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American Politics Research

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On the Margins of Democratic Life: The Impact of Race and Ethnicity on the Political Engagement of Young People

Kim L. Fridkin, Patrick J. Kenney and Jack Crittenden

American Politics Research 2006; 34; 605

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X06289158

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http://apr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/5/605

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On the Margins

of Democratic Life

The Impact of Race and Ethnicity

American Politics Research

Volume 34 Number 5 September 2006 605-626 © 2006 Sage Publications

10.1177/1532673X06289158

http://apr.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

on the Political Engagement of Young People

Kim L. Fridkin

Patrick J. Kenney

Jack Crittenden

Arizona State University, Tempe

The authors surveyed Anglo, African American, Latino, and Native American eighth-grade students in six middle schools from one U.S. county in 2003 and 2004. The goal of the project was to compare the attitudes of young people about politics and government at an early age to determine whether differences existed before high school. The authors found that minority and Anglo children differ dramatically in their skills and information levels about politics and government. Anglo adolescents are more likely to have rudimentary information about politics and government, practice democratic skills in school and at home, and hold positive attitudes toward politics and government. Among minority students, Native Americans have the least information, fewest opportunities to practice democratic skills, and most negative attitudes toward the political system. The authors also found that children’s political experiences, captured by their ethnicity and race, affect their levels of political information and attitudes about government, after controlling for students’ family and school resources.

Keywords: political engagement; adolescence; political knowledge; participation; race and ethnic politics; political socialization

We gathered 10 eighth grade students for a 30-minute discussion about politics and civic life in the United States. The students attended an integrated public school in metropolitan Phoenix. Six were minority

Authors’ Note: The data for this article were collected with support from an Arizona State University Multi-Investigator Proposal Development Grant. An earlier version of this article was delivered at the 2004 American Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, IL.

605

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students and 4 were Anglo. Among other things, we asked them, “Will you vote when you turn 18?” Six kids answered yes enthusiastically and 4 replied no emphatically. The students who said no were all minority women; 3 were African American and 1 was Hispanic. When we pressed the young women for reasons for not voting, they replied, “We’re not interested in politics,” “Voting is not worth it,” “All of the candidates stink.” A fellow Anglo student pushed her peers, “What if one candidate was terrible and the other one was really good—would you vote then?” “No,” they replied, “not even then—voting is meaningless.”

In sharp contrast, we talked with 12 eighth grade, public school students, 6 boys and 6 girls, about the same topics—but their school was in an affluent suburb of Phoenix. Eleven of the students were Anglo, and 1 was Asian. “Will you vote when you turn 18?” we asked; all replied yes instantly and ardently. When we pressed the students for reasons for voting, they replied, “This is a democracy, and it’s important to vote,” “Voting is how our voices are heard,” “If you don’t vote you can’t have a say in what’s going on,” “Voting is the way to make important choices about who will lead the nation,” “Compared with many nations around the world, we are lucky to have the chance to vote—we want to use it.”

Although these conversations are only illustrative, the remarks of these young people reflect a permanent feature of political and civic life in the United States. Currently, the burdens and benefits of democratic participation fall disproportionately on an unrepresentative subset of Americans, those who are “well-educated and well-heeled and . . . White and male” (Verba, Schlozman, & Brady, 1995, p. 2). In fact, some of the most reliable and accurate predictors of adult civic engagement and participation are race, ethnicity, and gender (Burns, Schlozman, & Verba, 2001; Verba et al., 1995). The voice of Anglo males is far more likely to be heard across a range of measures of democratic participation than any other combination of demographic characteristics.

Nonetheless, it is startling to hear firsthand that some young people already feel that they are on the margins of democratic life. In fact, it appears that the desire to engage in politics is already forming at the tender age of 14. Prior to going to high school, prior to driving a car, and prior to holding a part-time job, young kids articulate, with conviction, a range of attitudes about politics and government in the United States. What set of forces conspire to keep young people from participating in politics? How early in life do these forces begin to take shape? Are these forces a product of the children’s school environment, home life, or experiences related to their race and ethnicity?

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Theoretical Explanations

To understand why political engagement among adolescents varies along racial and ethnic lines, it is necessary to examine adolescents’ access to resources and their political experiences. Resources are the centerpiece of theories and models of civic engagement, irrespective of whether researchers are explaining participation and engagement of adults (Nie, Junn, & Stehlik-Barry, 1996; Verba et al., 1995) or children (Jennings & Niemi, 1974; Niemi & Junn, 1998). Resources, especially education and income, are related to higher civic engagement because they produce the skills necessary to negotiate the political process (Verba et al., 1995; Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980); they generate social capital and social connectedness in communities (Puttnam, 2000); they provide citizens with a “stake in the outcome” of elections, legislative decisions, and bureaucratic regulations (Rosenstone & Hanson, 1993; Verba et al., 1995); and they yield psychological attitudes linked to engagement (e.g., civic duty; Miller & Shanks, 1995; Wolfinger & Rosenstone, 1980).

For adolescents, access to resources is determined largely by their home environment. And, in the United States, family resources, such as income and educational opportunities, vary dramatically along racial and ethnic lines (Brandolini & Smeeding, 2006). For example, data from the 2000 census shows that only 10% of Anglos live at or below the poverty line, whereas 24% of African Americans and Native Americans and 22% of Latinos live in poverty (Gutierrez, Sampson, & Cooper, 2005). Similarly, census data indicate that 26% of Anglos have a college degree, whereas only 14% of African Americans, 10% of Latinos, and 11% of Native Americans hold a college degree (Bauman & Graf, 2003).

Family resources are a fundamental element for understanding the political engagement of children. To begin, parents with higher levels of education will be more influential at transmitting requisite political skills to their children. For example, educated parents may spend more time watching the news and talking with their children about current events.

Families with higher incomes, in addition, have more political information in their homes. For example, wealthier families are more likely to subscribe to a national news magazine, have Internet access, and receive a daily newspaper. Access to these media sources is likely to increase the students’ skills at understanding politics and their exposure to political content.

Adolescents’ access to resources is also determined by the quality of their schools. And schools, because funding mechanisms are based primarily on property taxes, vary dramatically in terms of resources. In particular,

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some schools have first-class facilities, experienced teachers, and state-of- the-art technology. Other schools, in contrast, have limited space, outdated facilities, teachers with little experience or background, old textbooks, and outmoded technology. In the United States, the quality of schools covaries with race and ethnicity. For example, in a recent report from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, the authors concluded that the nation’s schools have become “balkanized” by race, ethnicity, and poverty (Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield, 2003). The non-White schools “are often schools where enormous poverty, limited resources, and social and health problems of many types are concentrated” (Frankenberg, Lee, & Orfield, 2003, p. 5).

Resource-rich schools may provide “apprenticeships” to help students develop the skills necessary for political activism. In addition, well-off school districts provide numerous opportunities for students to practice how to interface with government. In these schools, students can develop critical thinking, writing, listening, and speaking skills; students can learn to organize groups and work in teams; and students can practice those skills as they seek to identify and address political problems, large and small, within their schools and within their communities. It takes time and practice to convert these skills into political activism.

On the other hand, schools strapped for resources are less likely to dedicate time and teacher preparation to develop a curriculum that includes opportunities to practice democratic interaction. These schools lack the necessary economic resources to execute effective programs in civic education, such as educational preparedness of teachers, high-quality textbooks, and contact with the political world via the Internet, television, or personal interaction. We expect that differences in family and school resources will produce significant differences in the civic preparedness of minority and Anglo youth. In particular, we expect that minority students will have fewer opportunities at home and at school to practice democratic skills. And because minority students will be less likely to develop democratic skills (e.g., talking about politics with their parents), we expect minority youth to lag behind their Anglo counterparts with regard to their acquisition of political information.

Although we expect differences in the resources of minority and Anglo adolescents to produce ethnic and racial differences in civic preparedness, we also hypothesize that the experiences of minority children will produce political attitudes that discourage civic engagement. We know from research in electoral behavior that people’s level of trust in government, their sense of political efficacy, and their level of civic duty are strongly related to the desire and willingness to participate in politics (Conway,

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1991; Gant & Luttbeg, 1991). And we also know that these attitudes develop during the life cycle and are sharply influenced by people’s experiences with government, both directly and vicariously through families and friends (Jennings & Niemi, 1981).

In the United States, an unwillingness to participate in government covaries with race and ethnicity. These attitudes are likely to begin forming in childhood as minority children learn about the historical interactions between government and their own racial or ethnic group (Phinney, Romero, Nava, & Huang, 2001).1 More specifically, children’s attitudes about engaging in politics are developed against a background of discrimination and segregation. Minority groups in this country, such as African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans, have faced withering and sustained government-sanctioned discrimination well into the 20th century. Decades of discriminatory practices by all levels of government, but especially by state and local governments, have been leveled against these three groups. Legislation and regulatory actions have for decades systematically segregated these groups from the Anglo population in the areas of housing (Montejano, 1987; Myrdal, 1964), schools (Meier & Stewart, 1991), and politics (J. A. Garcia, 2003; Key, 1949; Litwak, 1998).2

In the arena of political participation, especially voting, minorities have been routinely disenfranchised by English literacy tests, White primaries, poll taxes, and intimidation and violence (Crow, 1971; de la Garza, 1979; Schockley, 1974). Although government-sanctioned segregation and the political banishment of African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans ended between the 1950s and 1980s, the legacy of these practices lives on in the beliefs and behaviors of members of these groups. The intensity and enduring nature of this kind of deprivation breeds mistrust in and alienation from all levels of government, and these feelings are passed down across generations (Rosenstone & Hanson, 1993; Verba et al., 1995).3

Adolescent minorities are far less sanguine about government than are their Anglo counterparts (Abramson, 1977; Baldi et al., 2001; Gimpel, Lay, & Schuknecht, 2003; Niemi & Chapman, 1998; Lake, Snell, Perry, & Associates, 2002).4 The parents of these minority children continue to harbor feelings of ill will toward government, and parents are likely to pass these views to their children (e.g., the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina). Also, the retrenchment of several government programs (e.g., affirmative action and bilingual education) serving the interests of minority youth may sour the minority children’s views of government.5 Given differences in the political experiences of minority and Anglo youth, we

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expect African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans to have more negative views of the political system.

In summary, given ethnic and racial differences in resources and experiences, we offer the following hypotheses. First, differences in school and home resources will lead minority youth to have fewer opportunities to develop and practice democratic skills, especially compared with Anglo youth. For example, these students will be less likely to talk with their parents about politics, and they will also have fewer opportunities to develop skills at schools, such as giving a speech. Second, differences in access to resources will produce racial and ethnic differences in political knowledge, with Latino, African American, and Native American students demonstrating lower levels of political information, compared with their Anglo counterparts. Finally, ethnic and racial differences in political experiences will lead minority youth to be less attached to the political system. For example, they will exhibit lower levels of trust in government, civic duty, and political efficacy, and they will be less attached to the major political parties, compared with Anglo youth.

To test these hypotheses, we examined 14-year-old adolescents from four racial and ethnic groups, Anglos, Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans. To date, ours is the first examination of these four groups simultaneously as young people cross the threshold to high school. We turn now to a discussion of our design.

Design

We interviewed Anglo, African American, Latino, and Native American eighth grade students in 2003 and 2004. We interviewed children in six middle schools in Maricopa County, Arizona: one was predominantly middle-class Anglos (72% Anglo), one was predominantly working-class Anglos (71% Anglo), one was predominantly Hispanic (85% Hispanic), one was predominantly African American (75% African American), one was exclusively Native American (100% Native American), and one was integrated (41% Anglo, 27% Hispanic, 7% African American, 22% Native American). The schools were selected by stratifying by race, ethnicity, and resources and drawing one school randomly from each stratum.6

We examined eighth graders for several reasons. First, our survey of the population of middle schools in Maricopa County shows that the vast majority of middle schools require civics courses in eighth grade.7 Therefore, by interviewing students near the end of the eighth grade, we

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were measuring students when they have nearly completed their first formal course in civics. Second, in eighth grade, students’ views about politics are still developing, with few students having crystallized attitudes about politics (e.g., Sears & Valentino, 1997; Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2003; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001; Valentino & Sears, 1998). In addition, eighth grade students are discovering their identities and are beginning to understand their roles in their communities (Tolo, 1998).

Maricopa County is an appropriate setting for our study for several reasons. First, Maricopa County is a large metropolitan area (population approximately 3.5 million). Second, on several important dimensions, the demographic characteristics of Maricopa County mirror the demographics of the nation. For example, 75% of the population of the United States is Anglo, and 66% of the population of Maricopa County is Anglo; the mean per capita income for U.S. residents is $21,587, whereas the mean per capita income for Maricopa County is $22,251; the percentage of high school graduates is 80% for the United States and 82% for Maricopa County; 18% of people in the United States and 26% of Maricopa County residents speak a language other than English in their homes; and 14% of the United States and 12% of the population of Maricopa County live below the poverty level.

In addition, Maricopa County has a large number of minorities, especially Hispanics and Native Americans, allowing us to examine several ethnic groups simultaneously. Of the population of Maricopa County, 25% is Hispanic, making Maricopa County one of the largest population centers for Hispanic citizens. In addition, Maricopa County has the second largest number of Native Americans (75,900) in the country.8

In drawing our sample, we made efforts to ensure variance on our key independent and dependent variables. Our main challenge was to try to untangle the impact of race and ethnicity from resources. In Maricopa County, as in the United States more generally, race and ethnicity are strongly correlated with economic resources. The vast majority of Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans live in the poorest neighborhoods and attend the most disadvantaged schools. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to control for resources among the minority students without drawing very large samples (i.e., in the tens of thousands).9 We can, however, capture some variance by sampling Anglo students from both working-class schools and from affluent schools. Thus, we can compare working-class Anglos to middle-class Anglos to see whether these groups of students differ in their political skills and political information. And by comparing these two groups of Anglos with Hispanics, African Americans, and Native

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Americans from poor backgrounds, we can begin to investigate how experiences and resources influence minority and Anglo students’ acquisition of rudimentary information, their opportunities to practice democratic skills, and their attachment to the political system.10

Students filled out in-class questionnaires that inquired about their information on politics and government, their psychological attachment to politics, their school activities related to politics, their views on current affairs and contemporary political figures, and their demographic characteristics.11 Questionnaires were presented in English and Spanish during a class period. We received completed questionnaires from 439 middle school students.

The in-class survey has distinct advantages over a telephone survey. First, it is much more efficient to have a class of 25 to 35 students complete the questionnaire during a single class period than to try to track and complete telephone interviews with individual students. Second, students of different ethnic and racial backgrounds differ in their likelihood of having telephone service in their homes. Therefore, we would underrepresent minority groups relying solely on telephone interviews.12

To increase student participation in our pilot, we offered students an incentive to participate. Students who completed questionnaires received a $5.00 movie pass. This incentive, according to each of the teachers helping with our study, was an effective inducement for participation. Overall, completion of the survey with the inducement ranged from 75% to 90%.13

As expected, we found that schools with large minority populations tended to have the poorest student body. In each of the minority schools, more than half of the students participated in the federal school lunch program. In the middle-class Anglo school, only 12% of the students participated in this federal program, whereas three times as many students (36%) participated in the school lunch program at the working-class Anglo school.

The schools with large minority populations also had fewer resources. For example, teachers in the minority schools had less experience and less education than did teachers in the Anglo schools. In the schools with large minority populations, no school had more than 40% of the teachers with a master’s degree. However, in the middle-class school with a predominantly Anglo population, 50% of the teachers had at least a master’s degree, and in the Anglo working-class school, 60% of the teachers had at least a master’s degree.

The students’ academic skills, as measured by the students’ performance on standardized tests, also varied by race, ethnicity, and income. In the

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poorest schools, reading and language skills were below grade level. For example, in the middle school with the large Hispanic population, eighth graders scored at the 34th percentile for reading (i.e., 66% of the students in the country scored higher than these students on this standardized test). At the school with the large African American population, students scored at the 23rd percentile in reading, and in the Native American school, students scored at the 27th percentile in reading. By comparison, students did much better in the two predominantly Anglo schools. In the school with a large Anglo working-class population, students scored at the 65th percentile in reading, and in the school with predominantly middle-class Anglo students, students scored somewhat higher, reaching the 72nd percentile in reading.

Results

We hypothesized that students’ access to resources will influence their opportunities to practice democratic activities in school and at home. To test this hypothesis, we asked students whether they had opportunities in school to give speeches or to try to persuade others of their views.14 In addition, we asked students about their participation in “instrumental” school activities (e.g., working on their school newspaper, participating on the debate team, working on the school yearbook) because these activities are related to future political involvement (Glanville, 1999).15 Based on these three indicators, we developed an index of school skills, ranging from 0 to 3.

To measure the practice of democratic activities at home, we asked students how often they talked with their parents about politics because political discussion is an important political skill (Hahn, 1998).16 We also asked students how often they read the newspaper and watched local and national news.17

In Table 1, we present the relationship between the practice of democratic skills for minority and Anglo youth. Anglos from middle-class families have the greatest opportunity to develop democratic skills in school. The differences in school skills among the middle-class Anglos and Latino, African American, and Native American youth are statistically significant.18

Similarly, working-class Anglos are given more opportunities to give a speech, persuade others, and participate in instrumental activities, compared with African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos.19 Finally, among the minority students, Native Americans lag behind their Latino and African American counterparts, with Native American students having significantly fewer opportunities in school to develop civic skills.20

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