Engagement Activity

What is the EA?

Detailed Engagement Steps

Choosing a Political Issue

Your first task is to find a political issue that can be engaged with actively and analyzed with the theoretical foundation of the course.

Look around you, think about your town, your school, your community - what do you see? Look with a critical eye! What issues exist that trouble you, that you would like to see change, that you would like to make change? Perhaps you see inequalities in which public school a student attends, perhaps you see environmental neglect, perhaps you see racially charged policing tactics, perhaps you see gentrification. Find an issue that personally effects you, that saddens you, that angers you. What's that you say? There's nothing that strikes a nerve for you? Ok, then it's time for some research, look at the local page of a local newspaper. What is being protested? What are the controversies? What was the big issue in the last election? Choose the thing that most jumps out to you.

Some things to remember -

• Look local first - you are going to need to actively engage in the issue. Something that has no roots or impact in our community is not workable.

• Think about whether you have studied theory you can use to more incisively explicate your engagement.

Forming a Research Question from your Issue

So you've got an awesome political issue, now comes the tricky process of morphing it into a workable research question. Let's work through an example together -

• I'm upset about a lack of access to menstrual and women's health products in Public Schools. It's a great topic, but now I need to mold it into a research question.

• My first step is to think about the content of the course to which my topic is related. Immediately I think about issues within the Human Rights and Development units. For Human Rights, I am considering issues of gender equity and access to education. For Development, I am considering the impact of Period Poverty on women's education and economic contribution.

• From these content areas, I can craft a research question that will allow me to engage with my community issue, while also tying into the foundation concepts of the course - How does period poverty create educational and economic inequality in the United States?

Planning the Engagement

This is the hardest part. An effective engagement requires planning, organization, interpersonal communication, and grit. There is no set definition of what constitutes an active engagement. The IB guidelines are vague. Abide by these rules to make sure that your engagement is acceptable:

1. Your engagement must have at least three parts (it cannot just be one activity - going to an individual protest, interviewing a singular stakeholder, etc.)

2. Your engagement must include at least one active part. Attending a protest is not active, volunteering with the protest organizer is. Attending a city council meeting is not active, asking questions at the meeting and interviewing a city council member is. Donating menstrual supplies (see above example) is not active, organizing a supply drive and facilitating the donation is.

3. Refer back to the Ethical Guidelines section of the guide - it is critical that you comply with the rules listed therein.

4. Every engagement should have at least one interview component. You should seek to find stakeholders with expertise in your chosen area of research and engage in gathering data.

Possible Engagement Partners - for Volunteering and Interviews:

• Local Non-Profits: https://business.a2ychamber.org/list/category/organizations-non-profit-113

• State Representatives: https://www.washtenaw.org/1247/State-Representatives-Senators

• Local Gov. Leadership: https://cityofypsilanti.com/323/Elected-Officials

• Schoolboards: https://washtenawisd.org/departments/board-of-education

• Professors: https://www.emich.edu/directory/index.php

Reaching out to potential partners and interviewees is scary! But, you can do it - remember to follow best practices for professional communication. Email template is linked.

Executing the Engagement

When you are performing the engagement itself, you must remember to document, document, document. For each part of your engagement, take photos, record interviews (with participants' permission), take notes, reflect in journal entries. You will want to include these material as direct references, citations, and appendices in your final report.

Research

Research does not only occur after the engagement is completed, it will also - depending on your timeline - take place concurrently. We will engage with our research process in class - but you may also have to engage in reading and annotation at home.

The IB guide notes that, "Some additional reading to establish links between their activities, chosen political issue and the key concepts, theories and ideas studied in the core units of the course is called for. Also, the perspectives students gain through their engagement are partial and limited. Research is needed to establish which other perspectives on the political issue and the organization(s) with which students have been engaging are possible, and what the strengths and limitations of various perspectives are."

See Resources page for material. Keep a Tag (or devote an entire library) on Scrible for your EA sources. Remember to update bibliographic information as soon as you upload a new source.

Writing the Report

First of all, this is an excellent resource: https://www.ibmastery.com/blog/the-ib-global-politics-engagement-activity-structure

In brief, your engagement essay should do the following:

• Include a title page.

• Explain why you personally chose your political issue and research question.

• Outline your actual engagements - what did you literally do and with whom?

• Link your engagement activities to your research question and seek to more deeply contextualize your work with research and course content. This will be, by far, your longest and most complex section.

• End your paper with a synthesis of how your engagement had impact (on both the community and on you) and seek to answer your research question holistically.

Your citations should be in APA style (both in-text citations and bibliography at the end).

EA Examples

Other Resources

• https://glopoib.wordpress.com/ia-political-engagement-activity/