Turning Civic Education into Engagement: Evaluating the Efficacy of the Democracy USA Project

Abstract

The Democracy USA (DUSA) Project was an interdisciplinary experiential-learning project designed to engage students and faculty in the 2012 elections. It was launched in response to the U.S. Department of Education’s national call to action (A Crucible Moment) on civic engagement and democratic education. The project had five key components: affiliated coursework, a colloquium series, extracurricular activities, The American Dream Project, and collecting public opinion data. This article presents an analysis of pre- and posttest data collected from over 500 students at a midsize southern liberal arts college during the Fall 2012 semester. The findings underscore the importance of varied approaches and interdisciplinary collaborations to engage students in the democratic process. We find that students enrolled in DUSA classes demonstrated little change in their civic engagement. However, those who participated in cocurricular programming, extracurricular activities, or learned about the program during the semester exhibited changes in both their political skills and willingness to participate in politics.

Keywords:

• American government
• civic education
• civic engagement
• elections
• experiential learning

Notes

Consistent with Zaller (1992) and Stimson (2004), we also entertained the possibility that the relationship between political interest and civic engagement followed a curvilinear effect, with students in the middle of the interest scale exhibiting the greatest levels of change in willingness to participate in politics as a result of the DUSA program. Our analyses found no support for such an effect.

The students in this survey, who attend a midsize southern liberal arts college, may not be representative of a national sample of college students. These students are more white, wealthier, and more likely to have attended private secondary schools than the average American college student.