General Education and Civic Engagement: An Empirical Analysis of Pedagogical Possibilities

The purpose of this article is to present empirical evidence suggesting the potential benefits of systematically utilizing general education as the institutional foundation for an integrated, multidisciplinary learning environment expressly dedicated to the promotion of civic engagement. Recently, the authors conducted an assessment of student learning outcomes at four colleges and universities in an attempt to evaluate the effects that the pedagogy of service learning and the democratic classroom approach to course management have on student attitudes toward civic engagement. The study involved 1,243 undergraduate students enrolled in 39 courses drawn from diverse academic programs. In general, the findings provide empirical support for the claim that faculty can produce measurable and statistically significant changes in student attitudes toward the importance of engaged citizenship when they employ pedagogical strategies and instructional techniques expressly dedicated to the promotion of student engagement. Moreover, the project also demonstrated that it is possible to incorporate pedagogies of engagement across nearly all of the academic divisions that constitute the typical college campus. As a consequence, the study suggests that a systemic approach to civic education is administratively manageable and that a general education curriculum could serve as the academic platform for an institutionally based, mission driven commitment to civic engagement. (Contains 5 tables and 8 notes.)