Teaching civic and political engagement: fostering collegiate civic education through activism

Given the growing concern for civic and political apathy among America’s youth, this paper explores the potential of using civic and political engagement as a means to foster civics education in the higher education classroom. The School of Communication at Illinois State University has integrated civic and political engagement into a number of its key courses, including the Communication and Contemporary Issues course where topics such as immigration, rising tuition costs, recycling, community violence, democracy building, poverty and others are developed into activist campaigns by students. These courses provide a milieu of experiences for students to encounter civic education by actively engaging their communities regarding issues of social controversy. The use of anecdotal data will help frame the argument that such courses can, in fact, contribute to a meaningful civics education experience.