Good citizens take an active role in making their communities better places to live. This motivating book provides several practical examples of ways young readers can demonstrate that they care about their communities. From helping to care for community gardens to participating in community clean-up events, readers will learn the value of becoming active citizens in their communities. Teacher's guide available.

Citizens around the world look to the state for social welfare provision, but often struggle to access essential services in health, education, and social security. This book investigates the everyday practices through which citizens of the world's largest democracy make claims on the state, asking whether, how, and why they engage public officials in the pursuit of social welfare. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in rural India, Kruks-Wisner demonstrates that claim-making is possible in settings (poor and remote) and among people (the lower classes and castes) where much democratic theory would be unlikely to predict it. Examining the conditions that foster and inhibit citizen action, she finds that greater social and spatial exposure - made possible when individuals traverse boundaries of caste, neighborhood, or village - builds citizens' political knowledge, expectations, and linkages to the state, and is associated with higher levels and broader repertoires of claim-making.

Explains what citizenship is and ways to be a good citizen.

Good citizens take an active role in making their communities better places to live. This motivating book provides several practical examples of ways young readers can demonstrate that they care about their communities. From helping to care for community gardens to participating in community clean-up events, readers will learn the value of becoming active citizens in their communities.

This book incorporates art-based, partnership-oriented inquiry into social justice discourses and advances qualitative research strategies through the medium of three theoretical frameworks: phenomenology, critical ethnographic research, and poststructuralist theories. Maxine Greene's aesthetic theories motivated to create the ARtS initiative and the author explores the possibility of enhancing children’s understanding of active citizenship and community. It illustrates narratives from children in an urban context while they developed a sense of constructive community and active citizenship in an afterschool program called the ARtS (aesthetic, reflexive thoughts, & sharing) initiative. As a qualitative methodology text, Three Approaches to Qualitative Research through the ARtS explicates theoretical tenets and research strategies in art-based research. This book shows three examples of how to connect a theoretical framework with the analysis of ethnographic data. A nexus between theory and practice enables researchers and practitioners to understand the value of aesthetic-inspired programs to foster democratic citizenship and to advance equity issues. Social justice-oriented teacher educators, qualitative researchers, and artists will explore and learn how the ARtS initiative recognizes the power of art and multiple research methodologies in imagining and representing a community differently and advancing social justice in a challenging time.

Teaching Civic Engagement provides an exploration of key theoretical discussions, innovative ideas, and best practices in educating citizens in the 21st century. The book addresses theoretical debates over the place of civic engagement education in Political Science. It offers pedagogical examples in several sub-fields, including evidence of their effectiveness and models of appropriate assessment. Written by political scientists from a range of institutions and subfields, Teaching Civic Engagement makes the case that civic and political engagement should be a central part of our mission as a discipline.