ENC0017/ENC0027 ENC0015/ENC0025 REA0007/REA0027 -- Civic Engagement: Guide Main Page

Just when the world needs it most, a new style of social engagement  is emerging: Active Citizenship.   A key member of one of New York’s  most civic-minded families-one that has supported many of America’s  notable institutions and deserving programs-Jonathan Tisch has devoted a lifetime to “active citizenship.” It’s an idea that uses the power of practical creativity and grassroots participation to solve seemingly intractable problems. InCitizen You, Tisch challenges readers to join this movement and points the way toward making our world a better place, one person and one neighborhood at a time.       Tisch has filledCitizen Youwith accounts of people who you’ll meet, such inspirational individuals as: Scott Harrison, who has used the networking and marketing skills he developed as a night club promoter  to help over a million people in the developing world get access for the first time to clean, safe drinking water. Steffi Coplan, whose Broadway2Broadway project brought  out the hidden musical talents of kids at an inner city school. Eric Schwarz, who decided to do something about America’s under-performing schools, and parlayed a single classroom mentoring project into the nationwide Citizens Schools movement. Chris Swan, who is training a new generation of “citizen engineers” to make sure that the projects they build aren’t just structurally sound but also environmentally and socially sustainable. Dave Nelson, who traded his role as an executive at IBM for a job at a struggling nonprofit that teaches kids about the power of entrepreneurship-and discovered a host of new challenges and rewards in the process. Through these and many other remarkable stories, you’ll learn how today’s active citizens are  transforming thinking about social change. Rather than short-term fixes and hand-me-down charity, they’re striving to build sustainable, systemic solutions to our most challenging problems, building and empowering communities rather than fostering dependency.  And they’re using a host of new tools, from online networking and private-public partnerships to corporate engagement and social entrepreneurship, to redefine how change can happen.Citizen Youis a potent antidote to pessimism. At a time of unprecedented challenges on the national and world stage, when active citizenship is not a choice but a necessity,Citizen Youdares us to reshape the social, political, and intellectual structures that have long confined us, and offers fresh thinking that redefines the very concept of activism. For more information and ideas about how to be an active citizen go to www.citizenyou.org From the Hardcover edition.

How you see the world is about to change. All That We Share is a wake-up call that will inspire you to see the world in a new way. As soon as you realize that some things belong to everyone—water, for instance, or the Internet or human knowledge—you become a commoner, part of a movement that's reshaping how we will solve the problems facing us in the twenty-first century. Edited by award-winning journalist Jay Walljasper, All That We Share is an indispensable introduction to fresh ideas that touch all of us. Filled with practical solutions for today's economic, political, and cultural issues, it's a much-needed and thoroughly accessible field guide to the new world of the commons. Including success stories from communities across the country and around the world, this book is for anyone seeking new ways of thinking about our shared values. All that we share is all we need to change the world.

Surveys indicate that those under the age of 30 consistently score the lowest on factual questions about politics, and young people are the least likely to engage in political activity online despite being the age group most likely to use the Internet. Many political researchers and activists are justifiably concerned, linking the low level of political participation among American youth to the overall health of our democratic system. Youth and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook sheds light on this important subject, identifying and discussing factors that have influenced youth political participation in the past and those that play a role today, including the mass media, political parties, interest groups, and individual attitudes toward political engagement. The book also provides historical perspective by addressing the early years of the Republic, the protest politics of the 1960s, the campaign for the 18-year-old vote, and the results of the 26th Amendment granting that right.

Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose recent US wars and Wall Street bailouts, yet most remain passive and appear resigned to powerlessness. In Get Up, Stand Up, Bruce Levine offers an original and convincing explanation for this passivity. Many Americans are deeply demoralized by decades of oppressive elitism, and they have lost confidence that genuine democracy is possible. Drawing on phenomena such as learned helplessness, the abuse syndrome, and other psychological principles and techniques for pacifying a population, Levine explains how major US institutions have created fatalism. When such fatalism and defeatism set in, truths about social and economic injustices are not enough to set people free. However, the situation is not truly hopeless. History tells us that for democratic movements to get off the ground, individuals must recover self-respect, and a people must regain collective confidence that they can succeed at eliminating top-down controls. Get Up, Stand Up describes how we can recover dignity, confidence, and the energy to do battle. That achievement fills in the missing piece that, until now, has undermined so many efforts to energize genuine democracy. Get Up, Stand Up details those strategies and tactics that oppressed peoples have successfully employed to gain power. We the People can unite, gain strength, wisely do battle, and wrest power away from the ruling corporate-government partnership (the "corporatocracy"). Get Up, Stand Up explains how.