Civic Engagement Meets Service Learning: Improving Wikipedia’s Coverage of State Government Officials

Civic Engagement Meets Service Learning: Improving Wikipedia’s Coverage of State Government Officials

By Elizabeth Norell, Chattanooga State Community College

Political scientists broadly agree that various forms of civic engagement are necessary to a flourishing democracy. However, the extent to which we embed civic engagement in our undergraduate courses is mixed. Yet, how much average Americans understand about the functioning of their government (Annenberg Public Policy Center 2017) as well as trust in government has been declining consistently since the 1970s and 1980s (Hetherington 2005; Hetherington and Husser 2012). To what extent does our teaching bear responsibility for addressing this?