Diverse Students’ Perceived Sense of Individual Agency to Effect Social Change

• In Event: Critical Approaches to Civic Education: International Perspectives

Abstract

Background: Existing literature has often demonstrated a positive association between students’ participation in community involvement learning activities and their development of personal agency. For example, Astin et al. (2000) found that students’ participation in some form of community involvement activity was positively associated with their self-efficacy and self-rated leadership ability. Such data suggest that students who complete community involvement may have the opportunity to develop a strong sense that they can effect change within certain spheres of their control.

However, because existing research on community involvement activities tends to highlight the experiences of middle to upper class students (who are typically more involved in community involvement activities), little is known about low-income students’ community involvement endeavours and perceived sense of personal agency in relation to these activities.

Purpose: This study examined economically diverse students' experiences completing Ontario's 40-hour community involvement requirement, a mandated graduation prerequisite for secondary students across the province. I sought to describe how diverse participants interpreted their experiences completing this requirement, particularly in relation to their perceived ability to ‘make a difference’ in their local and global communities.

Methods: This study employed a mixed methods approach of quantitative surveys and qualitative focus groups among a sample of 50 current and recently graduated secondary school students of either high or low socio-economic status. To locate my sample, I targeted independent (private) secondary schools, alternative secondary schools in priority neighbourhoods, and youth-oriented community organizations, whose catchment populations included the disparate socioeconomic demographics of interest. Through focus groups and surveys, I sought to describe how these diverse participants interpreted their experiences completing Ontario’s community involvement requirement.

Results: This study found that high- and low-income participants spoke differently about their personal sense of agency. In particular, participants’ presumed ability to bring about small-scale change was often tied to their lack (or abundance) of personal financial resources. Generally, high-income participants expressed feeling a strong resolve that they could ‘make a difference’ in the world, and spoke about feeling obligated to do so as a consequence of their fortunate status. In contrast, low-income participants did not appear to identify themselves as empowered social actors, capable of having a positive influence on their communities or wider society. Low-income participants did not often articulate a sense of indebtedness to the community, and spoke about being guided by the priority of income-generating work in order to meet their own basic needs, thereby limiting their available time for uncompensated activities.

Significance: Even in mandated, school-based community involvement programs, where all students are required to complete an equal number of community involvement hours in order to graduate, diverse students’ resulting experiences or perceived benefits may not be similar. Despite having had participated in the ‘same’ community involvement requirement, there was a strong dichotomy between the ways in which high- and low-income participants viewed their abilities to ‘make a difference.’ This finding challenges the assumption that all students in Ontario have equal access to the citizenship education learning opportunities embedded in mandated community involvement activities.

Author

• Kaylan C. Schwarz, University of Toronto