Years 3-4

1. "A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a Comprehensive High School Civic Engagement Intervention in Hudson, MA"
Principal Investigator: Sheldon Berman, Hudson High School, Hugh McIntosh, and James Youniss, Catholic University

2. "A Longitudinal Study About How Deliberating Controversial Issues in High School Courses Influences Civic Learning and Participation"
Principal Investigator: Diana Hess, University of Wisconsin-Madison

3. "From Theory to Practice: Developing a Model of Civic Skills Acquisition among Adolescents"
Principal Investigator: Mary Kirlin, California State University Sacramento

4. "The Civic Bonding of School and Family:
The Influence of Kids Voting USA in Priming the Domestic Sphere"
Principal Investigator: Michael McDevitt

5. "Direct Observation of the Content and Focus of High School Civics Teaching"
Principal Investigators: Richard G. Niemi, University of Rochester, Nancy S. Niemi, Nazareth College

6."Civil Rights Activists in the Information Age: The Development of Math Literacy Workers in the Young People's Project"
Principal Investigators: Roderick Watts, Georgia State University and Omo Moses, Young People's Project

7. "Civic Intentions: A Study of Schools that Teach Democratic Values"
Principal Investiagator: Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa

Years 5-6

8. "Research Strategies to Promote Adoption and Institutionalization of Civic Education Programs"
Principal Investigators: Lawrence Bailis, Center for Youth Development, Brandeis University

9. “Energizing Civic Education Through Youth Media”
Principal Investigators: Jen Beck, Ph.D., EvalArts and Katina Paron, Children’s PressLine

10. "Opportunities to Raise Civic Understanding and Engagement by Improving Textbooks" (Fact Sheet)
Principal Investigators: Marilyn Chambliss, Wendy Richardson, Judith Torney-Purta and Britt Wilkenfeld, University of Maryland College Park

11. "An Assessment of Civic Engagement and High School Academic Progress"
Principal Investigators: Alberto Davila and Marie T. Mora, University of Texas—Pan American

12. "The Long-Term Impact of High School Civics Curriculum on Political Knowledge, Democratic Attitudes, and Civic Behaviors: A Multi-Level Model of Direct and Mediated Effects Through Communication"
Principal Investigator: William "Chip" Eveland, The Ohio State University

13. "Measurement and Change Over One Semester in High-School Students' Civic Skills, Knowledge, Dispositions, and Beliefs"
Principal Investigator: Connie Flanagan, Penn State University

14. "Colors of Socialization: Pathways to Civic Identity in Red States and Blue States"
Principal Investigator: Michael McDevitt, University of Colorado

15. "Longitudinal Examination of High School Students’ Civic Learning Opportunities and Outcomes"
Principal Investigator, Joseph E. Kahne, Mills College

16.“Bowling Young: Exploring the Link between the Associations of Youth and Citizenship in Adulthood”
Principal Investigator: Reuben J. Thomas, Stanford University

17.The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection:The Effects of Political Discussion on Youth Knowledge and Efficacy
Principal Investigators: Tim Vercellotti and Elizabeth C. Matto, Rutgers , The State University of New Jersey

"Competing Conceptions of the Democratic Citizen and Civic Education Policy: A Review of Philosophical Perspectives"

Principal Investigator: Heather Voke, Georgetown University

Education policy plays an essential role in influencing what children learn in both school and non-school environments and civic education policy is one means of influencing student civic engagement. Within the liberal democratic tradition there are, however, multiple, normative conceptions of what it is to be an engaged citizen and these conceptions are reflected in the educational prescriptions issued by policymakers. This literature review first appeals to the philosophical literature to identify the competing normative conceptions of democratic citizenship that are found within the liberal democratic tradition as well as the conflicts and consensus between these conceptions. It then examines recent civic education policies to see how these conceptions (and the conflicts and consensus between them) play out. It then considers the implications of this conflict and consensus for the development of civic education policy to promote student civic engagement.

The philosophical literature reviewed includes The Ethics of Multicultural and Bilingual Education (Bull, Frueling, and Chattergy, 1992), “The Moral Role of Schooling in a Liberal Democratic Society” (Strike, 1991), The Demand for a Liberal Education (Levinson, 1999), “Civic Education in the Liberal State” (Galston, 1998), Democratic Education (Gutmann, 1999) and Democracy and Disagreement (1996), The Public and Its Problems and “The Challenge of Democracy to Education” (1927, 1937, Dewey), The Revival of Civic Learning (1980, Butts), and The Spirit of Community (Etzioni, 1993). Policies to be reviewed include National Standards for Civics and Government, the civics standards developed by the National Council for the Social Studies, and the civics component of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

"A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of a Comprehensive High School Civic Engagement Intervention in Hudson, MA"

Principal Investigator: Sheldon Berman, Hudson High School, Hugh McIntosh, and James Youniss, Catholic University

The 4-year Hudson research project is designed to evaluate a comprehensive approach to civic engagement being implemented at Hudson High School in Hudson, MA. This approach includes a core civics course for all ninth graders, extensive civic-engagement and service-learning experiences integrated into many high school courses, and an innovative schoolwide democratic governance structure. We are particularly interested in the impact of the democratic governance structure, which was launched in September 2003. The research is framed around a number of important questions: Will the new student governance program have a widespread influence on the civic engagement of Hudson High School students in the school and the community? Will students develop more positive attitudes toward civic participation? Will students develop a greater commitment to voting and other forms of civic engagement? Will students think in more complex ways about issues and about how to develop common ground on issues where there is a diversity of opinion? Will students develop confidence in their skills in expressing opinions and supporting them with information? In essence, will students be better prepared in their skills, attitudes, and values to become effective and active citizens? Answers to these questions will be sought through a longitudinal, multiple-methods research approach involving student questionnaires and focus groups, faculty questionnaires and interviews, community interviews, alumni surveys, and collection of local voting data.

"A Longitudinal Study About How Deliberating Controversial Issues in High School Courses Influences Civic Learning and Participation"
Principal Investigator: Diana Hess, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This four-year, mixed method study will investigate what high school students learn from participating in social studies courses that emphasize the deliberation of highly controversial international and/or domestic issues, and whether such deliberations influence students' political participation after they leave high school. The sample includes several hundred students from high school classes participating in two prominent and well-regarded civic education deliberation programs, matched with control-group students from the same school or school districts. Teaching young people how to deliberate highly controversial political issues is frequently recommended as a particularly potent form of democracy education. Yet, we know that it is extremely challenging to teach young people how to engage effectively in such discussions. We are interested in assessing the academic and civic pay-offs from this challenging form of education. Do students gain a greater understanding of important political content from participating in issues discussions? Do they become more effective discussants? How do issues discussions influence students' civic attitudes and dispositions? Are students who have been taught how to deliberate issues more likely to participate in political and civic affairs after they leave high school? If so, what is the pathway from deliberation to participation? Data will be generated through classroom observations, student and faculty questionnaires, student and faculty interviews, students' performance on content tests, and phone surveys (after students graduate/leave high school).

"From Theory to Practice: Developing a Model of Civic Skills Acquisition among Adolescents"
Principal Investigator: Mary Kirlin, California State University Sacramento

CIRCLE has funded several projects that synthesize existing knowledge and point to important research questions about youth civic engagement. This proposal draws on that work, proposing to complete a working model of civic skill development in adolescents and a draft set of instruments to measure civic skill acquisition. This project builds on the meta-analyses conducted by Kirlin (2002 and 2003). Those summaries and other work, have led to the identification of eight core civic skills which we believe are acquired in a sequential manner. This project will complete a skill acquisition matrix, grounding the findings more securely in the developmental psychology literature and clarifying definitions. In addition, we will design a set of instruments which can be used to measure civic skills. This work will allow researchers to further their understanding of civic skills and begin new empirical work.

"The Civic Bonding of School and Family:
The Influence of Kids Voting USA in Priming the Domestic Sphere"

Principal Investigator: Michael McDevitt, University of Colorado

Working independently from each other, the school and the family probably cannot do the job of political socialization by themselves. A growing number of scholars have come to recognize that the potential for civic renewal lies in the interactive influence of multiple agents. According to our theoretical model, an adolescent student can act as a conduit between the classroom and the dining room by initiating conversations with parents about partisan issues and candidates. While a politically precocious child can put parents on the defensive, particularly in low-income homes, most parents are motivated to catch up with their offspring in terms of political knowledge and opinion expression. By prompting family discussion and news media use, the school thereby energizes the family as a domestic sphere in which political communication becomes self-sustaining as a household norm. Empirical support for this model is derived from our ongoing evaluation of Kids Voting USA, an interactive civics curriculum taught during election campaigns in 39 states. We assessed the curriculum's influence during the fall of 2002 within the contexts of three field experiments. Intervention effects on 497 student-parent dyads were documented in Maricopa County, Arizona; El Paso County, Colorado; and Broward/Palm Beach counties, Florida. All of the students were high school juniors or seniors when initially interviewed. Results from standardized questionnaires are supplemented with focus-group interviews of students. We completed a second wave of data collection a year after the first interviews, and we are preparing to conduct a final wave during the fall of this year. All of the former high school students are of voting age now. The study design will allow us to assess the long-term impact of Kids Voting and family political communication on the likelihood of voting for the young adults and their and parents. We will also seek to explain processes of growth in other dimensions of citizenship such as tolerance, willingness to disagree in conversation, support for conventional participation, and support for unconventional activism.

10. "Direct Observation of the Content and Focus of High School Civics Teaching"

Principal Investigators: Richard G. Niemi, University of Rochester, Nancy S. Niemi, Nazareth College

Tests and surveys-the dominant modes of data collection for studies of civic education-cannot easily get at the substance of classroom conduct and content. Yet rarely has there been direct observation of high school civics teaching. This study-using collaboration between a political scientist and an educator-involves observation of government and history classrooms.

The study will focus on three aspects of teaching and learning. First, what messages are conveyed to students about political parties and leaders and the political system generally? We hypothesize that many government teachers pass on negative attitudes about government and politics. Second, what partisan and ideological messages about government and civic life are conveyed by teachers and by classmates? Teachers are expected to distribute objective, nonpartisan information about democracy, including information about contemporary political issues. We hypothesize, however, that strict neutrality does not exist in most high school government classes. Third, how much emphasis do teachers and students place on citizen participation, and what kinds of participation are emphasized? Do they stick to safe but possibly bland topics, such as writing letters to public officials and putting bumper stickers on cars, or do they venture into possibly more interesting but controversial topics such as boycotting, petitioning, and picketing?

"Civil Rights Activists in the Information Age: The Development of Math Literacy Workers in the Young People's Project"

Principal Investigators: Roderick Watts, Georgia State University and Omo Moses, Young People's Project

The Young People's Project (YPP) is a third-generation movement for social justice with a focus on math and science literacy. It evolved from the Algebra Project, which grew out of the civil rights activism of Robert Moses. Robert Moses chronicled the first two generations of this work in his book, Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights (Moses & Cobb, 2000). The elder Moses created the Algebra Project, which grew into a network of over 40,000 children in 25 cities, and his son Omo Moses created the YPP in 1996. Omo recognized the need for a youth-led effort that put young people at the center of their own intellectual development. YPP is working with the Algebra Project to broaden their math literacy efforts into a movement for youth and community development. YPP's high school-aged Math Literacy Workers organize "Math Institutes" in elementary and middle schools and "Family Math Night" events in surrounding communities that build social capital and bring adults and children together to improve education. With its focus on leadership development, the training of the MLWs goes beyond the narrow approach that educators usually take to training tutors. The adult staff makes connections between math and science literacy and social justice, and they draw parallels between this new literacy issue and freedom movements of the past and present. MLWs learn both community organizing skills and math skills so that they can successfully pull together their training and community events.

This initial evaluation of the YPP will focus exclusively on the Chicago site where about 100 high school and college students participate. Roderick Watts, an associate professor of psychology at Georgia State University is the principal evaluator for the project; his specialty is the sociopolitical development of youth and liberation psychology. The evaluation will include these process and outcome components:

Process evaluation questions:
1. Participant self-selection issues: What distinguishes the young people who become involved in YPP from their peers who are involved in an extracurricular after-school program?
2. Program fidelity questions:
a. How and to what extent are young people and adults involved (roles, program content, consistency, intensity)?
b. What are the components of the MLW training and development process as implemented?
c. What are the components and characteristics of the (i) math workshops and (ii) community-based math institute work conducted by MLWs-as planned and as implemented?
Outcome evaluation questions:
Primary Questions
1. Do MLWs show significant gains over those in the comparison group on short-term outcome variables of interest-pro-social behavior, empowerment, social and leadership skills, ethnoracial identity, academic achievement, and commitment to societal involvement*?
2. Do the academic plans and aspirations of MLWs include advanced mathematics and/or related fields of study?
3. Is math achievement, leadership in math workshops, or the acquisition of math reasoning associated with a commitment to societal involvement?
Secondary Question
" Does the work of the MLWs contribute to institutional or community change in and around schools? Specifically, are the events organized by the MLWs associated with measurable changes in policies, attitudes, behavior, or practices?

*Societal Involvement includes the full range of engagement in society-community service, civic affairs, and social justice activism.

"Civic Intentions: A Study of Schools that Teach Democratic Values"

Principal Investiagator: Joel Westheimer, University of Ottawa

This project probes prevailing and conflicting beliefs about teaching democratic values. School reformers often proclaim the importance of promoting democracy as a central concern for educational institutions (Clark & Wasley, 1999; Sodor, 2001). They aim to create settings where students learn about democratic ideals, but both the definition of "democratic citizen" and the means by which teaching democracy is realized are matters of dispute. Do mock trials or studies of the local legislature constitute teaching for democracy? Will students who volunteer in the community become "good" citizens? Is a classroom or school that is governed democratically better suited to impart democratic lessons? Based on parallel and longitudinal case studies of schools explicitly teaching democratic citizenship and a corresponding process of reading and interpreting social, theoretical and historical sources, this study asks: (1) What conception of good citizenship is reflected in each school's curriculum, classroom climate, and governance structure? (2) How do teachers and administrators in these schools see themselves and their students engaging in civic life? (3) How do these schools support or challenge conceptions of citizenship and democracy drawn from political and social theory, educational history, and educational research?

Whereas earlier research has focused on broad ideals of education for democracy, this study assumes that schools that aim to teach civic engagement and democratic values must be considered in the context of underlying values and assumptions about what democracy requires and what good citizenship in a democracy entails. I am indebted, therefore, to Benjamin Barber's notion of "strong democracy" and the role of schools in trying to achieve it. I draw also on Pierre Bourdieu's understanding of political participation (and non-participation) and its relation to beliefs about civic capacity and control. Finally, Jim Youniss and colleagues provide conceptions of civic identity that inform considerations of youth development in shaping democratic teaching approaches. By studying school practices that reflect distinct notions of democracy and citizenship, the competing goals are more easily recognized and the paths to educating for particular conceptions of democratic citizenship become easier to identify.

"Research Strategies to Promote Adoption and Institutionalization of Civic Education Programs"
Principal Investigators: Lawrence Bailis, Center for Youth Development, Brandeis University

Thanks to CIRCLE and others, there is an increasing supply of studies that document the benefits of well-designed, well-implemented civic education programs. But there has been little systematic analysis of the processes through which these findings can be translated into decisions by state legislatures, state education agencies, school districts, and individual schools to adopt and institutionalize high quality civic education programs. This study has been designed to help fill this gap. In particular, it addresses the following research question:

• What strategies and tactics are most effective in convincing state education agencies, state legislatures, and school district leaders to adopt and institutionalize education reform policies such as policies to promote quality civic education?

The study design includes two major components: review of the literature and field research on recent efforts to promote adoption of statewide policies on civic education and other education reforms. The literature review is exploring the utility of alternative theoretical frameworks to understand the process of promoting policy change, drawing upon a wide range of literature from such academic fields as political science/public policy, public administration, sociology and educational research, but will use the public policy/ implementation literature as the central framework. It will incorporate books such as those of Paul Sabatier and John Kingdon and articles from journals as Policy Studies and the J ournal of Policy Analysis and Management.

The empirical research will involve document review and field interviews with key participants in high profile national efforts to promote adoption and institutionalization of policy and practice changes in civic education and related education reform fields. We are focusing on efforts to promote civic education and service-learning, including the ongoing Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and the recently completed Kellogg Foundation-funded Learning In Deed initiative.

The findings from this research will provide useful guidance to those who seek to promote changes in education policy and to scholars from various fields who study the process of promoting policy change. It will provide insights into the most effective strategies and tactics employed to promote adoption and institutionalization of civic education (and related initiatives) in specific contexts and ideas about the “best practices” in the design and implementation campaigns that incorporate these strategies and tactics. It will also shed light upon the best theoretical frameworks for analyzing efforts to promote education policy change at the national state and school district levels.

Recent world events have heightened the importance of civic education. Herein lies a conundrum. On the one hand, students report that reading textbooks is a very important way to learn about democracy and citizenship. On the other hand, reviews of textbook materials repeatedly find them to be turgid, poorly organized, and uninteresting. These are features of writing that are unlikely to enhance learning or motivation. In this recent study, 167 tenth graders from a mid-Atlantic and a Pacific-coast state read text material that presented the facts about the complex relationships between the civic-related topic of direct and representative democracy ( Inform Text ), argued claims paired with counter-claims (Argue Text ), or explained the relationships with lengthy examples (Explain Text ). They responded to tasks that measured their comprehension, their understanding about democracy before and after reading, and their motivation to engage in civic activities. This work demonstrated the power of reading to enhance what students understand about direct and representative democracy and also their interest in participating in civic-related activities. The three text types had differential effects. Students who judged the Argue Text to be interesting also expressed interest in voting and in talking over the issues with their parents. Those who judged the Explain Text to be interesting expressed interest in watching a TV clip, discussing in class, and talking over the issues with their parents, but not in voting. Students who had found the Inform Text be interesting were interested in watching a TV clip and, to a lesser extent, in talking with their parents, but not in engaging in any of the other civic activities. The texts also had different effects on comprehension and knowledge. These differential effects suggest choosing texts according to desired civic outcomes.

"An Assessment of Civic Engagement and High School Academic Progress"
Principal Investigators: Alberto Davila and Marie T. Mora, University of Texas—Pan American

Using panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, this study provides insight into the relationship between academic progress and two forms of civic engagement—student government and community service—among high school students. In particular, while controlling for observable characteristics (such as socioeconomic status), this study empirically analyzes: (1) the relationship between student-government participation (a formal type of civic engagement) and community volunteer work (a less formal activity); (2) whether civically-engaged students are more likely to graduate from high school and/or attend college than other students; (3) the mathematics, reading, history, and science progress made by the civically engaged vis-à-vis other high school students; and (4) if the type (voluntary versus involuntary) or frequency of community service differently affects scholastic progress. Moreover, the analyses explore the effects of such characteristics as race/ethnicity and gender, among other socioeconomic and demographic dimensions, on these outcomes. Such information should be of use to policymakers and households with respect to better assessing (and designing) school curricula, student activities, and household time allocation.

"The Long-Term Impact of High School Civics Curriculum on Political Knowledge, Democratic Attitudes, and Civic Behaviors: A Multi-Level Model of Direct and Mediated Effects Through Communication"
Principal Investigator: William "Chip" Eveland, The Ohio State University

This study examines the effect of various aspects of civics education -- in particular, aspects with a focus on political discussion, debate, deliberation, and news media use -- on important political socialization outcomes, including knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. The present effort includes Wave II data collection in November 2006 using a follow-up telephone survey of students for which previous data were gathered in 2005 and early 2006. The Wave I data include data gathered from teachers regarding the civics content they teach across each of their social studies classes, surveys of students in those classes, and surveys of the parents of those students. I also employ information about the specific schools from which teacher/student/parent clusters are drawn. The goal of the larger study is to examine the impact of the curriculum activities on socialization outcomes directly as well as indirectly through the stimulation of communication. Moreover, the data permit an understanding of the possible differential effects of curriculum components depending on macro-level variables describing the school environment.

"Measurement and Change Over One Semester in High-School Students' Civic Skills, Knowledge, Dispositions, and Beliefs"
Principal Investigator: Connie Flanagan, Penn State University

This project measures change over one semester in civic outcomes for high-school students in social studies classes. We will produce a set of civic outcomes with good psychometric properties that can be used by practitioners in the field. We also will assess changes in civic outcomes for different sub-groups of students and will test the efficacy of specific instructional practices in producing those changes.

"Longitudinal Examination of High School Students’ Civic Learning Opportunities and Outcomes"
Principal Investigator, Joseph E. Kahne, Mills College

We are conducting a longitudinal follow-up to our survey of California high school students’ civic opportunities and outcomes. Specifically, in the spring of 2005, we surveyed 2,366 high school seniors from a set of twelve California high schools whose students roughly represent the diversity in the state in terms of geography, race and ethnicity, socio-economic status, and academic achievement. This study is the research component of the Initiative: Educating for Democracy: The California Campaign for The Civic Mission of Schools.
We will undertake a longitudinal follow-up to this survey following the 2006 and 2008 elections in which we will again survey these students. This longitudinal work will greatly strengthen our understanding of the relationship between students’ curricular opportunities while in high school, their civic and political commitments while in high school, and their civic and political behavior after high school. Our goal is to better understand
1. Whether civic attitudes and abilities established in mid-adolescence persist into early adulthood
2. Whether curricular opportunities in high school are associated with later civic commitments, capacities, and forms of active engagement (such as voting, volunteering, campaigning, activism, etc.).
3. Whether different groups of students enact different levels of engagement in early adulthood.
4. Whether unequal access to high school opportunities for different groups of students leads to unequal participation once students leave high school (controlling for other factors).

"Colors of Socialization:Pathways to Civic Identity in Red States and Blue States"
Principal Investigator: Michael McDevitt, University of Colorado

The function of the American high school in political-identity construction seems to be evolving into a paradigm in which volunteerism, service learning, and activism offer new portals for youth into the political system. Meanwhile, recent research shows many adolescents to be deeply distrustful of political parties, government, news media, and corporations. Consequently, theoretical perspectives on civic education should account for outcomes beyond the traditionally measured effects associated with the training of young people for dutiful voting. However, the processes by which high schools contribute to conventional participation, subterranean and illegal activism, or perhaps hybrid identities, remain murky in extant theorizing. This project explores how schools engender civic identity of adolescents in red states and blue states. A panel design calls for interviewing high school seniors in the late summer of 2006 and again immediately after Election Day. We will recruit respondents from regions with the most contentious election campaigns, in 5 red states and 5 blue states. Theoretically, the study applies a "staging-ground" model of school influence, in which civic curricula promote political identity indirectly by stimulating political discussion in families and peer groups. Our prior research suggests two primary paths to civic-identity formation. We anticipate a red path, leading from curricula participation to family discussion to support for the two-party system and finally voting. A blue path also originates in curricula participation but leads instead to peer discussion, support for unconventional citizenship, and activism.

“Energizing Civic Education Through Youth Media”

Principal Investigators: Jen Beck, Ph.D., EvalArts and Katina Paron, Children’s PressLine

There are a variety of life experiences from which individuals can develop civic awareness. By actively engaging youth in the process of producing media using print, online, video and radio, youth media programs aim to give young people a voice in the mainstream media. Youth media programs may provide an additional means for civically engaging today’s youth by providing them with opportunities to learn and apply the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are characteristic of civically engaged citizens.

The purpose of the proposed research is to test the efficacy of the out-of-school-time youth media program model as a mechanism for increasing high school students’ civic awareness and engagement. Using a quasi-experimental design with pre-post intervention surveys, observations, and interviews, this study will assess: (1) changes in high school students’ civic awareness and engagement as a result of participating in an out-of-school-time youth media program; (2) the specific program characteristics and youth characteristics that contribute to greater increases in students’ civic awareness and engagement; and (3) the potential for youth media programs to contribute to innovative advances in civic education at the high school level.

The findings from this research will have broad impacts for policy and practice. There is little research that measures how young people are affected by participation in youth media production and this research will serve to inform educators and policymakers about complementary approaches to civic education.

“Bowling Young: Exploring the Link between the Associations of Youth and Citizenship in Adulthood”
Principal Investigator: Reuben J. Thomas, Stanford University

Do the voluntary activities of youth increase political engagement in adulthood? Political participation is typically characterized by inertia: reproduced within families, highly correlated with social class, and largely stable after the onset of adulthood. This research illustrates an element of political socialization that occurs just before the transition into full citizenship, that mimics adult civic life, and that can be available regardless of family advantage. Previous work by Daniel McFarland and myself, using two longitudinal national data sets (the National Education Longitudinal Study and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health), found a non-trivial effect of youth voluntary activities on adult political activity, net of self-selection and causal factors traditionally characterized in political participation. This study expands upon that work by focusing on adult voting behavior, refining the statistical methodology, and looking with more depth at the effects of youth participation on groups typically underrepresented in the adult political world. This and similar work has important implications for how the organization of schools impacts the larger civil society.

The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection:The Effects of Political Discussion on Youth Knowledge and Efficacy
Principal Investigators: Tim Vercellotti and Elizabeth C. Matto, Rutgers , The State University of New Jersey

Previous research tells us that systematically incorporating newspapers into school curricula improves standardized reading and math scores. But there is little research to tell us whether these efforts are effective in increasing political knowledge among their target audiences, in increasing political talk among students and between students and their families, or in affecting attitudes about government and politics. We propose to address these questions with a quasi-experiment designed for high school students in New Jersey . After conducting a pre-test survey measuring political knowledge, efficacy, and media exposure among students and their parents, we will randomly assign the students' social studies classes to one of three conditions: a treatment class assigned to read and discuss a newsweekly magazine in class for eight weeks; a treatment class in which students are assigned to read and discuss the same newsweekly at home with their parents, with the students subsequently reporting the results of their at-home discussions in the classroom; and a control group that does not receive the magazine. We will follow up with surveys of the students and their parents at the end of the eight weeks, and then six weeks later to measure for longer-term effects of the experiment.

We will use our data to test the following hypotheses: (1) Students who read news coverage of politics and policy on a regular basis as part of a classroom assignment will become more knowledgeable in those areas than students in the control group. (2) Students who read the news coverage with the understanding that they are to discuss it with their parents at home will emerge with greater knowledge than students who are not instructed to discuss the news coverage at home. (3) Students who read news coverage on a regular basis will develop a greater sense of internal political efficacy – the sense that they have the power to influence public affairs – than students in the control group who do not receive the intervention. (4) Parents' levels of internal political efficacy also will influence students' attitudes in this area, but the effect will be stronger among those students who read news coverage in school and discuss it at home compared to students who discuss the news coverage at school only and the control group. (5) The beneficial effects of reading and discussing news coverage on a regular basis will persist even after the intervention ends, as individuals get in the habit of paying attention to government and politics.

This research is designed to assess the effects of involving schools and parents as partners in civic education. Our results could give guidance to practitioners looking for ways to enlist potentially powerful allies – parents – in reinforcing what happens in the classroom by extending political discussions to the kitchen table as well.