Political participation and social engagement at girls’ and coeducational high schools: a comparative study

ABSTRACT

Using multi-level modeling and lenses of gender socialization and gendered organizations, we investigated the role of U.S. girls’ high schools in adolescent political participation and social engagement, characterized by voting interest, volunteerism, and interactions with diverse communities among other variables, with a focus on the role of all girls’ schooling. Results demonstrate benefits for graduates of girls’ schools in community-orientation, civic engagement, social agency, and political involvement compared to similar peers in coeducational environments. The conclusions provide broader insight for all types of schooling into the ways that they can focus on increasing engagement for their students. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• girls’ high schools
• political involvement
• youth political participation
• social engagement
• civic engagement
• multi-level modeling

Acknowledgements

Initial funding for this research was provided by the National Coalition for Girls’ Schools but did not influence the results of the study. The authors thank the Interdisciplinary Writing Group in the UMKC School of Education and Dr. R.P.s doctoral candidates for their feedback on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While the Freshman Survey data include students who attended public high schools as well as private, CIRP was unable to provide us with school gender data disaggregated among the public school sample. Thus, the sample is limited to students attending private schools.

2 This methodological approach for variable selection and analytical approach followed that of Sax et al. (2009) as the larger study for these data was initially commissioned as a follow-up to their investigation. However, the data for the Sax et al. project were not available to be compared (due to a data storage malfunction). Nonetheless, we retained the method of analysis so that the results would be comparable at face value since the two studies use similar datasets and constructs. Please contact the first author for more information.

3 Of note, Jackson (2010) makes important points in an older but still relevant article wherein the author argues that single gender schools could reify preexisting gender norms (in contrast to the gendered organization theory lens). Jackson's article has relevance in the author's suggestion that single gender schools and classrooms could reinforce a binary gender distinctions and socialized gender norms rather than combat them.

4 We investigated the data in our study to see if there were any interaction effects of race and gender present and found no significant effects. These analyses were not included in the present paper. Future research may find that with larger samples scholars might gain more insight.