Reclaiming Civic Agency: Reflection on Technology, Power, and Participation
From Student Apathy to Civic Agency
When I first started thinking about my final project, I framed the problem around student apathy and civic engagement. Teaching middle and high school social studies, I often noticed that students could explain civic concepts, identify government structures, and complete assignments successfully, yet many struggled to see themselves as active participants in democratic systems. Government and civic life frequently appeared to students as something controlled by adults, institutions, and people in positions of power rather than something in which they could meaningfully participate. Initially, I interpreted some of this as disengagement or apathy.
This course complicated that assumption and pushed me to reconsider the issue through a broader sociological lens. Rather than asking why students seemed apathetic, I found myself asking different questions: What social conditions shape students’ relationships to civic participation? How do schools, media, technology, and systems of power influence whether students see themselves as capable civic actors? How do larger structures shape what feels possible? As someone with a sociology background and a genuine passion for it, I naturally interpret classroom experiences through questions of identity, power, and social norms. Throughout this course, I found myself repeatedly returning to the idea of the sociological imagination: connecting individual experiences to larger social structures. Many of our course themes encouraged this way of thinking, especially conversations surrounding educational reform, critical pedagogy, digital participation, and media literacy.
When My Questions Changed, So Did My Teaching
Reading Lisa Espinosa's Seventh Graders and Sexism reinforced this perspective. Espinosa (2016) explained that students often recognize sexism as a large societal issue while simultaneously struggling to recognize how it appears in everyday interactions and school culture. Students understood the larger concept but had difficulty connecting it to lived experiences. I immediately recognized parallels with civic education. Students often understand democracy as an abstract concept but struggle to recognize how systems of power shape their own realities through school policies, community resources, and social relationships.
As I reconsidered the problem, I was reminded of Sir Ken Robinson's argument that education is less about fixing students than about creating the conditions in which they can thrive. Robinson (2013) argues that learning is an organic process that flourishes when educators cultivate curiosity, relationships, and opportunity rather than treating education as a standardized system. His critique reinforced my growing realization that what I had initially interpreted as student apathy might instead reflect the environments and structures in which students are asked to learn.
Finding Their Voice
All of these ideas became foundational to my project, Reclaiming Civic Agency. Rather than designing a traditional civics unit centered on memorizing institutions or completing isolated assignments, I created a learning experience that invites students to examine who they are as civic actors and how systems of power shape their everyday lives. The project asks students to move beyond learning about democracy and instead begin practicing it through inquiry, dialogue, and reflection.
To support this work, students engage in two complementary digital spaces: Blogger and Padlet. Blogger serves as a platform for sustained reflection and personal authorship, where students publish civic identity narratives, investigate issues affecting their communities, and create multimedia posts that connect course concepts to their lived experiences. Writing is intended to be exploratory rather than performative; students are encouraged to ask questions, wrestle with complexity, and support their ideas with evidence from class, outside sources, and personal experience.
Padlet complements this work by creating a more collaborative and conversational environment. Students use it for quick writes, brainstorming, current-event discussions, and peer dialogue. Rather than simply responding to prompts, students are expected to engage thoughtfully with one another's ideas by asking questions, making connections, respectfully challenging perspectives, and extending conversations. This structure creates multiple entry points for participation, making civic dialogue more accessible while reducing the dominance of only the most outspoken voices. Throughout the project, students explore guiding questions such as: What communities have shaped my identity? What issues matter most to me, and why? Where do I see power operating in my daily life? How can
individuals and communities create meaningful change?
Student work is evaluated not by whether they arrive at the "right" answer, but by the quality of their civic thinking. Strong contributions demonstrate thoughtful reflection, meaningful connections between course concepts and lived experiences, the use of evidence to support ideas, respectful engagement with classmates, and a willingness to revise or deepen one's thinking over time. In this way, the digital spaces become communities of inquiry rather than repositories for completed assignments.
Mike Wesch's Learning from Baby George fundamentally influenced this design. Wesch (2008) argues that meaningful learning emerges through curiosity, exploration, and authentic meaning-making rather than passive information transfer. Inspired by this perspective, Blogger and Padlet are not used to digitize traditional instruction. Instead, they are intentionally designed to cultivate dialogue, critical reflection, collaboration, and civic identity, positioning students as active creators of knowledge rather than passive consumers of information.
Rethinking Technology, Rethinking Learning
Throughout this course, I also began noticing shifts in my own technological identity. Using Scott Noon’s framework, I think I entered the course leaning more toward techno-traditionalist. I viewed technology primarily as a support tool that could make existing classroom practices more efficient, organized, or engaging without fundamentally changing the learning experience itself. Technology felt supplemental rather than transformative. Part of this perspective likely emerged from the realities of my first year of teaching. My personal relationship with AI has been deeply rooted in tension, guilt, and the structural realities of teaching. My instinctive reaction toward AI has often been discomfort because I value learning as a deeply human process grounded in discussion, reflection, struggle, and relationship building. Yet, during my first year of teaching, technology became less of a choice and more of a tool for survival.
I entered teaching with no prior experience, no curriculum, multiple teaching responsibilities, intervention demands, and significant student support needs while simultaneously completing graduate coursework and teacher certification requirements. Under these conditions, AI and other tech helped me generate differentiated materials, think through accommodations, and organize instructional resources in ways that made overwhelming demands more manageable. Reflecting on this experience through a sociological lens caused me to think differently about the guilt I felt surrounding AI use. Rather than recognizing the structural conditions creating unsustainable expectations, I internalized responsibility and viewed relying on technology as a personal deficiency. Educational culture often normalizes overwork to the point where exhaustion becomes interpreted as commitment.
This course gradually shifted my technological identity toward a techno-constructivist perspective. Rather than viewing technology primarily as a tool that supports existing practices, I increasingly began thinking critically about how technology can reshape learning contexts and alter who participates, whose voices are heard, and how knowledge is constructed.
Reading Jennifer Spiegel’s critique of Marc Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants significantly influenced this shift. While Prensky’s concept of digital natives recognizes that many young people have grown up immersed in technology, I align more closely with Spiegel’s critique because technological experiences are far more complex than age alone can explain. From a sociological perspective, technological literacy is socially constructed and shaped by access, socioeconomic status, educational opportunities, and cultural capital. Simply growing up around technology does not automatically produce critical technological literacy. Students may be comfortable with social media and devices without necessarily possessing the ability to critically evaluate information or examine the systems in which they participate.
This pushed me to think more critically about larger questions surrounding media ideology and power. Technology is not neutral. Media shapes participation, representation, and social relationships. Throughout the course, I increasingly found myself asking who benefits from particular forms of technological engagement and whose voices become amplified or marginalized. Because of this, my project intentionally attempts to move students from consumers toward producers. A techno-traditionalist version of this project might have simply digitized existing assignments. Instead, Blogger and Padlet attempt to change the learning context itself. Students become creators, collaborators, and participants who actively construct meaning rather than passively consume information.
The Teacher I Am Becoming
This project reflects my core beliefs about how young people learn, shaped by my experiences as a student, my work as an educator, and my identity as a sociologist. Throughout this course, I found myself asking a central question: What conditions allow students not only to learn but also to see themselves as capable of understanding and shaping the world around them?
Khan's critique of traditional schooling challenged me to think more critically about the purpose of education. In The Broken Model: Short History of American School, he argues that schools have historically prioritized compliance, standardization, and correct answers over curiosity and independent thinking (Khan, 2012). While contemporary schools are far more nuanced than this history alone suggests, elements of that legacy remain visible in classrooms where students are often rewarded for meeting expectations rather than questioning them.
This critique resonated with my own experiences. Although I have always loved learning, success in school often felt driven more by grades and external expectations than by curiosity. Johnson's (2018) analysis of systems of power helped me understand how schools can reproduce these patterns by shaping students' relationships with authority, knowledge, and success. Rather than seeing schools as fixed institutions, however, I see them as spaces with the potential for transformation.
This belief is grounded in my commitment to developing students' critical consciousness. Learning is not simply about acquiring knowledge; it is about helping students recognize the social, political, and economic forces shaping their lives while empowering them to question those systems and imagine alternatives. At the same time, several additional beliefs guide my teaching. I believe all children can learn when provided meaningful opportunities, appropriate supports, and high expectations. I believe learning is inherently social, constructed through dialogue, collaboration, and shared meaning-making. Pierson's (2013) reminder that "every kid needs a champion" reinforced my belief that trust and relationships are essential to learning. Finally, I believe learning should be joyful. Robinson (2013) argues that education flourishes when it nurtures curiosity rather than compliance, creating environments where creativity, intellectual risk-taking, and genuine engagement can thrive.
Perhaps the greatest transformation from this course was not learning to use new technologies, but rethinking what technology can accomplish. Before this semester, I viewed technology primarily as a way to improve efficiency and engagement. Today, I see it as a means of amplifying student voice, cultivating civic identity, and expanding opportunities for democratic participation. That conceptual shift shaped Reclaiming Civic Agency. More than a technology project, it represents my commitment to creating classrooms where students connect learning to their lived experiences, actively construct knowledge, and recognize themselves as individuals capable of questioning, participating in, and ultimately transforming the systems around them.
References
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Johnson, A. G. (2018). Privilege, power, and difference (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.
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Robinson, K. (2013, April). How to escape education's death valley [TED Conference presentation]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley
Spiegel, J. (n.d.). Commentary on "Digital natives, digital immigrants" (Marc Prensky) .
Stuart, J. (Director). (2015). Class dismissed [Documentary]. Class Dismissed Movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUkeXs2cSJI
Wesch, M. (2008). Learning from Baby George [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRSkMt2zYpk
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