A Typology of Youth Civic Engagement in Urban Middle Schools

Abstract

Youth civic engagement occupies a central space in applied developmental science. However, understanding of the processes and contexts in which early adolescents become civically engaged is still limited. This study draws on a sample of approximately 4,000 students from 11 urban middle schools in Tennessee to address several gaps in the civic engagement literature. First, we use latent class analysis to identify types of civic engagement in early adolescence. Second, we explore associations between types of engagement and youth behavioral and academic outcomes. Third, we focus on urban youth. A latent class analysis using survey items suggests a three-class structure for civic engagement in urban middle schools. One distinction is between students who are engaged and those who are not. Another distinction is that, among the engaged groups, one is engaged both behaviorally and attitudinally (social justice actors), whereas another has strong civic attitudes but infrequent civic behaviors (social justice sympathizers).

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Sonya Sterba, Maury Nation, Marybeth Shinn, and Paul Speer of Vanderbilt University for their methodological and substantive insights.

Notes

Note. With the exception of age (which is a mean) the figures are percentages.

Note. Percentages are rounded, thus sums across item response options may not equal 100%. ^R = Item is reverse-coded; 0 = “Zero times”, 1–2 = “One or two times”; 3–5 = “Three to five times”; 6 + = “Six or more times”; NI = “Not important”; SI = “Slightly important”; I = “Important”; VI = “Very important”; SD = “Strongly disagree”; D = “Disagree”; A = “Agree”; SA = “Strongly agree.”.

Note. LMR LRT = Lo Mendall Rubin likelihood ratio test; AIC = Akaike Information Criterion; BIC = Bayesian Information Criterion.

^a Model with the specified number of classes represents a statistically significant better fit compared to a model with one fewer class.

Note. “Actors” is the reference category. OR = Odds ratio; SE = Standard error.

#*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

¹Results in log-odds units were exponentiated into odds-ratios units for interpretation.

Note. Models include the control variables Asian, Black, Latino/a, other race, male, FRPL, SPED, ELL, and grade.

#*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

²Given that afterschool program participation is not included in some definitions of civic engagement (e.g., Levine, 2007), we conducted sensitivity analyses in which we reran each of our models with the afterschool participation item removed. There were no substantive differences across any of the three phases of analyses: a three-class model was still preferred that had substantively similar structure; demographic differences were maintained; and differences between civic groups in terms in terms of math and reading test scores, attendance, and discipline referrals were nearly identical.