JPoreu-Prlnananli nogf C Iinvitc eArcntioant:i Aonn Aanl aSlyosicsi oafl C Sivtiuc Ldeiaedse,r sV’ Porlo. b6le,m N Soo.l v2in, g2 S0tr1at6e,g i5es8 -83. Jason Fitzgerald Wagner College, New York City, New York __________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: This study explores the civic thinking heuristics that civic leaders use when pre- planning action. Across eight think-aloud protocols, findings suggest that three heuristics are employed. Frame alignment refers to the process of harmonizing personal beliefs and interests with the particulars of a civic action issue to find personal meaning in the work. Participants used (1) personal beliefs, (2) lived experiences, (3) their professional roles, and (4) their heritage to facilitate such framing. Referencing is the process of using past personal and historical civic action experiences as case studies for planning. Contextualization is the process of situating a civic issue within a community’s political and cultural climate. These three heuristics are sense-making activities that could be taught to and used by students to make sense of civic issues and possible actions available to them. Implications include the need for increased focus on the historical dimensions and personal relevance of civic action. Key words: civics, problem solving, civics heuristics, civic action __________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction The value of inquiry-based civics education has gained an increasing amount of recognition over the last decade, especially with the recent release of The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework in the U.S. (Croddy & Levine, 2014). This increased recognition largely began with Wineburg’s (1991) descriptive heuristics of the cognitive processes historians use when engaging historical questions. This heuristics research spurred successful inquiry-based curricular work in history education (e.g., VanSledright, 2002; Seixas, 1996; Levesque, 2008) that serves as a foundation for the C3 Framework today. As they have done with such work on historical inquiry, teachers have increasingly involved students in authentic problem solving when teaching civics, enabling authentic political and social change in schools and communities across the country (e.g., Levine, 2007; The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, 2011; Campbell, Levinson, & Hess, 2012). Yet while this increased attention on civics education has highlighted a number of promising instructional practices (i.e., Deacon Crick et al., 2004), social studies teachers do not have the same kind of expert-based heuristics from which to organize their civics instruction as they do when they teach history. Little is known about the problem solving strategies that civic leaders employ when preparing for, engaging in, or reflecting on civic action. Such information would enable teachers to engage students in the cognitive apprenticeship of civic thinking. This study explores those problem solving strategies as they are used in one aspect of the large and complex process of civic action – pre- planning, through which civic leaders individually consider the possibility of taking action on an issue and explore their potential next steps toward such action. Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 58 Pa ge | JLioteurartnurae lR oevfi eIwn ternational Social Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2016, 58-83. For the past two decades, research (i.e., Pagnotti & Russell, 2015) has suggested that civics education in the United States inadequately meets the needs of sustainable democracy; the aspects of democratic life that Tocqueville (1835) praised in the 19th century are observed less frequently across the country today. Despite teachers’ increased efforts to develop students’ civic capacities, indicators of civic knowledge have remained stagnant; students’ civic knowledge scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress continue to hover around 30 percent (NAEP, 2015). Furthermore, youth are continuing a negative trend set by their parents and grandparents, continuing to disengage from associational living (Putnam, 2000), thus limiting the social capital they are able to develop within their communities for the purposes of making political and social change (Kahne, Chi, & Middaugh, 2006; Zukin et al., 2006). Students’ limited knowledge of the political system coupled with low capacities for building social capital raise concerns about the future health of our democracy (Pagnotti & Russell 2015). While these data represent trends across all youth demographics, minority students tend to have even fewer opportunities for civic engagement than their white, middle class colleagues (Pope, Stolte, & Cohen, 2011; Fitzgerald & Andes, 2012; Marri, 2011). This disparity is known as the “civic engagement gap” (Levinson, 2012b). Thus, not only do students across the country have limited civic knowledge and skills but these limitations impact the largest growing demographic groups in the United States (Apple, forth-coming). Instructional approaches other than those found in traditional Civics courses are needed in order to stem the civic disengagement tide that threatens to disenfranchise youth from political and civic systems (Pagnotti & Russell, 2015) and minority youth from their more civically prepared peers (Levinson, 2012a). Problem-based Learning In response to these conditions, educators have turned to problem-based learning (PBL) as a way to engage students in “doing” civics. John Dewey (1916) argued that real-world problem solving is “the best way to engage [students’]… intense, sustained interest and develop their capacities for reflective critical inquiry and collaborative practical action” (Benson, Harkavy, & Puckett, 2007, p. 29). Thus, problem-based learning in civics education guides students through a “process of working toward the understanding or resolution of a problem” (Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980, p. 1). Through the PBL process, students are encouraged to develop their civic knowledge and skills while engaging authentic civic problems. The authenticity of the problems and the autonomy students have in engaging those problems fosters students’ motivation towards civics and builds their civic capacities in ways that traditional, lecture-driven Civics course may not. The literature on the use of problem-based civic learning practices suggests that teachers take one of two approaches to fostering such engagement: (1) in-class PBL (Gorski, 2009) and (2) action civics (Maker et al., 2015). In-class PBL often takes the form of simulations (e.g., Moore, Beshke, & Haeussler, 2014) or deliberations (e.g., Avery, Levy, & Simmons, 2013). Both strategies engage students in authentic problem solving as a class, developing their civic knowledge as well as their collaboration and critical thinking skills (Kahne, Chi, & Middaugh, 2006). Such in-class work enables teachers to explore topics and issues that may not directly impact students’ local community or that may be too difficult to engage in real-time, laying a foundation of interactions that can be transferred to various civic problems that students may encounter in their own lives. Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 59 Pa ge | JMoourer rneaceln otlyf, Iancttioenr cnivaictsi oprnogaral mSso hcaivael b Seetnu ddeiveeslo,p Vedo tlo. 6pr,o Nvidoe. a2 m, o2r0e 1co6m,m 5u8ni-ty8-b3a.s ed approach to PBL. Action civics programs enable students to take collective civic action to address issues within a context that promotes reflection and skills development (Bass, 2012; Pope, Stolte, & Cohen, 2011). While action civics programs differ with regards to how closely such learning is tied to a district’s curriculum, who guides students through the action civics projects, and the type of civic engagement opportunities available to students (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004), action civics programs generally employ a six-step process for engaging students in civic problems: (1) community analysis, (2) issue selection, (3) issue research, (4) planning for action, (5) taking action, and (6) reflection. Through these instrumental steps, students are able to practice engaging civic issues important to them in the context of their community while developing their civic capacities (Campbell, Levinson, & Hess, 2012). Teachers using either PBL approach to civics instruction construct a condition by which students can develop civic agency (Garcia et al., 2015). When students are active participants in the process of reading and responding to civically related texts and situations, their perceptions of their own civic agency increase. Not only is such a perception of agency critical for students’ sustained civic engagement (The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, 2011) but it has also been shown to reduce the civic engagement gap (Beaumont, 2011), making the PBL approach an important tool for increasing students’ current and future civic action efficacy. Cognitive Apprenticeship In order effectively to guide students’ engagement in authentic civic problems, teachers need to have a foundation in civic ways of knowing. Since the “cognitive revolution,” in which behaviorism was largely supplanted by psychological theories based on describing complex mental processes, educational researchers (e.g., Pressley, 1979; Gagne, 1985) have worked to establish meta-cognitive distinctions between disciplines, leading to the analyses of disciplinary ways of knowing, thinking, and doing (Carter, 2007). These distinctions have given rise to the practice of cognitive apprenticeship, both “an instrumental model that teachers use to organize the learning environment and an approach to learning that helps students see the processes involved in complex learning activities” (Monte- Sano, De La Paz, & Felton, 2014, p. 15). Central to this approach of modeling disciplinary practices is a teacher’s understanding of how “experts” problem solve. Without a clear sense of the ways in which experts approach disciplinary problems, the apprenticeship may be flawed or incomplete. Studies of expert’s problem solving strategies began with well-structured problems in mathematics and the sciences (e.g., Schoenfeld, 2013; Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981). More recently, studies have begun exploring how experts approach ill-structured problems, those that involve the integration of multiple disciplines, and/or incomplete or inaccurate information, or necessitate the synthesis of ideas across time and space (Voss & Post, 1988). Think aloud protocols have been used to explore how physicians (Schoenfeld, 2010) and historians (Wineburg, 2001), for example, engage such problems, developing heuristics by which future physicians and historians, respectively, can learn to think in expert ways. To date, little research suggests how “experts” think civically, possibly because civics is a broad field as opposed to a discipline and civic expertise is difficult to assess. Nevertheless, such Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 60 Pa ge | Jinofourmrnataioln oabf oIunt theowrn ciavitci loeandaerls 1S tohicnika wl oSutldu adssiiests t,e aVchoelr.s 6in, gNuiodi.n g2 t,h 2ei0r s1tu6d,e n5t8s i-n8 “3do. ing civics.” Both in-class PBL and action civics enable teachers to guide students through “ways of doing” civics, which benefits from an understanding of “ways of thinking civically”; thinking well helps people do well (Moustakas, 1990). Engaging in civic activities (e.g., deliberation) and action requires a specific type of problem solving “that focuses on gathering information from sources, a way of doing similar to [historical research] but performed in the context of solving practical problems in the field” (Carter, 2007, p. 405). “Doing civics” requires individuals to research issues while simultaneously engaging in cooperative thinking and action (Saltmarsh, 2008). Civic thinking, then, requires a different type of thinking than it might take to engage in historical thinking, where individuals engage information from across time and space (Wineburg, 2001) but do not necessarily have to manage competing perspectives and agendas in real-time. This distinction between history and civics is important, especially if teachers are to teach content areas in constructivist, PBL ways, as some social studies teachers do. Just as Wineburg’s (1991) heuristics enabled teachers to apprentice students in historical thinking, so too could heuristics specific to civics education foster better apprenticeship of civic action. To be sure, since both civics and history rely heavily on gathering information from sources, there may be some overlap in the heuristics used in both academic spheres; given the differences between the two types of research, however, the same heuristics might not always be useful. While teachers work to develop students’ civic capacities through problem-based learning strategies, little is known about how civic leaders problem solve. In order to apprentice students in civic thinking, the expertise of civic leaders needs to be drawn out, illuminating strategies that they use when engaging civic issues. It is particularly important to understand how civic leaders initially approach novel civic issues because, as other work in problem solving has noted (i.e., Schoenfeld, 2010), those initial approaches often guide an individual’s course of action. This study explored the problem solving strategies that civic leaders use when initially considering a civic issue, identifying key strategies that they use to frame future action. Methods Participants From an initial pool of twenty-five potential participants, four civic leaders (three men and one woman) from a New York City neighborhood agreed to participate in this study. Local college administrators, faculty, and students who partner with the community on civic projects had initially recommended all twenty-five participants for their commitments to community unity and civic expertise. Those recommended participants were each screened to determine the extent of both their 1 Previous studies of experts’ thinking have been able to rely on graduate degree attainment to define “expert;” in these studies, terminal degrees denote expertise. In civics, however, no such credentialing exists. Thus, I use the term “civic leaders” as a synonymous term to “expert.” The criteria used for defining “civic leader” is explained in the Methods section. Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 61 Pa ge | Jpooluitircanl aanld o cifv iIcn actteivrisnma; etniogangeaml eSnot icni baolt hS ptoulidticiael san, dV coivilc. a6ct,i vNitioes. d2e,m 2on0s1tra6te, s5 a8n -a8bi3lity. to approach civic issues with varied tactics and has been used by previous researchers to discriminate between types of activists (e.g., Zukin et al., 2006). After screening, five participants were selected; four agreed to participate. See Appendix A for participant details. In addition to their political and civic engagement, these individuals were selected from the larger pool because of (1) their longevity within the community and (2) the number of times they were recommended by members of the college-affiliated selection group. Not only did each of these participants garner at least seventy-five percent of the selection committee members’ recommendations for this study but, together, they also represent nearly a century of commitment to the community. Ranging from ten to thirty-two years of service, these individuals have strong connections and commitment to the community; they have honed their skills as civic leaders in a large, diverse metropolitan area. Materials Study materials included a semi-structured interview protocol that gathered background data on all participants (Appendix B), as well as two civic issues scenarios that were not current issues within the participants’ local community (Appendices C and D). These scenarios were intended to elicit the participants’ thinking as they engaged in pre-planning. Each participant reviewed the same two hypothetical scenarios in addition to associated online newspaper articles meant to provide context for the participants regarding the civic issue discussed within each scenario. The first scenario (Appendix C) asked participants to imagine that a hydraulic fracturing company was interested in creating jobs in town by extracting gas using the controversial fracturing technique. To help participants unfamiliar with the various arguments around this issue, three print copies of online articles were offered to the participants so that they could contextualize the debate. The first article provided a brief overview of the issue, the second was in favor of hydraulic fracturing, and the third presented arguments against the practice. The same procedure was used for the second scenario regarding a history curriculum revision (Appendix D). Again, printed copies of three online articles were given to participants. The first article outlined the debate, the second article supported the revisions, and the third article claimed that the revisions were not in keeping with current historical scholarship. These scenarios were selected for two reasons. First, both issues relate to recurring arguments in the United States. While hydraulic fracturing is a new process, arguments regarding industry’s ability to create jobs and the government’s role in protecting public health have a long history. Similarly, questions about the role of patriotism in national historical narratives are ones that countries around the world grapple with, including the United States. These scenarios were also selected because they related to participants’ areas of expertise. Since two of the participants were in the field of education and two were in the field of healthcare, the study design enabled an exploration of any differences between the ways in which participants would engage the scenario in their field and the one outside their field. In this way, the study was able to discriminate between subject-specific civic problem solving strategies (those strategies participants used only while pre-planning civic action within their field of expertise) and more generalized civic problem solving strategies (those that were common across all participants and scenarios), identifying Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 62 Pa ge | Jwohuichr nheaulr isotifc sI nmtigehrt nbea ctoimomnoanl aSmoocnigastl aSll tcuivdic ileeasd,e Vrs,o nlo. t6 ju, sNt toho. s2e ,w 2it0h 1pa6rt,i c5ul8ar- c8o3nt.e nt expertise. Procedure Each participant individually engaged in two activities outlined below during privately audio-recorded meetings with the principal investigator. Semi-structured interview. Participants were asked to explain their work and the ways in which they were active in their community, providing background data on their professional and personal lives. These data were used to contextualize their responses to the think aloud exercises. It also had the added benefit of providing a space for participants to speak freely and comfortably before being asked to process the two scenarios. Scenario think alouds. After the semi-structured interview, participants were told that they would think aloud about two scenarios related to civic issues. They then practiced thinking aloud by engaging in a three-digit multiplication exercise, per Anders Ericsson and Herbert Simon’s (1993) work. Then, each participant was given the hydraulic fracturing scenario and associated articles. The interviewer read the scenario aloud and asked the participant if he/she had any questions. Each participant was then asked what position he/she would take on this issue and to think aloud about how he/she would plan to take action on the issue. After thinking aloud about the hydraulic fracturing scenario, an identical think aloud protocol was used for the history curriculum revision scenario and associated readings. Data Analysis After each interview, audio-recordings were transcribed and texts were parsed by proposition (Kintsch, 1998). Protocol analysis then followed a strategy similar to that described by Wineburg (1991), where macroscopic coding was conducted to identify heuristics that were promising for the purposes of problem-based civic learning instruction. Prior to protocol analysis, two randomly selected think alouds were inductively analyzed, enabling the identification of possible categories of heuristics. Then, these categories were then tested against the remaining un-coded protocols. These categories were then refined, added, and deleted; only those that were present in all eight protocols were kept. In this way, heuristics that were both (1) important to the civic leaders, per discussions of content and skills while thinking aloud and (2) learnable by students who could apply such strategies to their own civic problem solving (Bereiter & Bird, 1985) were identified. Three heuristics were identified through this process: (1) frame alignment, (2) referencing, and (3) contextualization. Findings Three heuristics were identified from analysis of the eight think aloud protocols: (1) frame alignment, the process of harmonizing personal beliefs and interests with the particulars of a civic action issue, finding personal meaning in the work, (2) referencing, the process of using past personal and historical civic action experiences as case studies for planning, and (3) contextualization, the process of situating a civic issue within a community’s political and cultural climate. To be sure, these heuristics are sense- making activities that civic leaders employ when planning civic action and could be taught to and used Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 63 Pa ge | Jboy suturdneantls otof m Ianktee sernnsea otfi oa cnivaicl i sSsuoec ainadl t hSet luanddisecasp,e V ofo alc.t i6on, sN avoa.il a2b,le 2 to0 t1he6m, . 5Th8e-y8 do3 n. ot, by themselves, help to develop successful civic action plans. Heuristic 1: Frame Alignment Research suggests that civically inclined individuals align their personal beliefs, values, and orientations with those of any social movement organization they want to join. This process is called frame alignment (Snow et al., 1986). Although this term was not explored in the above literature review, it names a process that emerged organically from the data analysis. Here, frame alignment describes a process by which participants harmonized their personal beliefs and interests with the particulars of a civic action issue, finding personal meaning in the work. While David Snow and his colleagues (1986) use the process of frame alignment to explain the harmonization of individuals’ orientations to the orientations of organizations, this study’s findings extend that process, describing the ways in which civic leaders attempt to harmonize their own beliefs, values, and orientations to the topics/ideas represented in the hypothetical scenarios. To be sure, the civic leaders in this study did not necessarily find the study’s hypothetical examples relevant to their immediate work; this relevance (or lack there of) was by design, as explained above. However, regardless of whether or not the scenarios were of civic interest to the participants, each participant averaged 3.75 instances of frame alignment across both protocols. Eight instances of frame alignment were used when considering the hydraulic fracturing scenario and seven instances were used when considering the history curriculum scenario. All four participants created framings of the issue during their history curriculum scenario planning; two participants also personally framed the hydraulic fracturing scenario issue. Participants’ framings included references to their heritage (e.g., “I mean because I am of Spanish heritage…” (P4, T2, Line 8), their professional roles (e.g., I mean for as the Principal of….” (P3, T2, Line 23), their lived experiences (e.g., “We, [my wife and I], happen to live a couple of houses off the Staten Island Expressway and to see all those trees torn down was terrible” (P2, T1, Lines 34-35), and personal beliefs (e.g., “I mean, my own opinion is that history is what happened in the past” (P1, T2 Line 12). These subcategories of frame alignment illustrate an array of ways that participants considered these scenario issues important in and connected to their own lives, framing their planning. Personal beliefs. Of the two scenarios, the history curriculum scenario elicited the most participant belief statements (3 of 4 instances). Two of those three instances came from P1’s and P2’s think aloud protocols; P1 and P2 were both professionally focused on healthcare. These two participants’ protocols began by thinking aloud about the question, “What is history?” To this question, they both came to similar conclusions, that history was “the truth” and “what happened” (see Appendix E, Table 1 for protocol samples; bold text was added for emphasis). In these instances, both participants framed the scenario via their belief that history represents the truth. Issues that involve others deviating from a truthful, objective, factual history, then, must be addressed in order to teach students “what happened.” Similarly P4 provides a belief statement in relation to the hydraulic fracturing scenario. Like P1 and P2 above, the hydraulic fracturing scenario was outside of P4’s professional expertise, education. To frame the issue, P4 situated hydraulic fracturing in relation to his personal beliefs about environmentalism, Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 64 Pa ge | JournIa’ml voefr yI, nliktee prenrsaontaiollyn, Ia’ml vSeoryc einavlir oSntmuedntiaellsy ,c oVnosclie. n6c,e Npeors.o 2n a, n2d0 I’m1 6ju,s t5 in8 a-w8e3 o.f all of the pollution we have around us and especially in poor communities. And we’re, for whatever reason, people don’t stand up and fight off whatever issues are happening in terms of our environment. (T1, Lines 13-20) Here, P4 explicitly demonstrated the link he intends to make between his personal belief that environmental issues are important, especially those focused on pollution, and his belief that people should take action to prevent pollution in their communities. Thus, like P1 and P2 above, P4’s belief statement demonstrates a frame alignment that encourages his own action. In additional, P4’s comments suggest that such beliefs should spur others with similar beliefs to act as well. Lived experiences. Another way that participants framed these scenarios was through their own lived experiences. P2 engaged in lived experience framing while responding to the hydraulic fracturing scenario and P4 did the same while thinking aloud about the history curriculum scenario. In both cases, participants framed the issues by connecting the given issue to something in their lives that they do not want to happen again. For example, P2, when talking about why it would be important for him to publicly address hydraulic fracturing, referenced the civic inaction that led to the expansion of a local highway, “We happen to live a couple of houses off the [highway] and to see all those trees torn down was terrible. My wife aches with that” (P2, T1, Lines 34-36). Similarly, P4 referenced an experience that happened in his home country of Chile, while talking about the potential impact of inaction on the history curriculum scenario: “I have my own experience against in Chile and how the CIA and the American Government were helping the government then, helping to destabilize the country and you know…” (P4, T2, Lines 45-48), suggesting that the ways we talk about (or do not talk) about various groups impacts our ability to have a stable democracy. In both cases, the lived experiences of the participants served as a frame for the topics represented in the hypothetical scenarios. While others also experienced the events they referenced, the importance the participants ascribed to civic inaction in both cases provided a personal call to action, framing the issues within their own perceptions of their personal experiences. Professional role. For P3, his professional role as a public school principal shaped his framing of the history curriculum issue. P3 was able to draw upon his specific role in a given, contemporary context to focus on the impact that it would have on his students; “Well, I mean for as the Principal of [a school], I’ve gotta deal with [this]… because that’s going to impact the, my Muslim kids here. That’s going to have a horrible impact on their self-esteem, their understanding of history” (P3, T2, Lines 82- 86). Here, P3 drew a causal connection between his role and the scenario’s impact; because he is a principal, he will address the situation to fulfill his professional duty. His framing of this issue, then, comes in part from P3’s perception of what his professional duties are. Professional roles also played a part in the framings that the healthcare participants created when engaging the hydraulic fracturing scenario. Both P1 and P2 framed the hydraulic fracturing issue in terms of the potential impact of “fracking” on the overall health of the community. P1 found this to be an important issue because of (1) the potential for hydraulic fracturing to cause earthquakes [“I heard… NPR did a whole story about this talking about people in Pennsylvania having earthquakes over this sh*t! Haven’t they learned anything from this?”(T1, 109-113)] and (2) the government’s lack of response to cleaning up industrial disasters [“There was the whole paint factory here that leaked lead into the soil. We have kids playing in parks where there is lead” (T1, 125-129)]. Through this Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 65 Pa ge | Jfroamuirnng, aPl1 owfa sI nabtlee rton faratmioe nthae li sSsuoec viiaa lh ySdtrauudlici efrsac,t Vuroingl.’ s6 p,o Ntenoti.a 2lly, h2ar0m1fu6l ,im 5p8ac-t8 o3n .t he community, especially disadvantaged communities. Although P2 stated that he might support hydraulic fracturing in the community, he found importance in this issue related to the drinking water, not potential environmental health disasters: “I know how dependent New York is on uh, on water supply coming from the Catskills and the reservoirs up there and um how New York water is considered like great drinking water. And I’m happy with that and we’re water drinkers at home” (T1, Lines 14-17). To P2, this issue is important to the community because New Yorkers enjoy the quality of their water. Any impact on the water, he later suggested, would harm the health of the community and would be something that the government should regulate against. The education participants also framed in a less direct way the hydraulic fracturing issue as related to their professional roles. While P3 and P4 also echoed the importance of environmental health, they focused much of their community framing on the fiscal impact of such a proposal on the community. For example, P3 talked about concerns that such industry and any potential environmental impact would “impact the house prices in the area” (T1, Line 56). On a similar note, P4 talked about the importance of jobs in the community, balanced with the need to protect the environment: “Unfortunately a lot of times we’re faced with this dilemma of supporting economic growth or jobs but at the expense of the other part, the pollution and all of that” (T1, Lines 43-44). In both cases, these participants focused on financial concerns that environmental damage creates, impacting their own abilities to continue their education work. With regards to the importance of both environmental health and fiscal concerns, all four participants framed the issue in ways that directly relate to their own civic work. P1 and P2 both work in the healthcare sector; contaminated soil and poor drinking water would certainly hurt the health of the people they are trying to help. Similarly, P3 and P4 both work in education; the income of a community impacts the amount of tax-supported revenue that they can use to support their programs. Thus, although the participants certainly made meaning of these issues in relation to the health and welfare of the community, they also positioned their stances on these issues in terms of their professional role within the community. Heritage. Only one participant, P4, used heritage to frame a scenario. Regarding the history curriculum scenario, P4 stated, I mean because I am of Spanish heritage but I think that any type of ethnic studies and already American History is so has overlooked so much any type of a contribution made by any type of immigrants that have come… but you know, again in Texas and other states, even here in Staten Island you know, we are sometimes… A lot of decisions are made by a certain group of people that will affect a large group of people and not everybody’s perspective are being taken into consideration. (T2, Lines 3-11 & 93-96) Here, heritage is used as a merging point between personal belief and lived experiences. It is because of his heritage that P4 believes that diverse ideas should be included in history curricula. However, it is also because of his observations of the privileged perspectives some history curricula promote that he has such beliefs. To be sure, this statement suggests that his heritage (“…because I am of Spanish heritage”) provides a lens for both belief and for lived experience perceptions (Johnson 2005), enabling him to make personal significance of this issue. Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 66 Pa ge | JSoumumranray.l T ohef aIbnotvee erxnamatpileosn suaglg eSsot tchiaat cli vSict lueaddieerss u, sVe foralm. 6e a, lNignom. e2nt, t2o 0po1si6tio, n5 t8he-m8s3el.v es in relation to the issue. This is especially true for issues that are less easily addressed through political practices (e.g., petitioning, testifying, etc.). For example, P4 said of the history curriculum scenario: Um, it’s a tough one, tougher than the other one [the hydraulic fracturing scenario] really, because I think it… there are so many you’re dealing with religion, you’re dealing with church and state, it’s not as cut and dry. You’re dealing with kids that are going to be influenced by this curriculum and the role of education to convey this (T2, Lines 33-40). Despite differences in the hypothetical scenarios, framings were found throughout the protocols. Through this process of frame alignment, participants were able to use personal beliefs, experiences, professional roles, and heritage to connect with the hypothetical civic issues. Heuristic 2: Referencing In addition to frame alignment, participants also employed the strategy of referencing, the process of using past civic actions as case studies for planning. The past civic actions that they drew upon focused both on those actions that each participant had been involved in and civic actions that others had taken throughout the history of similar issues. There were almost no differences in the ways that participants engaged in the process of referencing in either scenario, either across different domains (i.e., healthcare or education) or in reference to who conducted the action being referenced (i.e., if the participant personally engaged in the civic action being referenced or someone else did). As Table 1 illustrates, participants referenced past civic actions in almost equal amounts. Table 1: Instances of Referencing Within Domains Across Scenarios Participants in Healthcare Participants in Education Hydraulic Fracturing Total = 3 Total = 3 Scenario Participant Other(s) Participant Other(s) Involved Involved Involved Involved 2 1 1 2 History Curriculum Total = 3 Total = 4 Scenario Participant Other(s) Participant Other(s) Involved Involved Involved Involved 3 0 2 2 The number of instances of referencing between healthcare and education specialists appears to be similar; there is almost an equal number of participant references involving civic actions that they previously undertook as there are references to past civic actions that other undertook. Of the thirteen instances, eleven (85%) were about local civic actions. For example, P1 referenced her public testimony about the (in)famous Rainbow Curriculum when thinking aloud about the history curriculum scenario, and P3 referenced the political pressure on New York City officials when violence Corresponding author email: [email protected] ©2012/2018 International Assembly Journal of International Social Studies Website: http://www.iajiss.org ISSN: 2327-3585 67 Pa ge |