a Civic Guide
2 the Internet
How Civics relates to YOU, and how to live the Civic Life.
TYPES of Citizens
1
Personally Responsible Citizen
The "personally responsible citizen" is a form of citizenship focused on the individual development of strong character and a feeling of personal responsibility for the communities of the world. This type of citizen individually contributes time, money, and service to causes and organizations that positively affect the community. It is their core belief that good citizenship begins at a personal level with honest and hardworking citizens. There is an emphasis on strengthening moral integrity and an underlying belief that solving social problems can be achieved by living the life of a model citizen in individual communities. Examples of behavior of a personally responsible citizen can be found in the section below. In the next tab, you will find an extensive list of links and descriptions that contain resources, volunteer opportunities, charity organizations, etc., that the personally responsible citizen can utilize to help out and enrich the world.
2
Participatory Citizen
A participatory citizen is someone who is fully engaged in local, state, and national efforts to improve social issues by going above and beyond to organize these efforts. As a member of the community who is active, the participatory citizen utilizes resources to work within existing organizations to co-create. This citizen may express their co-creation through a number of ways, such as volunteering, recycling, or working with organizations to accomplish political and social goals. A participatory citizen understands the importance of collaboration, networking, and working collectively towards a common goal. Examples of behavior of a participatory citizen can be found in the section below. In the next tab, you will find an extensive list of links and descriptions that contain resources, volunteer opportunities, charity organizations, etc., that the participatory citizen can utilize to help out, lead, organize, and enrich the world.
3
Justice-Oriented Citizen
Justice-oriented citizens are highly active citizens. They observe issues within the government and society, and they attempt to investigate and solve those problems. They critique the institutions and current policies to ensure that these are both just and fair. They investigate a problem to better understand its root causes; then, they develop a way to better educate people about the problem. The justice-oriented citizen attempts to measure the efficacy of social programs, and then ensure that any inequalities are minimized. The overall goal is the pursuit of larger systemic change, the pursuit of equality, and the pursuit of truly fixing a problem (not just bandaging it). Often the problem associated with justice-oriented citizens is described by Putnam’s concept of “Bowling Alone.” Justice-oriented citizens are not the best organizers, causing their efforts to fall short of larger systemic changes. Nevertheless, they play a necessary role in making systematic changes.
Citizens Image credited to Cory Doctorow
