Service Guarantees Citizenship: Portfolio Work, Populism, and Scaffolding in Introductory American Government Classrooms

Abstract

Challenges to the value of active civic engagement are an increasingly common phenomenon in introductory American government courses as there is a rise in populist sentiment and a lethargic democratic public. Traditional methods of civic participation and ideal citizenship are difficult to model and teach against this backdrop. Here, we offer instructors a curricular approach that teaches the fundamentals of American government while recognizing students’ roles in a politically dynamic and contentious environment. This semester-long portfolio project, called iCitizen, incorporates exercises in practical political communication, comparisons to historical and fictional systems of citizenship, and personal reflections on ideology and political participation designed to cultivate students’ civic skills and conceptual understanding. Assignments are progressive and experiential in nature, requiring students to actively engage in common civic and political experiences and pathways. In this way, the portfolio exposes students to fundamental questions of politics and citizenship, which can challenge populism’s core charge that “the people” are ignored in favor of elites. In this article, we provide a description of the portfolio, logistical and practical considerations for instructors, and preliminary thoughts on the portfolio’s effectiveness.

Keywords:

• experiential learning
• active learning
• civic engagement
• populism
• American politics

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank audience comments from the Midwest Political Science Association’s 2019 annual conference, where an earlier version of this manuscript was presented. Their insights and suggestions made this a better project. We also would like to thank our students at the University of Michigan-Flint who provided both the inspiration for this project and invaluable feedback.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this research or with the production of this manuscript.

Notes

1 Semester-long portfolio work has been attempted in American government courses before with success. McBeth and Robison (2012) use a policy-based portfolio that had students pick a policy problem and work throughout the semester on getting government to react. Students reported higher levels of confidence in political activity and internal political efficacy after participation in the course. This approach does much of what we ask of our students, by allowing for repeated and differentiated ways for students to practically interact with the political system while reflecting on the experience. However, their portfolio does not do what ours sets out to do, which is to counter populist notions of governmental non-responsiveness and political exclusion.

2 For a recent political science example on assignment scaffolding, see Fisher and Justwan (2018).

3 Available here: https://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/

4 Available here: https://www.politicalcompass.org/test

5 In lieu of the film, students could also read the novel to satisfy the assignment.

6 The line comes from the film version of Frank Herbert’s classis sci-fi book Children of Dune, where Alia Atreides exclaims “Atriedes power must never be marginalized by the chaos of democracy!”

7 We also noticed that several students attended subsequent Coffee and Conversation forums despite not being required by the assignment.

8 While we concur with Mutz’s (2006) argument that an activist political culture decreases the likelihood of deliberation, we also believe that engaging in deliberative pursuits (e.g., townhalls, forums, and editorializing) should be considered a form of participation, overcoming the participatory/deliberative divide.

9 We acknowledge that the questions posed to students are not necessarily the best to ask in terms of comprehensiveness of our project’s goals, but our primary purpose with the project was more conceptual rather than empirical (hence the need for greater empirical rigor in future iterations). Plus, we asked these questions as part of an end-of-class survey and did not want it to be too formal or lengthy.

10 We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer’s comment for this idea.

11 We invite readers to view assignment sheets and other pertinent documentation about the iCitizen Portfolio Project at APSA Educate (http://educate.apsanet.org).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kimberly Saks McManaway

Kimberly Saks McManaway, Ph.D., is Lecturer of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan at Flint.

Kevin G. Lorentz

Kevin G. Lorentz, II, Ph.D., is Lecturer of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan at Flint.