Project
Limerick Be Heard #GE2016 is a community collaboration between Limerick Youth Service, Limerick Comhairle na Nog, the Department of Politics and Public Administration and UL Engage. The project is designed to increased civic engagement and political participation in the context of the Spring 2016 Irish General Election. As part of its contribution to this project, the Department of Politics and Public Administration is administering the Limerick Election Study - a randomized survey of issues and opinions in Limerick City and County. The Department is also offering a number of interactive workshops on the electoral system and voting. Voter turnout after this campaign will be measured against the baseline set in the 2011 General election. Qualitative insights into the impact of the campaign will also be collected.
Higher voter turnout correlates with other positive socio economic indicators and lower voter turnout often correlates with social exclusion. This campaign is designed to contribute positively to personal and community capacity building to develop political understanding and citizen engagement.
Limerick Youth Service; Limerick Comhairle na Nog, ULEngage and the Journalism Unit, UL.
This initiative is organized from the bottom up in a collaborative partnership, committed to the following principles: we do not advocate for any independent or political party candidate; we are inclusive and representative of all who wish to engage with this project; we wish to support diverse engagement from all walks of life, ages and backgrounds etc; we will be tolerant and respectful of different opinions and views. The project is overseen by an Advisory Board constituting representatives from the range of participating interests. The Advisory Board supports the work of this project by providing feedback, advice and ideas to the project participants. Community Evaluation of the project is designed into the project from start to finish.
Learning
In addition to academic work on the Irish electoral system and political participation, students on this project will provide practical support to the Department of Politic and Public Administration's support to the Limerick Be Heard! initiative. Practicum students will be assigned responsibilities by the Limerick Be Heard project team. Students will be expected to provide practical supports to the project including: survey questionnaire administration; survey questionnaire data entry and analysis; workshop facilitation; social media and public profiling of the project; or other such tasks as are necessary to complete the project. These may include, for example: the creation of campaign materials, facilitation of workshops, canvassing or other forms of campaign communication; and other such activities as directed by the assigned community representative for this project.
This module is designed to provide both a theoretical and empirically based understanding of contemporary Irish politics; political engagement and campaign management strategies. Students on this module will gain an in-depth and experiential understanding of how political campaigns work, what makes them succeed and what kinds of difficulties might be encountered along the way. Alongside the academic module content, the Limerick Be Heard! project offers students a unique learning context, designed to provide experiential insights into academic arguments and facilitate students in developing UL Graduate Attributes.
The academic project leader for this Practicum is Dr Maura Adshead, Room F1027, Foundation Building. Email: Maura.Adshead@ul.ie. On this project, you will be part of a team comprising 5 academic staff and community representatives from collaborating community organizations and associations (see list of partners for this project). Your academic work will be supervised by the responsible academic assigned to this project. Your practical work will be directed by the project respresentative assigned to this project. This is a large-scale project, designed to take up to 20 UL Practicum Students.
All UL Practicum modules are assessed in two parts, comprising 50% each: Academic Assessment - one end of term paper combining your practical knowledge of this project with the academic perspective on this topic. Practicum Assessment - your personal input into this project will be negotiated with you and the team. Following this plan, you will be assessed on your capacity to deliver on the project tasks for which you have been assigned responsibility.
Research
Limerick Be Heard is a community collaboration between Limerick Youth Service, Limerick Comhairle na Nog, the Department of Politics and Public Administration and UL Engage. The project is designed to increased civic engagement and political participation in the context of the Spring 2016 Irish General Election. The Limerick Election Study will comprise pre election survey questionnaires administered to persons randomly selected from the Limerick City and County electoral register and post election survey questionnaires administered to persons randomly selected from the Limerick City and County electoral register after the election. A much shorter version of the survey will be administered to participants in the community workshops and voter seminars in order to gauge whether or not these interventions have any discernible impact on political engagement and voter intentions.
Research indicates that higher voter turn-out correlates with other positive social capital indicators, which are important indicators for health and well-being. This project is interested in contributing to positive political engagement and education, with a view to combatting citizens' feelings of isolation and exclusion from the political process, and from politics more generally as a form of active civic engagement.
The project is overseen by an Advisory Board constituting representatives from the range of participating interests. The Advisory Board supports the work of this project by providing feedback, advice and ideas to the project participants. Community Evaluation of the project is designed into the project from start to finish. An independent researcher has been assigned the task of project impact evaluation, collecting evidence and testimony of the project's impact: in the community; in terms of the teaching and learning opportunities that this programme provides; and in terms of the research that it supports. An evaluation of this project can be found in the UL Engage Reports series, No.4, 2016. 'An evaluation of the 'Limerick Be Heard' election project. February 2016' by D. Forde-Murray.
