2-124 - The Role of School Factors in the Development of Adolescents’ Civic Engagement. When and How Do These Factors Work?

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

School is considered an important social context in which adolescents develop their civic competences including their civic engagement. Until now there is however little knowledge on the relative importance of school factors for adolescents’ civic engagement, and on the conditions and processes through which these factors operate. This symposium, including three presentations that cover large scale research conducted in Germany, Turkey, Belgium, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, helps to fill this knowledge-gap.

The first presentation discusses the processes by which Czech adolescents’ civic engagement is affected by extra-curricular activities in school and aspects of the school’s pedagogical climate (e.g., openness of the school climate). Results show that pedagogical climate stimulates adolescents’ civic engagement by increasing their extra-curricular activities and their civic skills and knowledge and by changing their socio-political beliefs.

The second presentation discusses the civic engagement of ethnic diverse adolescents in Germany, Turkey, and Belgium and the way it’s affected by adolescents’ evaluation of the civic curriculum and school community (aspect of the pedagogical climate). Results show that both factors stimulate adolescents’ civic engagement by positively affecting their political interest. However, this effect is only found for adolescents with a minority status.

The third presentation discusses how Dutch adolescents’ civic engagement is affected by the school’s civic curriculum: community service combined with reflection, using a quasi-experimental design. Results show that performing community service stimulates adolescents’ civic engagement and that reflection may strengthen this effect.

The symposium’s discussant will integrate the three studies, highlighting their commonalities, differences and implications.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Anne Alice Josephus van Goethem, University of Amsterdam

Discussant

• James Youniss

Individual Presentations

• The Effect of School Environment on Adolescents’ Civic Participation Outside the School: A Multilevel Mediation Analysis - Presenting Author: Jan Serek, Masaryk University; Zuzana Scott Petrovičová, Masaryk University

• Predictors of Civic Engagement Among Ethnic Majority and Ethnic Minority Youth - Presenting Author: Philipp Jugert, Universität Leipzig; Katharina Eckstein, Friedrich Schiller Universität, Jena; Peter Noack, University of Jena

• The Role of Reflection in the Effect of School-Organized Community Service on Adolescents’ Volunteering, Identity, and Morality - Presenting Author: Anne Alice Josephus van Goethem, University of Amsterdam; Anne van Hoof, Utrecht University; Marcel van Aken, Utrecht University; Bram Orobio de Castro, Utrecht University; Quinten A.W. Raaijmakers, Research Centre Adolescent Development, Utrecht University, the Netherlands