Our Students…Our Campus…Their Community: Analyzing Institutional Civic Engagement Websites

Literature suggests that institutional efforts to cultivate civic engagement may have developmental importance on an institution’s mission, values, and culture. This study seeks to detail how anchor and place-based justice network institutions digitally engage with their communities through a website content analysis and using Ostrander’s civic engagement framework and Kimball and Thomas’ place-building theory. Findings from this study illuminated the contrasting and overlapping strategies anchor, and place-based justice network websites address advancing civic engagement. Through our analysis, we offer an innovative theoretical and practical institutional civic and community engagement website approach for strengthening institutional websites called Digital Place-Based Theory for Social Justice. This study will help scholars and practitioners explore the relationship between sustainable partnerships with local communities and post-secondary institutional responses to ever-evolving justice concerns.