Capacitating civic engagement with deliberative democracy initiatives

ABSTRACT

Polarization in political culture and the decline of public education for civic engagement have become serious challenges to a healthy constitutional federal republic in the United States. Communication as a field of study in American universities is well-poised to address these challenges and contribute meaningfully to improving the civic capacity of individuals and communities. This paper provides an overview of one model of doing this work through university-level communication courses that bring university faculty, students, and community agencies together. This model advocates for cooperative initiatives based on the principles and practices of deliberative democracy and participatory action research leading to annual or semi-annual public for a where structured dialogue and deliberation address specific issues of local, national, and international salience. Such a model may result in stronger university-community relations, applied learning for communication students, meaningful classroom learning activities, authentic public discussion, and situated cognition debriefings. The model shared here is based on a pilot project conducted through the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Humboldt State University during the 2018/2019 Academic Year.

KEYWORDS:

• deliberative democracy
• civic engagement
• communication for sustainable social change
• participatory action research
• community development

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Humboldt State University College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences.