Using Best Practices Research to Increase Student Engagement in Local Government
24 Pages Posted: 2 Feb 2010 Last revised: 4 Feb 2010
Date Written: February 1, 2010
Abstract
The impact of service-learning and community-based research projects on political engagement is mixed at best. Research suggests the most effective way to foster political engagement in service-learning is to explicitly focus these projects on politics, but this may be difficult to do without being partisan. One way to encourage political engagement and avoid bias is hands-on experience with local government. Local governments often have many problems, but few resources with which to solve those problems. In this paper, I will describe a community-based research project, focused on identifying best practices in other communities, examine the results and impact of this project and discuss how such a project might be implemented in other classes.
Keywords: community-based research, political engagement
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