Developing Political Efficacy Through Civic Pedagogy: School Participatory Budgeting

• In Event: Civic Identities and Democratic Education

Abstract

In this study, we explore middle school students’ self-perceived growth in political efficacy following their participation as members of a School Participatory Budgeting (SPB) steering committee. In SPB, students engage in participatory and deliberative democracy as they work together to determine how to spend a portion of the school’s budget. Steering committee members (n = 28) responded to 45 Likert-type survey items designed to measure their self-perceived growth in political efficacy. Across all survey items, we observed a large effect size (Cohen’s ​d ​= 0.88), suggesting the viability of SPB as an engaging approach to civic pedagogy, with promising prospects for the development of students’ sense of political efficacy.

Authors

• Norman Paul Gibbs, Arizona State University

• Tara Lynn Bartlett, Arizona State University - Tempe