ABSTRACT

Polarization in political culture and the decline of public education for civic engagement have become serious challenges to a healthy constitutional federal republic in the United States. Communication as a field of study in American universities is well-poised to address these challenges and contribute meaningfully to improving the civic capacity of individuals and communities. This paper provides an overview of one model of doing this work through university-level communication courses that bring university faculty, students, and community agencies together. This model advocates for cooperative initiatives based on the principles and practices of deliberative democracy and participatory action research leading to annual or semi-annual public for a where structured dialogue and deliberation address specific issues of local, national, and international salience. Such a model may result in stronger university-community relations, applied learning for communication students, meaningful classroom learning activities, authentic public discussion, and situated cognition debriefings. The model shared here is based on a pilot project conducted through the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Humboldt State University during the 2018/2019 Academic Year.

摘要

政治文化的两极分化和公民参与公共教育的衰落，已成为美国健康的立宪联邦共和国面临的严峻挑战。作为美国大学的一个研究领域，传播已经做好了应对这些挑战的准备，并对提高个人和社区的公民能力做出有意义的贡献。本文概述了通过将大学教师、学生和社区机构聚集在一起的大学级交流课程来完成这项工作的一种模式。该模式倡导基于协商民主和参与式行动研究的原则和实践的合作倡议，导致每年或半年的公众参与，以便结构化对话和协商解决地方、国家、和国际知名度。这种模式可能会导致更强的大学-社区关系、交流学生的应用学习、有意义的课堂学习活动、真实的公共讨论和情境认知汇报。此处分享的模型基于洪堡州立大学艺术、人文和社会科学学院在 2018/2019 学年开展的试点项目。