Development Through Dissent: Campus Activism as Civic Learning

Biddix, J. Patrick

doi:10.1002/he.20106

Cited by 34 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Hodson (2014) notes that students are best served by learning both through action and from action and argues for a three phase apprenticeship approach of modelling (teacher demonstration), guided practice (teacher assisted), and application (independent student action). Such an approach of action-based learning has great potential for renewing our democracies though boosting social agency and civil awareness amongst students (Biddix, 2014).…”

Section: Facilitating Engagement Advocacy and Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Publications to Public Actions: The Role of Universities in Facilitating Academic Advocacy and Activism in the Climate and Ecological Emergency

Gardner¹,

Thierry²,

Rowlandson³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain.

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Thousands of universities have made climate emergency declarations; however the higher education sector is not rising to the collective challenge with the urgency commensurate with scientific warnings. Universities are promoting an increased focus on sustainability through their research, teaching and their own institutional footprints. However, we suggest that such initiatives will be insufficient to catalyse the required transformations in our societies and economies because of (i) the time lags inherent in education and research pathways to impact, and (ii) their failure to address either real-world political processes or the forces invested in maintaining the status quo. We therefore suggest that academics should move from publications to public actions and engage in advocacy and activism to affect urgent and transformational change. We discuss the barriers to engagement in advocacy that academics face, and propose a number of actions that universities should adopt to help overcome them. These include explicitly recognising advocacy as part of the work mandate of academic staff by altering work allocation models, facilitating engaged research sabbaticals, altering hiring and promotion policies, and providing training to enhance the effectiveness of engagement. In addition, universities must defend the right of academics to engage in protest and push back against emerging threats to academic freedom. Such actions would strengthen a rich tradition of academic protest and enhance the contribution of universities to the public good in areas well beyond sustainability, for example race and social justice (Black Lives Matter, decolonising education) and public health.

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Section: Facilitating Engagement Advocacy and Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Publications to Public Actions: The Role of Universities in Facilitating Academic Advocacy and Activism in the Climate and Ecological Emergency

Gardner¹,

Thierry²,

Rowlandson³

et al. 2021

Front. Sustain.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, gaps exist in the literature regarding exactly how civic engagement opportunities in higher education affect civic and democratic learning and development (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 2006, as cited in Biddex, 2014). Critical educational scholars express concern that service learning opportunities may viewed by students as simply ‘volunteering’ rather than addressing social or political problems (Biddex, 2014; Finley, 2011; Lopez et al, 2006), creating meaningful change, or enhancing democratic participation (Biddex, 2014; Bryant et al, 2011; Butin, 2012). In this way, current opportunities fail to achieve civic action, which requires directly ‘teaching students the value of collaborative and direct action’ (Biddex, 2014; The National Task Force, 2012).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Critical educational scholars express concern that service learning opportunities may viewed by students as simply ‘volunteering’ rather than addressing social or political problems (Biddex, 2014; Finley, 2011; Lopez et al, 2006), creating meaningful change, or enhancing democratic participation (Biddex, 2014; Bryant et al, 2011; Butin, 2012). In this way, current opportunities fail to achieve civic action, which requires directly ‘teaching students the value of collaborative and direct action’ (Biddex, 2014; The National Task Force, 2012). This course, however, was designed to utilize curriculum and pedagogies related to upstanding behavior; resources which interrogate the idea of collective action and behaviors which support it.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disrupting narrow conceptions of justice: Exploring and expanding ‘bullying’ and ‘upstanding’ in a university honors course

Farley

Gallagher

Bruna

2019

Education, Citizenship and Social

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The term ‘upstanding’ encompasses actions and behaviors grounded in one’s defense of their own beliefs and others. While such broad application of the term has merit, from a critical education perspective it lacks direction. To efficaciously address injustice, upstanding action must go beyond one’s beliefs. A directional application of upstanding behavior, or the notion of ‘upstanding for justice,’ frames upstanding as action to address chronic social victimization via systems of oppression. In this article, we describe the development of a new heuristic to support students’ understanding of upstanding and detail the university honors course in which we used the heuristic to explore the phenomena of ‘bullying’ and historical injustice to expand ideas of ‘upstanding’. Results indicate that students in the course broadened their conceptions of justice and the use of historical cases aided in their understanding of the interplay between individual agency and social structure in social justice efforts.

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“…First, we must recognize the leadership development that occurs via participation in activism or social action (Biddix, ; Martin, ; Renn, ). Despite calls to encourage activism as a means of fostering desired student learning outcomes (Martin, ), educators can miss these opportunities by focusing on the logistical management of campus protest rather than the promotion of leadership development.…”

Section: Concluding Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I Couldn't Just Sit There”: Leadership Learning Through Activism

Elkins

2019

New Drctns Student Lead

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Development Through Dissent: Campus Activism as Civic Learning

Abstract: This chapter traces two decades of published research on learning outcomes related to campus activism and reports results from a speculative study considering civic outcomes from participation in campus political and war demonstrations.

Cited by 34 publications

References 20 publications

From Publications to Public Actions: The Role of Universities in Facilitating Academic Advocacy and Activism in the Climate and Ecological Emergency

From Publications to Public Actions: The Role of Universities in Facilitating Academic Advocacy and Activism in the Climate and Ecological Emergency

Disrupting narrow conceptions of justice: Exploring and expanding ‘bullying’ and ‘upstanding’ in a university honors course

“I Couldn't Just Sit There”: Leadership Learning Through Activism

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