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Peer Review, Spring 2003
How Civic Engagement Is Reframing
Liberal Education
By Robert A. Rhoads, associate professor of
education, University of California, Los Angeles
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Conceptions of society lie at the heart of how we envision
particular views of higher education. In an authoritarian
state, for example, higher education presumably would reinforce
the state' interests by constructing hierarchical relationships
between students and knowledge, with students mostly acting
as silent consumers of state-supported definitions of the
true and the good. Alternatively, in a global democracy, colleges
and universities ought to give serious thought to the nature
of student learning and development in such a way as to promote
cross-cultural understanding and civic mindedness (Harkavy
and Benson 1998; Mendel-Reyes 1998). As John Dewey (1916)
reminded us years ago, a democracy depends upon the willingness
of learned citizens to engage in the public realm for the
betterment of the larger social good.
Traditionally, liberal education has been seen as the primary
vehicle for fostering learned, democratic citizens. The common
belief has been that, through a range of intellectual and
academic experiences, students develop the kinds of understandings
and dispositions necessary to maintain the vitality of a democratic
society. For countless decades, such a system served our country
fairly well.
Reframing Liberal Education
In recent years, however, we have witnessed some cracks within
the armor of liberal education and within the structure of
undergraduate education in general. During the 1980s, for
example, many became increasingly concerned that students
were not as engaged in their collegiate education as previous
generations were believed to have been (AAC 1985; Boyer 1987;
Study Group 1984). Some suggested that undergraduate education
had become compromised, as a consequence of the professorate
elevating research over teaching (Boyer 1990). Others believed
that, as expanded enrollments in higher education led to dramatic
changes in student populations, different conceptions of undergraduate
education were required (Gaff 1992; Rhoads 1995). A more recent
concern is that students are more committed to career interests
than the kind of idealism that liberal learning traditionally
sought to foster (Astin 1998; Kuh 1999).
Student disinterest in the social good is not surprising
to some, given the academy' distance from real-life
needs and concerns (Bok 1982; Checkoway 2001). Given the various
critiques of academic life, it seems most reasonable to conclude
that many complex forces have contributed to the need to rethink
traditional notions of liberal education (Wingspread Group
1993). What we have witnessed is the need to reframe liberal
education in ways that are more likely to ensure an engaging
undergraduate experience. A primary tool for accomplishing
this has centered on civic education and the use of service-learning
as a vehicle for fostering active and engaged citizens (Boyte
1998; Giles and Eyler 1999; Rhoads and Howard 1998).
Driven in part by visions of education advanced by Dewey
(Kezar and Rhoads 2001), service-learning has grown as a movement
that seeks to link liberal education and civic engagement
(Zlotkowski 1995, 1996). An innovative pedagogical model aimed
at fostering socially responsible and caring citizens (Rhoads
and Howard 1998), service- learning links classroom knowledge
with real-world community service (Howard 1998). The inherent
belief is that service tends to foster lives of commitment
in which work for the larger good becomes central to one'
life (Barber 1992; Bellah et al. 1985; Coles 1993).
If we juxtapose traditional notions of liberal education
with emerging views of civic engagement, captured most forcefully
by the service-learning movement, we see common themes rooted
in a democratic vision of society and the power of education
to advance citizenship. While liberal education and civic
engagement both suggest a view of citizens as actively engaged
in public life, the manner by which each seeks to accomplish
this goal varies. Liberal education focuses more on the life
of the mind and citizens as critical thinkers; civic engagement
often involves experience-based understandings fostered through
activities such as community service. When liberal education
and civic engagement are structured so that each influences
the other, in a dialectical manner, the true power of the
undergraduate experience may be realized.
Democracy and Education
When one thinks about the relationship between liberal education
and civic engagement, the work of Dewey often comes to mind.
For Dewey, democracy was something much more than simply the
right to vote. He understood democracy as a way of relational
living in which the decisions and actions of one citizen must
be understood in terms of their influence on the lives of
others. Such a vision of democracy demands that citizens be
knowledgeable of others' lives and that they seek to
build decision-making processes that are collaborative and
inclusive.
Dewey saw educated citizens as something more than a society
of individuals with technical skills, vocational inclinations,
and economic ambitions. And he saw democracy as more than
a political economy of free markets, competition, and entrepreneurship.
A vital democracy must also include attention to non-profit
organizations, volunteer agencies, churches, schools, and
communities, as well as the collective interests of various
social groups. Democracies are dependent on interactive spheres--families,
friends, acquaintances, strangers--out of which often
come the basis for public engagement or disengagement, social
concern or apathy (Bellah et al. 1985). As Dewey (1927, 213)
noted, the essential work of democracy begins with communities
and meaningful interactions: "There is no substitute
for the vitality and depth of close and direct intercourse
and attachment. . . . Democracy begins at home, and its home
is the neighborly community."
When we think about education and the needs of a democratic
society, a key question arises: In what ways might we structure
students' educational experiences so as to promote the
kind of citizenship important to a democracy? In other words,
what types of learning experiences are most likely to encourage
the development of concerned, caring citizens? Consideration
of such questions leads us to examine the relationship between
"self" and "other" and the changing
context of our society.
Self, Other, and the Global Context
If we want students to assume active roles in society based
on an attitude of care and concern for others, we must help
students foster a caring sense of self, or what I have elsewhere
termed the "caring self" (Rhoads 1997). The challenge
then is to create educational contexts in which caring is
a vital component in the process of teaching and learning.
When caring becomes central to how we educate our students,
identities rooted in caring and a concern for others are more
likely to emerge (Noddings 1984).
At the heart of developing a more caring self is the concept
of "otherness" and the role that interactions
with others play in identity development. George Herbert Mead'
(1934) notion of the "social self" called to mind
the reality that selves emerge within the context of community,
through interactions with others. By taking on the role of
the other, one comes to develop conceptions of one'
self. Social interaction--as defined as the interplay
between self and other--is key to the developing self.
Along these lines, Nel Noddings (1984, 14) argued that moral
education involves building caring relationships through a
deep exploration of otherness: "When we see the other'
reality as a possibility for us, we must act to eliminate
the intolerable, to reduce the pain, to fill the need, to
actualize the dream. When I am in this sort of relationship
with another, when the other' reality becomes a real
possibility for me, I care."
Given the fact that social interactions occur within a societal
and community context, we must consider the ways in which
such interactions change as society becomes increasingly diverse,
even global. One might argue, for example, that as cultural
differences between self and other expand, the skills and
abilities needed to take the role of the other increase. Thus,
from the perspective of a multicultural and increasingly global
society, liberal education has an important role to play in
helping students to develop complex selves capable of negotiating
diverse cultures. Such a perspective suggests the increasing
relevance of pedagogical models such as service-learning.
In thinking about the potential contribution of service-learning
to foster culturally skilled and engaged citizens, the work
of Howard Radest is important. Radest (1993, 120) described
the community service context as an "encounter with
strangers," and highlighted the potential of such encounters
to foster important explorations in otherness: "Being
embedded in a plurality of life-worlds is now 'normal.'
So, the community service project always involves crossing
some cultural line and entails a meeting of strangers."
Radest went on to argue that such encounters offer students
opportunities to explore different social worlds and at the
same time recognize the common connections that many of them
share.
From my own work with students engaged in community service,
I have found that students often are forced to confront their
notions of otherness and construct more complex and multiplicitous
notions of cultural diversity (Rhoads 1997). In the process,
they also come to know themselves better, as they begin to
see the sophisticated ways in which identities intersect and
diverge. In essence, they become more comfortable with that
which is different and more sophisticated in locating that
which is similar.
The challenges involved in preparing students for life and
work in a global, democratic society are many. Clearly, though,
liberal education informed by civic engagement, and visa versa,
offers an important path for fostering knowledgeable and concerned
citizens. But while we know a great deal about the contribution
of service-learning, there is much more that needs to be examined
as we advance the relationship between liberal education and
civic engagement. For example, are there different forms of
civic engagement that colleges and universities are more likely
to promote? What are the differential impacts of diverse engagement
programs? Do civic engagement programs adequately address
the diversity of community needs as well as the diversity
of the students who participate in such programs? These are
just a few of the questions that empirical inquiry has yet
to adequately address.
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