Future Political Participation Research Articles

Leveraging experiential learning to increase undergraduate students’ advocacy skills and political efficacy

ABSTRACT Experiential learning is an approach to teaching that emphasizes hands-on experiences that provide students with an opportunity to synthesize the concepts and theories they have learned in a natural and meaningful way, which can deepen their knowledge, self-efficacy, and skill acquisition. We developed a unique strategic communication capstone course to refine communication-based skills in the context of an advocacy campaign that focused on activities related to political participation, a form of civic participation and engagement. Over the course of a 15-week semester, students identified an issue they would like to change, researched the issue, investigated members of the legislature and their positions, and developed supporting material, which culminated in a trip to present their ideas to state- and federal-level legislators. Fifty-one undergraduate students completed a written 15-minute survey that included structured and open-ended questions before and after their participation in the course. Participants showed increased confidence in skills related to political advocacy and increased political efficacy, which has the potential to increase future political engagement and participation. Open-ended questions revealed that many students felt more empowered to interact with elected officials, gained positive perceptions about the political process and players, and felt that they could create change.

Agonist relationships in the toddler classroom: Exploring the connection between conflict and care

Dominant Western discourse in early childhood education frames conflict as a disruptive and damaging force that is antithetical to the “ideal” classroom environment. However, critical early childhood scholars have begun to reconceptualize the role of conflict in early childhood classroom dynamics, exploring its potential as a productive and necessary force that supports current and future political participation for young children. This paper draws from data collected during an eight-month ethnography of care practices in an infant/toddler classroom at a university laboratory school in the Southeastern United States. Using Chantal Mouffe's theories political conflict, we interpret one teacher's understandings of conflict in her classroom and the practices that she engaged in support of what Mouffe would term “agonist conflict” (i.e., friendly, rather than antagonistic, conflict). Findings demonstrate that this teacher views agonist conflict to be a productive process for young children—one that enables them to articulate their political subjectivities as members of their classroom community and one that will foster their engagement as citizens of a broader democratic society. As such, the emotional support and scaffolding she provided to support such engagement constitute a political form of care. This research holds implications for reconceptualized understandings of peer conflict in early childhood contexts and insight into how teachers can better support children's developing political engagement through agonist conflict with their peers.

Lukashenka’s Constitutional Plebiscite and the Polarization of Belarusian Society

Aliaksandr Lukashenka pushed through an overhaul of Belarus’s constitution as a response to the protests against the official results of the 2020 presidential election. The goal was to address the desire for change among the population without reacting to the demand for snap elections. With the February 2022 constitutional plebiscite on the most far-ranging changes to Belarus’s constitution since 1994, Lukashenka further entrenched himself in power. The results of our online survey suggest that the constitutional changes do not meet the broad societal demand for political change and, in particular, for constraints on presidential power. Despite the persistence of the political conflict, we also show that Lukashenka’s supporters and opponents are not irreconcilably polarized in every policy domain. Finally, our results suggest that regime supporters have stronger anti-democratic preferences than opposition supporters when it comes to future political participation of the two camps, making the effects of affective polarization highly asymmetrical.

Regime-supporting or regime-challenging? Chinese secondary students’ intentions for future political participation

This study explores Chinese secondary students’ intentions for future political participation drawing on samples of students from Mainland China and Hong Kong. Political participation examined in this study includes both conventional participation (legal protest, electoral participation and informal participation) and unconventional participation (illegal protest). Previous studies of adolescents’ political participation intentions have mainly been concerned with democratic regimes while this study focuses on authoritarian and hybrid regimes, such as those in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Adopting a comparative and quantitative methodology, this study utilized secondary data analysis with large samples. This study found that students from both societies showed a weak endorsement of illegal protest but a strong endorsement of all three types of conventional participation. Mainland Chinese students demonstrated a stronger endorsement of conventional participation than their Hong Kong counterparts. To understand inner-group difference, students were clustered into four groups (Alienated-Radical Participators, Supportive-Active Participators, Loyal-Minimal Participators and Critical-Active Participators) based on their political attitudes (political trust and political efficacy) and intentions for future political participation. Results suggest that Hong Kong had more Alienated-Radical Participators while Mainland China had more Supportive-Active Participators. In general, Mainland Chinese students were more regime-supporting and Hong Kong students were more regime-challenging.

Adolescents' Political Socialization at School, Citizenship Self-efficacy, and Expected Electoral Participation.

Adolescents' political socialization is crucial for their future political participation. Little research has examined this relationship and the importance of citizenship self-efficacy in an Asian context. This study focused on the effectiveness of Korean adolescents' political socialization and self-efficacy on their expected electoral participation. Data from Korean 8th graders participating in the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study were examined (N = 2601; Mage = 14.02; 46% female). Political socialization included open classroom discussion, active learning strategies, and formal citizenship education. The result showed that citizenship self-efficacy is the most important predictor for Korean adolescents' future engagement, but open classroom discussion is not significant. It indicates that citizenship education needs to consider countries' social and cultural contexts.

Future Orientation and Political Participation: The Moderating Role of Political Trust

Previous studies show consistent differences in how people evaluate future consequences and implications of this for a variety of phenomena. The implications for the individual propensity for taking part in different forms of political participation have received limited scholarly attention, however. This is unfortunate since it affects how people voice their concerns over future problems and thereby also whether and how decision-makers become aware of these concerns. We here examine this in a cross-sectional study conducted in Finland (N = 1,673). We apply the Considerations of Future Consequences (CFC) framework as a measure of individuals’ future orientation and distinguish between considerations of future consequences (CFC-future) and considerations of immediate consequences (CFC-Immediate). We study the direct associations with institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation and the moderating role of political trust in shaping these associations. Our results show CFC-future has a positive association with both institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation, while CFC-immediate has a negative association with participation. Political trust moderates the association with non-institutionalized political participation since the association is stronger for citizens with low political trust. This may suggest that citizens use particular participatory avenues to communicate their worries over future problems, and to which decision-makers must be attentive.

Effects of Settlement into Ethnic Enclaves on Immigrant Voter Turnout

What is the effect of residing in ethnic enclaves on immigrants’ future political participation? We study a comprehensive refugee placement reform that was implemented in Sweden in the mid-1980s in...

Editorial Introduction: Exploring policy diffusion, collaborative governance, and policy conflict

Editorial Introduction: Exploring policy diffusion, collaborative governance, and policy conflict

Journalism Civic Self-Efficacy: Predicting Political Participation Among Secondary-School Journalism Students

ABSTRACT This study builds on the communication mediation model of political socialization and self-efficacy research, and focuses on journalism civic self-efficacy, an individual’s confidence in using journalistic skills to promote the awareness of a community issue. The study tests the premise that journalism civic self-efficacy explains, in part, how journalism education supports individuals’ political participation, by examining links between political interest, journalism civic self-efficacy, school and classroom contexts, and future political participation with data from U.S. high school journalists (n = 769) and their teachers (n = 42). The study’s key results are: (1) journalism civic self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between political interest and prospective political participation, and (2) journalism civic self-efficacy increases when students feel a supportive school climate and when their instructors exert little control over students’ journalistic output. These results can inform the design of journalism education and outreach initiatives, prioritizing activities and settings that cultivate journalism civic self-efficacy among participants. The findings also highlight the value of such initiatives regardless of whether or not participants pursue newsroom careers. The study contributes empirical evidence to civic development literature of a pathway between journalism education and political participation, distinct from other school-sponsored activities (i.e., debate, student government).

Growing up in a civil war and political participation: Evidence from Guatemala*

AbstractGuatemala experienced a 36‐year‐long civil war from 1960 to 1996. I use this event to understand whether growing up in an area of political violence has any impact on future political participation. I combine data from the distribution of the number of human rights violations during Guatemala's civil war with nationally representative data on political participation from the 2001 Living Standard Measurement Survey. Results suggest that exposure to conflict during youth affects political participation in adulthood. Exposure to conflict has a small negative association with formal political engagement and it has no effect on community participation. The results also indicate a negative relationship between growing up in an area of political violence and trust in the judicial system as adults.

Connecting Malian and Burkinabe women’s local experiences of livelihood security to how they participate in politics

• Advocates for attention to gendered, local political economies to understand women’s political participation. • Draws on in-depth, relational interviews with 160 women and men in a cross-border zone of Mali and Burkina Faso. • Experiences of seasonal livelihood security shape women’s responses to local opportunities for political participation. • Women who experience more livelihood security across the seasons aspire to being elected to the local government council. • Women who experience less livelihood security across the seasons engage in claims making and local meeting attendance. When women participate in local politics, politics becomes more inclusive and local governments can be more responsive to a wide range of citizen concerns. Extensive research on gender quotas has generated knowledge about how these institutional reforms can advance women’s representation and political participation. However, we know less about the local-level variables that affect women’s incentives to participate in politics. Drawing on interview data with 160 women and men in two village research sites located in a rural cross-border zone in Mali and Burkina Faso, this paper asks how women’s livelihood pursuits affect their political participation. The paper argues that women’s experiences of livelihood security shape how they respond to the opportunities for political participation that exist in their local communities. Women in a village in Mali who experience more livelihood security across the seasons aspire to future political participation as elected members of the local government council. By contrast, women in a neighboring village in Burkina Faso who experience less livelihood security across the seasons focus on attending local government meetings and making claims on the local government to support them as women and as farmers who experience livelihood insecurity . Meeting attendance and claims-making happen through women’s savings and credit associations. Women in both research sites participate in these similarly structured associations, but more political participation happens through associations for the Burkinabe women who experience livelihood insecurity. These findings highlight how objective differences in gendered, local political economies create divergent opportunities for women’s livelihoods, which contribute to differences in how they respond to opportunities for political participation. These dynamics call for further attention to the relationship between livelihood security and political participation and more attention to how women participate in politics through associations. In these rural villages, women are making important contributions to public life through political participation, economic production, and civic engagement.

Birth Order and Voter Turnout

AbstractPrevious studies have stressed the role of a child's family environment for future political participation. This field of research has, however, overlooked that children within the same family have different experiences depending on their birth order. First-borns spend their first years of life without having to compete over their parents' attention and resources, while their younger siblings are born into potential rivalry. We examine differences in turnout depending on birth order, using unique population-wide individual level register data from Sweden and Norway that enables precise within-family estimates. We consistently find that higher birth order entails lower turnout, and that the turnout differential with respect to birth order is stronger when turnout is lower. The link between birth order and turnout holds when we use data from four other, non-Nordic countries. This birth order effect appears to be partly mediated by socio-economic position and attitudinal predispositions.

Does Policy Practice Class Increase Social Work Students’ Planned Political Engagement?

Recent research supports the idea of reconceptualizing social work policy courses as practice courses and using an experiential approach. Utilizing Verba et al.’s (1995) Civic Voluntarism model as a guide, the purpose of this study is to evaluate if a social work policy practice course utilizing experiential learning interventions increases social work students’ planned political participation and current feelings of preparedness for engagement in the political system. A pre-test/post-test was administered to students enrolled in a BSW-level and a MSW-level policy course. This consisted of questions from Rome and Hoechstetter’s (Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 37, 107–129, 2010) survey focused on past political activities of participants; a slightly modified version of Ostrander et al.’s (Journal of Policy Practice, 16(3), 261–275, 2017) survey questioning participants about their plans for future political participation; and a single question asking the participants to rate their current feelings of preparedness for engagement in the political system. Students were more likely after taking the policy course to plan on engaging in policy practice in six of the ten ways addressed in the survey. Students were also significantly more likely to indicate that they did feel adequately prepared to engage in the political system at the post-test. Additionally, the Civic Voluntarism model shows that teaching specific skills of political participation increases students’ intent to be politically active. Results indicate that utilizing an experiential approach to social work policy practice course does positively impact students’ intentions regarding political activism as well as their feelings of preparedness for engagement in the political system.

Motivating Political Participation Among Youth: An Analysis of Factors Related to Adolescents’ Political Engagement

Prior research has identified political efficacy and political interest as strong predictors of political participation, but few studies have examined these two attitudes in tandem or compared their relative importance vis‐à‐vis political participation. Drawing on the expectancy‐value model of motivation, we begin to address this research gap while also considering several related issues. Our sample includes a diverse group of high school students in grades 10, 11, and 12 (N = 422) from the midwestern United States. Through quantitative analyses of participants’ survey data, we found that political interest (a central aspect of value) and political efficacy (closely related to expectancy) predicted participants’ expected future political participation, controlling for background characteristics—and that political interest was a particularly strong predictor. In addition, we identified political‐engagement differences on various demographic measures, such as grade level. We also found a significant interaction between political interest and internal political efficacy, suggesting that high levels of both attitudes can have an especially positive effect on adolescents’ political participation. We discuss the implications of these findings for researchers and educators interested in fostering political engagement among youth.

A cross-national comparison of teachers' beliefs about the aims of civic education in 12 countries: A person-centered analysis

This article examines teachers' beliefs about the aims of citizenship education in 12 countries from Europe and Asia. A latent class analysis of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study of 2009 identified three distinct profiles of teachers' beliefs about the goals of citizenship education. These profiles are associated with teachers' characteristics and with national indicators of democratic development. Profiles can be more useful than single beliefs in understanding how teaching contributes to students' civic development. Teachers across countries thought it far more important to foster students' participation in the school or local community than to foster future political participation.

Teachers Navigating Civic Education When Students Are Undocumented: Building Case Knowledge

Currently, a knowledge gap exists at the intersection of immigration, citizenship, and education. We have little knowledge of how teachers teach about citizenship when they anticipate that some of their students are undocumented. Conceptually, we distinguish between formal and cultural citizenship and draw from immigrant political incorporation theories. We investigate how high school civics teachers navigated the tensions of teaching youth in settings meant to socialize them for future political participation when some students did not have formal citizenship rights. Based on 88 hours of observational and interview data, we analyze three cases of U.S. government teachers selected from a pool of 39 secondary social studies educators. We ask: How did skilled and experienced civics teachers who supported immigrants’ rights teach about elections in mixed-citizenship settings where some youth had formal citizenship rights and others did not? We argue that key features of teaching in mixed-citizenship classrooms were context, safety, and legitimacy. We also generate a set of propositions to be tested in future research. As scholars increasingly discuss what civic education should look like in light of immigration and globalization, we offer grounded perspectives about the situated roles of teachers in mixed-citizenship contexts. Understanding how skilled and experienced teachers address the possibilities of inclusion despite structural exclusions opens a window into how schools can be sites that defy the formal boundaries of citizenship.

From Winning an Election to Political Engagement

The outcome of any election leads naturally to winners and losers. We explore the effect of winning (or losing) an election on future political participation. We compare the behavior of counties supporting winning gubernatorial candidates to counties supporting losing gubernatorial candidates for close gubernatorial elections from 1990 to today, using a regression discontinuity design. Winning counties experience (i) an increase in voters' participation compared to losing counties, but (ii) no significant change in the composition of votes, suggesting that (i) extends to voters of all persuasions. The effect is (iii) decreasing with the level of support to the winning party and (iv) is muted in more polarized environments, i.e., post 2000.

Pathbreakers? Women's Electoral Success and Future Political Participation

We investigate whether the event of a woman being competitively elected as a state legislator encourages the subsequent political participation of women, using a regression discontinuity design on constituency level data from India. We find that female incumbents are more likely than male incumbents to re-contest and that there is a decline in the entry of new women candidates. This decline is most pronounced in states with entrenched gender bias and in male-headed parties, suggesting an intensification of barriers against women in these areas. Similar results for (mostly male) Muslim candidates indicate the presence of institutionalized demand-side barriers rather than gender-specific preferences and constraints.

Peer Effects and Political Participation: What is the Role of Coursework Clusters?

This study addresses the role of peer civic engagement during adolescence on political participation in adulthood. We focus on novel specification based on an alternative peer group: the coursework cluster, which is constructed using an algorithm based on course taking habits. This paper explores how peers within course-taking clusters affect future political participation. The civic identities and politically oriented norms developed may be passed on through these classmates. Our results show that the influence of the peer group is from peers who perform better (have a higher grade point average) in social studies courses and from peers who participate in extracurricular activities.

Mediated and moderated effects of political communication on civic participation

ABSTRACTAustralian scholars and politicians have long been concerned about politically uninformed and inactive young Australians. However, few efforts have been made to explain how the use of traditional and online media may affect youth’s participation in politics. Our research utilises the citizen communication mediation model and extends the expected mediation chain by an additional examination of the possible interactions between news media use and political discussions, as suggested by the differential gains model. Using representative data from Australian 10th graders, we examine whether and how news media usage (newspapers, television, radio, and the Internet) affects expected participation in a range of civic and political activities conditional of discussions about political issues (with family, friends, and online). Path models account for additional mediators (civic knowledge and civic efficacy) and control variables to explain future civic and political participation. The results suggest that news media use stimulates political discussions, although different media exert differential effects. Yet, news exposure hardly influences the second mediators (civic knowledge and civic efficacy) in a direct manner. In fact, civic knowledge and efficacy mediate the relationships between political communication and participation, both directly and sequentially. Moderation analyses clarify that despite the mediating role of political discussions, news media exposure also influences (future) civic participation contingent of students’ engagement in (primarily Internet-based) discussions about political and social issues. We emphasise the significance of these results with reference to previous research, discuss potential directions for future research, and draw conclusions for civics and citizenship education.