Teaching and Learning Democracy: An Analysis of Undergraduates' Lived Experiences of Political Engagement

Abstract

This article presents the findings from a qualitative field study of students' “lived experiences” in the University of Minnesota political science course “Democracy and Education” and practicum “Coaching Public Achievement.” This study has two key purposes: to better understand how undergraduates learn through these experiences of democratic action and to better understand how this course and practicum foster political engagement. The findings of the study highlight that most undergraduates indeed gained a better understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, developed political skills, especially group process skills, and experienced a greater sense of motivation to be active and politically involved citizens, including a stronger sense of political identity. It is evident that they now think differently about politics and themselves as public actors; it is not as clear whether students translated this into further political engagement.

Keywords:

• democratic education
• political engagement
• service-learning

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms. I would like to thank Rick Battistoni, Harry Boyte, James Farr, John Moore, Terri Wilson, and the JPSE anonymous reviewers for critical commentary earlier versions of this article. I would also like to thank Chris Drury, Nick Longo, and Rick Battistoni for helping me think through the research methods. Ross Velure-Roholt and Michael Baizerman not only conducted the interviews but helped with data analysis and far-reaching conversations about the nature of democratic education. Finally, this study would not be possible without the generous support of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Special thanks are due to Elizabeth Beaumont at Carnegie.

2. This is a local study in the larger Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's Political Education Project. This Carnegie project is a study of 21 innovative courses and programs designed to foster political engagement in college students.

3. Coach is a term that was coined by young people in Public Achievement. As opposed to titles such as facilitator, teacher, leader, mentor—coach was a concept that they could easily grasp. It is also a role in which the team or group is responsible for “being on the field” and doing their own work in the “game” of politics.

4. These two versions of the course were taught by different instructors (myself in 2002–2003 and James Farr in 2003–2004). By examining two different versions of this course, we hoped to examine the core pedagogies of the course, controlling for the abilities of the particular instructor. The interviewees were randomly selected from the larger pool of students who volunteered to be interviewed. There were 21 total students in the 2002–2003 version of the course and 17 in 2003–2004.