Race and Class Diversity in Civic Beliefs across Adolescence

• In Event: 2-086 - Moral and Civic Development in Adolescence: Approaches to Interpersonal Conflicts and Societal Issues

Integrative Statement

Civic engagement is multifaceted and includes civic-related behaviors, attitudes, and skills (Zaff, Boyd, Lerner, & Lerner, 2010). Previous research has investigated youth civic beliefs as a potential mechanism for explaining longitudinal continuity between adolescent and adult civic behavior (Metzger & Smetana, 2010). Civic beliefs include judgments about whether individuals feel different forms of civic involvement are important and obligatory including voting in political elections, engaging in political protests, and community service (Oosterhoff et al. 2016). Investigating individual differences in adolescents’ civic beliefs may provide insight into different patterns of civic development. For instance, due to historical marginalization from mainstream forms of political involvement, ethnic minority youth may prioritize political activism aimed at ameliorating problems related to discrimination faced by their own communities (Sanchez-Jankowski, 2002). Civic beliefs may also vary as a function of adolescents’ level of socioeconomic status, as SES may impact youth’s opportunities to engage with different social and political institutions (Foster-Bey, 2008). The current study utilized a longitudinal sample of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse youth to explore whether adolescents’ beliefs about different forms of civic involvement were associated with adolescent race/ethnicity and prosocial moral reasoning.
Data include 5 waves taken from a longitudinal study of youth civic development. Participants were 5,573 youth ages 12-19 at baseline (M=12.18, SD=3.05) enrolled in 6th-12th grades in 18 schools from three different regions of the United States (55% female; 40% White, 35% Hispanic, 14% Black). At each wave, rated the degree to which individuals should be engaged in different forms of civic activity including volunteering, voting in political elections, keeping up with current events and politics, participating in political protests, and environmental activities (Should individuals be involved in X?, 1 = Doesn’t matter, 5 = Definitely should). Youth socioeconomic status was assessed via a measure of family financial strain.
Data were analyzed with linear growth models for each civic belief variable. Examination of the unconditional model indicated that a linear slope model provided the best fit to the data. Youth socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity were added as predictors of intercepts and linear growth parameters (Table1). Socioeconomic status was positively associated with civic beliefs intercepts for voting, keeping up with current events, and environmental activities. Compared to White youth, Hispanic and African American adolescents prioritized engagement in political protest while White youth gave greater prioritization to voting in political elections and keeping up with current events compared to Hispanic youth. In addition, compared to White adolescents, Hispanic youth demonstrated significantly steeper growth in their prioritization of voting in political elections and keeping up with current events over time.
Findings from the current study provide insights the ways in which ethnic background and socioeconomic status influence the types of civic involvement in which you believe citizens should engage. Although White youth and adolescents from higher socioeconomic backgrounds judged mainstream forms of political engagement to be more important, minority youth prioritized social movements and activism. Presentation will include a discussion of the ways in which contextual experiences influence adolescents’ views of civic obligation.

Authors

• Aaron Metzger, West Virginia University
  Presenting Author

• Lauren Alvis, West Virginia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amy Syvertsen, Search Institute
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Wray-Lake, University of California, Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author