Jesse Nickelson

Mid Career Doctoral Program/Ed.D Educational Leadership and Organizational Management

The construction of civic identity has a strong relationship to the development of an individual’s personal and social identity, and is an expression of how an individual understands his or her self as a participant in a larger society. 

Jesse is conducting a research study that explores the phenomenon of civic identity construction in a group of American high school students engaged in a service-learning program in Zambia. Instead of trying to position students on a continuum of civic engagement, Jesse is exploring how the participants’ descriptions might illuminate this phenomenon. 

In order to carry out his research, Jesse traveled to Zambia with a small group of high school students engaged in a service-learning program. Jesse is using a qualitative approach that includes ethnographic field notes, transcripts from focus group and individual interviews, and participants’ program journals to explore how civic identity is constructed by participants of this service-learning program.