Predicting Civic Engagement in Urban High School Students

Abstract

The landmark Civic Mission of Schools report of 2003 laid out an argument for the role of schools in promoting youth civic engagement and presented a range of promising ideas and practices to accomplish that. In this study we describe the civic engagement outcomes that a large, diverse urban school district has chosen to promote in its students. The outcomes constitute a vision of civic engagement that sees youth as well-rounded citizens capable of engaging in civil, political, and problem-solving activities, both individually and socially. In 2007, the district revised its annual survey of high school students to include the above-mentioned civic outcomes and other new measures as part of a whole-child approach to monitoring educational development. Data collected by this survey in 2008 and 2009 were used to identify and characterize a number of factors which, research suggests, may be important predictors of youth civic engagement. The results show that many factors in our models of civic engagement were positively related to youth civic engagement. Using these findings and theoretical considerations, we sorted factors into 3 levels of importance. Overall, the most important predictors of youth civic engagement were community service, political discussion, and environmental conservation. At an intermediate level of importance were nonsport extracurricular activities, conflict resolution skill, and positive character, as well as personal efficacy, willingness to contact public officials about issues of concern, and intention to vote. Seven other factors were also found to have positive, but somewhat weaker or less-widespread associations with youth civic engagement.

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