Young people's intended civic and political participation: does education matter?

Abstract

Citizenship education was introduced as a statutory subject in England in September 2002 with the aim of promoting civic and political engagement. However, whilst education is undoubtedly a powerful socialisation force, it is not the only factor that is likely to influence young people's civic and political participation. Political science theories regarding adult participation highlight the role of variables such as socio-economic background, political efficacy, individuals’ assessments of the costs and benefits of participation and interest in politics. The questions therefore arise as to how much citizenship education can influence young people's participation above and beyond these other factors and whether this is more likely if a school adopts a particular approach to the subject's delivery. To answer these questions, this paper draws on data from the nine-year Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS), and more particularly from its 2004–05 survey of 13,646 English students aged 13–14. Structural equation modelling is used to examine students’ intentions to participate and ascertain the relative contribution that education and other factors make to young people's intentions to participate.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• politics
• schooling

Notes

1. CELS is being undertaken by the National Foundation for Educational Research and is funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, England (formerly Department for Education and Skills).

2. Further details of these factors can be found in the technical appendix at the end of this article (Appendix 1).

3. Dichotomous variables such as true/false questions are handled using a special form of latent variable analysis called Item Response Theory (see Hambleton et al. 1991).