Explaining Urban Teens’ Likelihood of Voting in the Future:
Academic, Social, and Civic Factors
a Generation Citizen research brief (April 2011)
Alison Cohen[1]
Introduction:
One of the most fundamental processes to American democracy is voting, yet not all citizens participate in the electoral process at equal levels; a civic engagement gap exists (Levinson, 2010). Myriad social factors are associated with voter turnout, including race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (File and Crissey, 2010; Abramson and Claggett, 1986; Shields and Goidel, 1997). Education and age are also associated with voting (Leighley and Nagler, 1992). These disparities may exist in part due to civic knowledge, skills, and motivation (Levinson, 2007). In particular, civics education may have a role in helping prepare future engaged citizens (Kahne et al, 2006), but white students and students from high socioeconomic status backgrounds are more likely to receive civics education that builds their civic knowledge and skills (Verba et al, 1995; Kahne and Middaugh, 2008).
Methods:
These data were collected from surveys completed by students (n=981) from urban public school classrooms in Providence, RI, and Boston, MA, who were about to begin participating in Generation Citizen. Generation Citizen is a non-profit organization that teaches civics and educates for active citizenship. The survey asked a range of questions, including questions about academics, demographics, and civic knowledge, skills, and motivation. Data were analyzed in Stata 11.0 to conduct multiple linear regressions and ordered logistic regressions.
Results:
Within our student population, the civic engagement gap theorized and documented elsewhere (i.e., Levinson, 2010) persists. Multiple linear regression and ordered logistic regression analyses found that students who completed our pre-survey reported being statistically significantly more likely to vote in the future (as measured by a Likert-scaled question) if they: had a higher grade point average, were white, were religious, had greater basic civic content knowledge (as measured by a five-question sum score (one question was what the three branches of government were)), and greater current events knowledge (as measured by a sum score of their responses to three multiple-choice questions about recent current events) (all p<.05).
Conclusions:
These results also have programmatic relevance: civics education matters, and civics education should include a place-based and social justice frame. Basic civics knowledge is content matter that can be acquired in school, although as an increasingly large emphasis gets placed on reading and math in preparation for standardized tests, students receive less and less civics education; academic rigor is key to ensuring basic civic content knowledge and higher academic performance. To address the other determinants of civic motivation, a place-based emphasis on learning current events should be modeled by teachers or other facilitators to help students understand their local context, and a social justice frame that recognizes that social inequities exist in who tends to be more civically engaged and must be addressed. The association between civic content knowledge and likelihood of voting in the future found in this analysis adds to the body of research and advocacy supporting civics education as a method for preparing the next generation of American citizens.
[1] Alison Cohen is affiliated with the Division of Epidemiology at the University of California- Berkeley School of Public Health and Generation Citizen. She can be contacted at alison@generationcitizen.org.