The civic potential of pervasive computing remains a relatively unexplored agenda. In our vision of communities and cities enriched with pervasive computing, citizens can leverage and appropriate the new technology and interfaces for their own purposes, and at the same time be empowered to be heard through the use of such technology. Here we report on our progress in creating public human inter...

Local governments are creating 311 public service request lines across the US, and the publicly-available data from these lines is continuously-measured, geographically finegrained, and a non-self-reported measure of citizens’ behavior. As such, it seems a promising measure of neighborhood civic engagement. However, this data is both empirically and theoretically different from many common citi...

Collaborative approaches to community health improvement such as healthy cities and communities have the potential to strengthen community capacity through leadership development. The healthy cities and communities process orients existing local leadership to new community problem-solving strategies and draws out leadership abilities among residents not previously engaged in civic life. In an e...

Can democracy be taught? Are individuals more likely to embrace democratic values, to learn basic knowledge about political processes, and to engage the political process more effectively as a result of their exposure to donor-sponsored civic education programmes in emerging democracies? After more than a decade of evaluations of civic education programmes, it is a good time to take stock of wh...

Climate change and mitigation policies adopted by a locality indelibly impact urban form, landscape, and economy. The Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) has become a dominant movement organizing the localities to proactively address climate change. This study examines metropolitan area commitment to the CCP. Geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical techniques are used to analyze me...

Can democracy be taught? Are individuals more likely to embrace democratic values, to learn basic knowledge about political processes, and to engage the political process more effectively as a result of their exposure to donor-sponsored civic education programmes in emerging democracies? After more than a decade of evaluations of civic education programmes, it is a good time to take stock of wh...

Reviewing the literature on political participation and civic engagement, the article offers a critical examination of different conceptual frameworks. Drawing on previous definitions and operationalisations, a new typology for political participation and civic engagement is developed, highlighting the multidimensionality of both concepts. In particular, it makes a clear distinction between man...

A              in the social sciences is that civic traditions are more salient in Western Europe than in Central and Eastern Europe. Among the scholars who subscribe to this view, there are many who have located the origin of the difference in the pre-modern past. Typically they see the appearance of autonomous cities in many parts of Western Europe in the late Middle Ages as the ...

What are the sources of opinion leadership? Do opinion leaders seek informational media, and if so, how do they consume it? Are opinion leaders active in civic life, or is it that those who are active think of themselves as opinion leaders? Is opinion leadership a cause or a consequence of political efficacy? To answer these questions, we use data from two large national surveys: a cross-sectio...

This dissertation examines the issue of academic preparation of future professional instructional designers in the context of higher academic institutions. It is presented in nontraditional dissertation format as approved by the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Iowa State University. The dissertation is comprised of three publishable journal articles that would represent Chapters 2, 3 ...