Formative Experience

In history, there have been many social changes that have occurred like the industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery and the Civil Right Movement. The less powerful not having enough voices to overcome the obstacles being erected by the powerful and many more examples. These voices play a major role when it comes to making big political and social changes. In “Return to Hayneville,” Gregory Orr recounts his experience and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. He argues that vocal campaigns and movements in public discourse and deep connections within people, help bring about change in today’s society. Whereas, In Vivian Yee, Alan Blinder and Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Parkland Students Start a Social Movement” they bring

The book Soul of a Citizen by Paul Loeb makes a compelling case for civic engagement. The book emphasizes the need for people to get involved in civic life and it gives examples of people who made a huge impact just by deciding to do. These people saw something that was not right and they went out of their way to help. However, it was not size but they made up their mind that this was what they were going to do and went about doing it. They did not know that by doing that they were going to make a huge impact but they ended up making a huge impact and creating change. Just as these people did, I believe that everyone can engage in civic change and make a different. In this paper, I am going to discuss ways an average citizen can engage in civic life, ways that social worker can encourage others to get involved in civic life and why is it important for social workers to serve in this role.

Even after the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, African Americans were “disenfranchised in the South by intimidation and electoral trickery, including whites-only primaries, rigged literacy tests, and poll taxes” (Patterson 2011, p. 180). The Freedom Riders rode through the South, enduring harassment and imprisonment to encourage other African Americans to vote. Voter turnout in African American communities is greatly encouraged. Personally, coming from an African American family, I was strongly encouraged by my parents and grandparents to vote when I was of legal age. My family instilled the importance of voting in me at a very young age. Although voter turnout among African Americans is still fairly low, in the 2008 presidential election African Americans had the second highest voter turnout, behind non-Hispanic Caucasians (African Americans, n.d.). Race can influence voter turnout because with African Americans specifically, although rates are getting better, they are still not high.

Political inactivity on the part of young Americans stems from one fundamental source -- a general cynicism of the American political process. This disdain for politics is further perpetuated by a lack of voter education and a needlessly archaic voting procedure that creates barriers to voting where they need not exist. While many of these existing problems can be rectified with relative ease through the implementation of programs such as Internet voting and better voter education, such programs create only a partial solution.

The message emerging from a recent research series on youth civic and political participation is clear: today's youth are not disjoined from associational and small political life, but they are increasingly disenchanted with formal political institutions and practices. Children and youth under 18 have made sententious strides in recent years toward fuller involvement in democratic processes. These strides,

DBQ - Democracy in Colonial America Essay Colonial America was a work in progress with democratic and undemocratic features. One democratic feature is accountability. Accountability means, elected and appointed officials are responsible for their electors. Document #3 The Fundamental Orders Of Connecticut.

Verba and his co-authors examine the import of participation, both voting and non-voting, in our American society. According to their argument, the typical citizen activist “tend[s] to be drawn disproportionately from more advantaged groups–to be well-educated and well-heeled and to be White and male” (Verba et al., 1995: 231). Indeed, Verba et al. explore participation along both gender and racial lines and concludes that both women and minorities are comparatively less active than men, especially white men, who stand peerless both in terms of affiliation with a political organization, contributing to a campaign, contacting their Representatives, and more direct forms of participation like voting.

Whether executively, legislatively, or judicially, the American government was created to help individuals express their ideals not in an illegal, distorting way but in a legal, strong resolution. From a town council to the presidency, running for office voices a person’s opinion in a strong, legal way. A person can work as a journalist or for a group that speaks out for liberating solutions. The vital part to the solution is that the person acts, not just talks.

In her article, “Higher Youth Voter Turnout Could Change Election Outcome: Pollster,” Joan Bryden argues that political leaders do very little to engage youth in upcoming elections. Currently, political leaders are focus mostly on older voters who do vote, rather than younger voters who are looking for more change. By only focusing on those who do vote, politicians fail to see how younger voters are more keen on change occurring in their society. As a result, younger voters do not understand what politicians stand for during the election. Political leaders could do more to encourage youth voters by “adopting a more helpful, can-do manner,” through face-to-face interaction and mobile technology, discussing topics of concern such as affordable housing and education, finally, communicating a clear picture of what their party stands for.

The newest generation, also known as the Millennials, has sparked one of the latest topics of debate and that is voting. Recent examples of young voters excelling political candidates have occurred with Bernie Sanders and even helped bring Barrack Obama into the presidency. These articles by The New York Times delve into the underlying cause of the low turnout rates. Most of these articles place the blame for low voter turnouts on colleges. Colleges are not to blame for these turnouts as they don’t discourage political thinking.

For the next three speeches, I am going to be educating, as well as encouraging you all to be more attentive, active, and vocal, when it comes to political and social issues. We’ve all been told that WE are the future, well there is some truth to that—Our generation is responsible for the future development of our country and that is something we need to take more seriously. I began looking into this topic before this class ever started; I looked up things so I, myself, knew what was going on. So, through more extensive research, I have gained a better understanding, and that is what I am sharing with

“Young people are interested in politics, and do have faith in the democratic process. Nonetheless, the political system and the established parties and politicians that dominate it, are together failing to

This desire has been a driving force beyond more than my time with the National Parks Service and academic career. My advocacy for my preferred candidate as a persuasion captain on caucus night comes from the same place as my case for American opportunity delivered at the birthplace of Herbert Hoover, a desire to passionately advocate for what I believe to be important. This has meant leading a band of out-of-state volunteers south to Keokuk on a January Saturday and dashing through apartment buildings an hour before polls close in a bid to overcome pervasive midterm election

Gerber and Green’s New Haven experiment in The Victory Lab reveals how the mobilization of voters in Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts were futile due to contemporary forms of “individual contact [lacking] a personal touch” (Issenberg 83). Gerber and Green designed a field experiment to measure “what effects … the most fundamental campaign methods could have on an election’s outcome” by using three basic modes of voter contact - direct mail, phone call, and doorstep visit (Issenberg 80). All of the basic modes incorporated a similar nonpartisan and patriotic appeal by referring to the ubiquitous notion of voting as a civic duty. These methods were tested on thirty thousand New Haven voters across the city’s 29 out of 30 wards in a municipal

Another formative experience I had was just this past summer. I traveled to Bonaire this summer on a coral restoration diving trip and when I was there I bonded with one of the counselors. His name was Luke and he graduated from Santa Clara University two years ago. When he was there, he majored in philosophy and he was one of the most down-to-earth people I had ever met in my life. Additionally, he was very intelligent and it baffled me why he was a counselor on a trip in Bonaire with a group of teenagers instead of trying to start a career. We talked a lot over the two weeks, but on the second-to-last night I asked him to share his story with me and he agreed. We sat down outside and began to discuss his life. I was very interested in hearing his life story because I was lost at the time. College was near and I had no idea what I wanted to study or if I was even ready for college. I am younger than everyone else in my grade and I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to study. I wanted to get right into it, so the first question I asked him was why he didn’t have a “real” job. He chuckled, as he understood what I was trying to convey. He explained that he doesn’t want a desk job from nine to five now or in the foreseeable future. All Luke wanted was to be happy and he said this was his only goal in life. He told me that his main job was a dogsled guide and I began to crack up. How could a person’s main job in life be a dogsled guide? This isn’t a question I just thought about,