Factors Influencing College Students’ Political Aspiration: An Analysis by Racial Group

• In Event: Interrogating the Role of Identity as a Factor in the Retention Agenda

Abstract

Civic education is crucial to effective and responsible civic and political participation of citizens, upon which successful American democratic society is built. Also, there has been more diversity in race in the student body. Thus, the problem of how different racial groups are influenced by higher education institutions merits analysis. Informed by Stage’s idea of critical quantitative research, this study utilized the 2000 Freshman Survey (TFS) and the 2004 College Senior Survey (CSS), did analysis for different racial group students, found that the general model cannot fit well for all four racial groups, and different models should be adopted for each. The findings have important implications for future effort to promote political engagement and to measure those efforts.

Author

• Shuai Li, University of California - Los Angeles