The New Civics ECSP Story So Far: Defining ‘New Civics’ and Contributing to the Field
by Helen Haste
Updated August 2017
The Spencer Foundation’s New Civics agenda has guided their support for our Early Career Scholars’ Program. We hope to contribute significantly to this agenda. It challenges the conventional emphasis on civic action as being primarily voting behaviour. It also disrupts the assumption that the formal school environment is the main source of civic education. New Civics work has massively expanded the definition of participation; indeed as one of our Scholars, Jake Fay, puts it: “If civics is no longer simply the political, to what else does it pertain? Is there no action that is not, somehow, civic?” It has widened questions about the origins of active participation (and of alienation): What information is important, beyond civic knowledge? What salient skill and efficacy-building experiences happen beyond the democratic classroom? Our Early Career Scholars’ work in internship teams and dissertation projects has contributed to these valuable developments, as our website demonstrates. Over 180 journal articles, book chapters and conference papers have been produced by our Scholars.... Read more about Our Story So Far