Tools for Living Democracy: Putting the CLDE Theory of Change into Practice

Introduction

A Crucible Moment, the influential report from the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (2012), served as both a clarion call and a marker of progress for higher education’s civic engagement movement. After decades of productive experimentation with strategies for fostering civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions in students and setting up mutual and reciprocal relationships between higher education institutions and community partners (Saltmarsh & Hartley, 2011, 2017), the report’s authors could credibly call to move civic learning and democratic engagement from the margins to the core of higher education’s concerns. The phrase “democratic engagement,” meaning nonpartisan engagement in the political process, reflected the report’s emphasis on engaging students in civic inquiry, deliberation, and collective action, not just episodic service or the performance of civic duties such as voting. The authors identified numerous promising examples of institutions demonstrating and cultivating civic-mindedness.