Civic Engagement: Bridging Differences to Build a Field of Civic Learning

Debates about whether young citizens are suitably engaged in civic life often generate more heat than light. Many scholars disagree about even the existence of a youth engagement problem. Not surprisingly, scholars also disagree about what constitutes engagement and the related skills and literacies that support it. We propose a set of strategies and core concepts that may help bridge different perspectives on civic engagement, and we discuss ways in which online environments, from games to explicitly political sites, may facilitate civic learning. In particular, what seems to distinguish civic activities from the many other forms of interpersonal association are considerations of whether individuals are (learning ways of) communicating with larger publics and whether they have something at stake in joining and acting with those publics. Applying these concepts to better understand and facilitate civic learning online entails recognizing the different standards of citizenship being promoted by competing scholarly paradigms. Better integration of these paradigms will enable more effective learning strategies to be deployed in settings as diverse as schools, elections, and games.