical systems, we need to understand technology’s civic landscape and reframe the technical expert’s role in democracy. 

Engineering has a rich history of political activism and rumination about its social and civic responsibility (Layton 1986; Wisniowski 2016). And STS has long tried to understand and define ethical technology. However, computing has grown more deprofessionalized over time, loosening its ethical tethers. Simultaneously, there are growing concerns about the role technologists play in society. So how should civic-mindedness intersect with the education and daily practice of technologists?

I’ve conducted 17 interviews with leading engineering educators, looked at the history of civic engagement and civic-mindedness in engineering and computing, and worked on defining civic professionalism in technology. My research supports an argument that technologists need a political education. Unfortunately, civic learning is scarce in most undergraduate programs and even secondary schools, and it’s particularly uncommon in computing. So we must define and invest in civic learning and a civic culture in computing, because the digital good really demands civic-minded technologists.

Educating Engineers for Civic-mindedness

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Citation

Graeff, E. 2023. “Educating Engineers for Civic-mindedness.” Presented at the 14th Symposium on Engineering and Liberal Education, Union College, Schenectady, NY, Sep 23.

Slides

Abstract

In her book Educating for Civic-mindedness, Carolin Kreber (2016) offers a compelling framework for civic-mindedness as an attribute and capability of professionals, which can be nurtured through “transformative higher education” experiences. This paper will apply Kreber’s framework to understanding the task of nurturing civic-minded engineering professionals, summarizing the existing landscape of transformative experiences in engineering education and diagnosing the challenges and possibilities for enhancing these efforts, as expressed in interviews with leading educators and practitioners of civically-engaged engineering. 

Kreber starts with Bringle and Steinberg’s (2010) definition of civic-mindedness as “a person’s inclination or disposition to be knowledgeable of and involved in the community, and to have a commitment to act upon a sense of responsibility as a member of that community”; a civic-minded graduate is “a person who has completed a course of study […], and has the capacity and desire to work with others to achieve the common good.” Kreber emphasizes the “with others” portion of this definition, arguing that civic-minded professionals “support the flourishing, or authenticity, of other members of society, by helping others achieve important human capabilities.” 

Cultivating authentic, civic-minded professionals should be a core purpose of higher education, according to Kreber. She believes this requires carefully designed, community-engaged learning experiences that have a “transformational” effect on students. Engineering education rarely achieves this high bar. Rather, engineering’s culture and its most common approaches to nurturing ethical and social responsibility appear in tension with certain civic virtues. A call to action for “civic professionalism” in engineering is due.

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

Erhardt 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”.

Civic Education is the Civic Technology We Need Most

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

This essay was submitted to National Academies’ Idea Competition for Symposium on Imagining the Future of Undergraduate STEM Education. You can download a PDF version of this essay here.

Civic technology is an amplifier. It amplifies democracy by applying technology.

Democracy × TechnologyCivic

The technology part of this equation has been doing pretty well. Technology keeps advancing, making certain things easier and more efficient. There are also exciting movements in technology meant to instill public purpose among technologists. Code for America followed by the United States Digital Service and 18F have provided an outlet for technologists eager to build technology that allows governments to be more effective and accountable to citizens. Public Interest Technology, advanced by several prominent foundations, offers a framework for encouraging STEM professionals to engage in politics and policy and more broadly find their bearings by serving the public interest. The National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges Scholars Program seeks to enlarge the definition of the competencies STEM graduates need in order to tackle the world’s most difficult challenges. I celebrate these movements and participate in them.

The democracy part of the equation has been struggling. There is low trust in democratic institutions around the world. Surveys show declines in young people believing that living in a democracy is essential.1 There are also long standing crises in civic engagement at all levels of collective governance. Scholars and journalists have given various reasons for civic engagement’s decline: dwindling enrollments in informal organizations like bowling leagues, the rise of cable television and the internet, newfound awareness of corrupt and racist politicians and policies, and hyperpartisan politics touching every issue and locality. As threats to democracy mount, civic education as a component of primary, secondary, and higher education has gone missing in many schools or, where it still exists, represents antiquated notions of democracy and America.

We are failing to appreciate that civic education is our most important civic technology. While technologists working on civic projects often mean well and make helpful contributions, we will never recover our democracy or realize the true potential of civic technology if we don’t revitalize civic education.

A 2014 study of engineering students by sociologist Erin Cech finds evidence that the culture of engineering seems to weaken students’ beliefs in their professional.2 In 2020, a cascade of headlines points to ways digital technologies are threatening justice, privacy, and democracy, and the political battles over COVID-19 have exposed deep mistrust of experts in science and medicine. Between now and 2040, our need for civic-minded STEM graduates will only grow.

We need a civic professionalism movement anchored in transformative civic education curricula built inseparably into every undergraduate STEM program.

A revitalized civic education acknowledges fundamental shifts in society and democratic practice and expands its definition of where democracy starts—not with voting but with citizen cooperation. Civic education begins in childhood, but STEM professionals also need educational experiences that help them recognize their profound roles and responsibilities as citizens. We need to entwine technical literacy and civic literacy. We need civic professionals in STEM, who think first as citizens, practice their profession in deeply democratic ways, and build civic technology as expressions of the identities they have developed through years of civic education.

Democratic educator Harry Boyte has written and advocated for constructing professional identities like the “citizen engineer,” an engineer who acknowledges the public dimensions of their work, not separating their citizen identity from their engineer identity.3 Democratic theorist Albert Dzur gives us the idea of “democratic professionalism” as power sharing.4 Civic professionals embrace multiple forms of expertise, complementing their specialized skills with the unique experiences of fellow citizens to solve difficult problems. These open and accountable collaborations build public trust in professionals through mutual respect and shared struggle.

Civic professionals must also learn to embrace the political dimensions of their work, acknowledging the ways that technical work is always situated in particular contexts and depends on certain structures and policies that serve some ideas, people, and outcomes well and others poorly. Cech’s research with higher education professional Heidi Sherick has found depoliticization of work to be one of the problematic pillars of engineering culture.5 Science and engineering are not cleanly separable from the rest of society. That mindset robs our democracy of STEM’s public purpose and accountability. Instead, civic professionals should aspire toward what Boyte calls “public work,” committing to models of co-creation, joint problem solving, and shared ownership.6 Public work binds us together in our shared citizenship and represents the foundational elements of democracy as a project of collective governance.

Education scholar Carolin Kreber envisions forging civic professional identities through transformative experiences in undergraduate education.7 A transformative STEM civic education is action-oriented and community-engaged, forcing us to challenge and revise our assumptions, values, and identities. It asks students to practice their profession in partnership with the public at the beginning of their training. Working with citizens outside of the classroom helps cultivate civic-mindedness. A civic professional’s new competencies include being able to frame a complex problem in partnership with community members who may not possess technical knowledge but whose lived experiences lead to the right questions and priorities necessary to setting a research and design agenda.

This is the future of STEM education our world needs most, reclaiming the public purpose of higher education and rebuilding trust in professions. During the next 20 years, society will continue to ask STEM graduates and the technology they create to solve its thorniest challenges. We need civic professionals in STEM who understand and identify with a much deeper sense of their public purpose, who are prepared to amplify our collective effort as citizens.

  1. Foa, Roberto Stefan, and Yascha Mounk. 2017. “The Signs of Deconsolidation.” Journal of Democracy​ 28 (1): 5–16.
  2. Cech, Erin A. 2014. “Culture of Disengagement in Engineering Education?” S​ cience, Technology, & Human Values​ 39 (1): 42–72.
  3. Boyte, Harry. 2008. T​ he Citizen Solution: How You Can Make A Difference​. Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press.
  4. Dzur, Albert W. 2010. D​ emocratic Professionalism: Citizen Participation and the Reconstruction of Professional Ethics, Identity, and Practice.​ University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Dzur, Albert. 2018. D​ emocracy Inside: Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places.​ New York: Oxford University Press.
  5. Cech, Erin A., and Heidi M. Sherick. 2015. “Depoliticization and the Structure of Engineering Education.” In ​International Perspectives on Engineering Education: Engineering Education and Practice in Context, Volume 1​, edited by Steen Hyldgaard Christensen, Christelle Didier, Andrew Jamison, Martin Meganck, Carl Mitcham, and Byron Newberry, 203–16. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  6. Boyte, Harry. 2004. E​ veryday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life.​ Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  7. Kreber, Carolin. 2016. E​ ducating for Civic-Mindedness.​ New York: Routledge.