The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Longitudinal associations among American adolescents’ civic engagement and family and school characteristics

Abstract

Adolescents’ civic engagement is related to other aspects of their positive development. Many family and school characteristics can promote adolescents’ civic engagement, but they are often studied separately. Furthermore, studies have often used adolescent self-reports and measured only one aspect of the multidimensional construct of civic engagement. Using longitudinal, multi-rater data from 539 adolescents (59.4% girls, 56.8% White) and 356 parents (80% mothers), we examined family and school characteristics that promote adolescents’ social responsibility and five civic actions. Structural equation models showed that parents’ social responsibility and civic actions predicted adolescents’ corresponding civic outcomes six months later. Extracurricular opportunities in school predicted adolescents’ community service and helping behaviors. Open classroom climate predicted adolescents’ helping behaviors and moderated the association between parents’ and adolescents’ social responsibility. Parental warmth and classroom discussion of social issues did not predict adolescents’ civic engagement. We discuss limitations, implications, and directions for future research.

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