Civic Engagement Research Group at Mills College



The death of demcoracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference,
and undernourishment-- Robert Maynard Hutchins

  
  

STAFF
Joseph Kahne, Director

 

Joseph Kahne is currently the John and Martha Davidson Professor of Education at Mills College. His research focuses on ways school practices and new media may be influencing youth civic and political development. He also studies urban school reform.

       
Professor Kahne is currently chair of the MacArthur Research Network on Youth, and Participatory Politics. This network brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to examine ways youth participation in online networks is shaping and reshaping youth civic and political engagement in the public sphere. He is also finishing a California statewide study that examines how both new media practices and school-based curricular opportunities influence high school students’ democratic commitments, capacities, and activities. This work was funded by the MacArthur Foundation and by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Education. Together with Ellen Middaugh and Chris Evans at Mills and Amanda Lenhart, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, and Jessica Vitak at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Professor Kahne also recently completed a nationally representative survey of youth that examined the civic potential of video games. He also recently completed a longitudinal study with Sue Sporte of how opportunities in students’ schools, homes, and communities influenced the civic outcomes of 4,000 students in Chicago’s public schools. Professor Kahne's articles have received outstanding paper of the year awards from the American Educational Research Association, the American Political Science Association Division of Teaching and Learning, and several other organizations. Professor Kahne sits on the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, on the Advisory Board of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), and serves as an advisor to districts, foundations, and non-profits committed to civic education. Link to CV.

Chris Evans, Associate Research Specialist
Chris' background includes graduate work in Comparative Literature, languages, and music at Stanford, UC Davis, and the Schola Cantorum in France. Her professional experience includes translation, editing, and language software content development.

At CERG Chris has managed online data collection for the California Survey of Civic Education, administered surveys in California high schools, co-written and edited CERG articles and reports.

  

She is now implementing school-based qualitative and quantitative research for the Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network.

Link to CV.
Antero Garcia, Affiliate Researcher
Antero is an English teacher at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles. Utilizing his classroom as a hub of youth participatory action research, Antero and his students jointly create and assess the needs of their South Central community.
  

As a doctoral student in the Urban Schooling division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Antero’s research focuses on developing critical literacies and civic identity through the use of mobile media and game play in formal learning environments.

In 2008 Antero co-developed the Black Cloud Game. A Digital Media and Learning Competition award recipient, the Black Cloud provoked students to take real time assessment of air quality in their community. Using custom-developed sensors that measure and send data about air quality, students critically analyzed the role pollution played in their daily lives and presented recommendations to their community. Antero is a 2010-2011 U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellow, providing teacher input and feedback on national education policy initiatives. Antero’s numerous publications and conference presentations address technology, educational equity, and critical media literacy. Updates about Antero’s work can be found on his blog, The American Crawl.

 

                

Ellen Middaugh, Associate Director

  
Ellen Middaugh currently serves as Associate Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group. Her research focuses on the influence of variations in social context (online and off) on youth civic and political development.
She recently published, with Joe Kahne, an NSSE Yearbook chapter, Online Localities: : Implications for Democracy and Education, and Civic Development in Context in a volume of qualitative studies of civic education.
 
 

Dr. Middaugh contributes to the design, implementation, and dissemination of findings across CERG projects and specializes in quantitative data analysis across projects. She is currently developing a working group on the role of new media in youth service and activism.

Previously, Dr. Middaugh served as a quantitative research and evaluation specialist for the Center for Research, Evaluation and Assessment at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science and has worked on numerous research and evaluation projects related to civic education, service-learning, and law-related education. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education.

Link to CV.
 
Sandra Mistretti, Program Administrator
Sandra is the Program Administrator for the Youth & Participatory Politics Research Network. She joined the Civic Engagement Research Group in July 2010 to coordinate YPP Network meetings, and the network's accounting and financial reporting. In addition, she maintains the network's website.
Sandra’s professional background includes prior grant coordination at Mills College, event planning, and office management in an accounting offiice.
 
Ben Bowyer, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
Ben Bowyer is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Civic Engagement Research Group. As part of the Mapping Youth Participatory Politics project, he is analyzing survey data from a nationally representative sample of youth engagement with new media and participatory politics.
He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Berkeley.  His research focuses on the effects of social context on political attitudes and behavior, and he has published articles in the British Journal of Political Science, Electoral Studies, and West European Politics, Electoral
 

Studies, and West European Politics.  Prior to joining CERG, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of William and Mary and as Lecturer at Santa Clara University.

Link to CV.

      
   
 

Civic Engagement Research Group
School of Education - Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. MB-56, Oakland, CA 94613
Tel 510.430.3359, Email civicsurvey@mills.edu