Developing Empowered Citizens: How Universities Help Build Efficacy

• In Event: Leaning into Politics: Educating for Democracy in a Tough Political Climate

Abstract

For many students who start college directly after completing high school, a college education overlaps the period in which they move from being ineligible to vote in elections due to their age to having the chance to vote in their first presidential election. Yet, reaching the age of enfranchisement does not guarantee that young people feel empowered to participate, nor that they see the importance of voting in a democracy. While a university education has the potential to help students see themselves as political actors equipped to participate in democracy, enrollment in college alone is unlikely to guarantee the development of a sense of political efficacy. Using data from surveys of students at a public midwestern university in presidential election years, we test whether several actions civic-minded universities commonly engage in to promote election-related engagement are in fact associated with heightened levels of political efficacy. We consider the impact of activities that students have a significant amount of choice over whether they engage in - such as taking a class on government or politics or attending a nonpartisan election related event on campus -- as well as others that are less dependent on individual choice - such as having discussions in classes (regardless of field) about the election or having been encouraged by anyone to vote. We also explore these activities' impact on a range of measures of efficacy such as strength of agreement with statements like “I consider myself well-qualified to participate in politics” and strength of disagreement with statements like “My vote doesn’t matter” and “Sometimes politics and government seem so complicated that a person like me can't really understand what's going on.” To test whether university activities build efficacy, we employ matching analysis, which allows us to isolate the effects of these activities on efficacy while matching on the basis of other factors known to shape internal and external efficacy. The results help universities just beginning to focus on their civic mission identify simple yet effective actions they can take to help promote engaged citizens, and give institutions whose efforts are more developed, but also facing heightened scrutiny, concrete evidence of the value of these actions.

Authors

• Laurie L. Rice, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

• Ken Moffett, Independent researcher