According to the American Democracy Project (2021), the definition of “civic engagement” is “working together to make a difference in the civic life of our communities.” This includes nonpolitical activities (e.g., volunteerism) and political engagement (e.g., voting and activism). Both are important to a healthy government and civil society.
Because political scientists extensively study democracies worldwide, we know what productive citizen engagement looks like. Yet, many scholars are concerned about the state of American democracy. Too often, the decades-long emphasis on math and science education has forced out civics from the K–12 curriculum (Shapiro and Brown Reference Shapiro and Brown2018; Winthrop Reference Winthrop2020), with frightening results. According to the Annenberg Public Policy (2020) survey, most Americans have significant gaps in their civic knowledge. Moreover, too many Americans are duped by false information that spreads online and through social media (Wineberg et al. Reference Wineberg, McGrew, Breakstone and Ortega2016). The lack of civic knowledge and the attractiveness of false conspiracy theories contributed to the widespread, erroneous belief that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent as well as the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Clearly, promoting constructive civic engagement among our students is especially germane for political scientists. It is ironic, therefore, that in too many cases, this work is sidelined or trivialized—categorized as academic “service” rather than the more “serious” work of teaching and/or research.
Three decades ago, Boyer (Reference Boyer1990) challenged the academy to expand its definition of research to incorporate a wider definition that allows for different types of scholarly contributions to the public good. Boyer’s typology is an excellent vehicle that political science departments can use to fully integrate civic engagement into their faculty-evaluation standards.
Boyer’s typology is an excellent vehicle that political science departments can use to fully integrate civic engagement into their faculty-evaluation standards.
Boyer’s (Reference Boyer1990) typology has four definitions of academic scholarship. The first definition, the scholarship of discovery, is what academics usually mean by “research.” This is the creation of new knowledge, pursuing knowledge for its own sake. Many political scientists already conduct research on civic engagement through their studies of political behavior. They can use their civic engagement work on campus to determine what motivates college students to become civically active and to write about their findings. In addition, the University of Michigan’s Civic Leads project has a repository of datasets and publications that focus on young people, available for analysis and publication.
The second definition, the scholarship of integration, weaves together the insights and findings from the scholarship of discovery to develop new insights and interpretations. This work often is multidisciplinary, bringing together the work of academics in many fields to forge new understanding. Political scientists can synthesize civic engagement literature from multiple disciplines, including sociology, journalism, education, communication, and psychology. This integration surpasses the conventional literature review to develop new insights through analysis and synthesis, which can be the basis of standalone peer-reviewed publications, research-based best practices, and training modules.
The third definition, the scholarship of application (also known as the scholarship of engagement), asks how scholarly knowledge and insight can be used to solve “consequential problems” (Boyer Reference Boyer1990, 21). Faculty at land-grant universities award this type of work as part of the institutions’ “extension” mission: that is, to translate scholarly knowledge for the public good. These activities may appear to be community or university service—for example, giving a speech to the local Rotary Club. However, to reach the level of Boyer’s scholarship of application, these activities must be “serious, demanding work, requiring the rigor—and the accountability—traditionally associated with research activities” (Boyer Reference Boyer1990, 22). How does the scholarship of application appear in practice? Think of civic engagement activities that are known to be efficacious, such as peer-to-peer voter outreach and student-led deliberative-democracy sessions. External validation is possible through national grant applications, peer reviews of action plans undertaken by various civic engagement nonprofits, assessment, and participation in professional-development conferences.
Boyer’s (Reference Boyer1990) fourth definition is the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), which is the application of research techniques to pedagogy to determine their impact on students and then sharing the results with other scholars. Scholars may integrate civic engagement exercises into existing courses and evaluate the impact using targeted assessments to determine their effectiveness. In addition, several other institution-wide tools exist to measure changes in civic engagement, including the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement and the National Survey of Student Engagement. Moreover, we—as the academy—should understand that much of teaching and learning happens outside of the classroom. There are peer-reviewed outlets for the scholarship of teaching and learning, including Journal of Political Science Education and College Teaching, to name only two.
It is obvious that, nationwide, political scientists promote civic engagement on their campus, even without the extrinsic rewards of tenure, promotion, merit raises, and formal recognition. Many of their activities are based in political science insights to create meaningful student-learning experiences. If the discipline is concerned about the long-term health of America’s democracy, teaching civic engagement should not depend on individual faculty members’ goodwill and intrinsic motivations. They should be rewarded through the faculty-evaluation process. How do we get there from here?
First, I recommend that APSA leadership continue to promote civic engagement as a disciplinary priority and to develop best practices, rewards, and recognition for departments to use to integrate Boyer’s typology generally and civic engagement work specifically into their tenure and promotion documents.
Second, I urge senior faculty and department chairs to critically examine their department and/or institutional tenure and promotion documents to fully integrate Boyer’s typology. This should not be only for faculty involved with civic engagement but also for those who are engaged in SoTL or the scholarships of integration and application in other fields.
Third, I recommend that members of the APSA Civic Engagement Section share and develop resources such as tips and best practices to help faculty—especially junior faculty—to integrate civic engagement work into a research agenda.
