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Table 1

Practice of Democratic Skills by Race, Ethnicity, and Income

	Middle-Class	Working-Class	African		Native
	Anglos	Anglos	Americans	Latinos	Americans
School
School skills	2.0	1.7	1.3	1.5	0.8
Home
Talk politics with	2.2	1.7	1.8	1.9	1.7
parents
Watching news	7.6	5.8	5.2	6.9	5.2
n	44	122	37	125	58

Note: We rely on a one-way ANOVA to calculate the statistical difference among the five groups of students for each of the variables in Table 1. In each case, the difference across the groups is statistically significant at p < .05. p values are based on two-tailed tests. For each dependent measure, a low score indicates less practice of democratic skills, whereas a high score indicates greater practice of democratic skills. See Notes 14 to 17 for the exact question wording.

Turning to students’ practice of democratic skills at home, we find that middle-class Anglos talk with their parents about politics more often and pay more attention to the news than do minority students.21 Comparing the working-class Anglos and the minority students, we find very similar levels of political discussion with parents. However, Latinos pay significantly more attention to the news than do working-class Anglos, Native Americans, or African American students.22

Turning to our second hypothesis, we expect minority students to have lower levels of political knowledge, compared with Anglo students, because they are more likely to come from economically disadvantaged homes and schools. To measure political information, we asked students about their understanding of the key concepts in the Bill of Rights with a three-item index.23 We also measured students’ factual knowledge of politics by asking students seven specific questions about the workings of the U.S. government.24

The pattern of findings displayed in Table 2 is consistent with our hypothesis. As the data suggest, Anglos score significantly higher than minority students on the knowledge index and the Bill of Rights index.25 More specifically, the knowledge and Bill of Rights scores of African Americans and Native Americans are significantly lower than are the scores for Anglo students.26 Latinos score lower than their Anglo counterparts.

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Fridkin et al. / Political Engagement of Young People 615

Table 2

Information About Politics and Government by

Race, Ethnicity, and Income

	Middle-Class	Working-Class	African		Native
	Anglos	Anglos	Americans	Latinos	Americans
Knowledge	2.36	2.23	1.70	1.98	1.19
Bill of Rights	9.07	8.97	7.93	8.31	8.09
n	44	122	37	125	58

Note: We rely on a one-way ANOVA to calculate the statistical difference among the five groups of students for each of the variables in Table 2. In each case, the difference across the groups is statistically significant at p < .05. p values are based on two-tailed tests. For each dependent measure, a low score indicates less information, and a high score indicates more information. See Notes 23 and 24 for the exact question wording.

However, these differences fail to consistently reach statistical significance. Finally, Native Americans receive the lowest score on each of the measures in Table 2.

These data suggest that as early as the eighth grade, students from different backgrounds already differ in their practice of democratic skills and in their possession of the rudimentary information vital for future political involvement.

Turning to our third hypothesis, we expected minority students to have lower levels of political efficacy, political trust, civic duty, and partisan attachment, compared with Anglos.27 To tap these attitudes, we relied on standard measures established in the political science literature.28 In Table 3, we present findings consistent with our hypothesis for minority and Anglo students. We find that Anglos are more trusting and more efficacious and have a greater sense of civic duty than do minority students.29 Native American students are the least trusting and least efficacious and have the lowest levels of civic duty. Students also differ in their attachment to the major political parties, with middle-class Anglos being the most attached and Native Americans being far less attached to the political parties.30

The results presented thus far suggest that minority youth lag behind Anglos in terms of their opportunities to practice democratic skills and their understanding of politics. Furthermore, minority students hold more negative attitudes about politics and are less attached to the political system. Among minority students, Native Americans have the fewest opportunities to develop civic skills, are the least politically knowledgeable,

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616 American Politics Research

Table 3

Differences in Political Attachment by Race, Ethnicity, and Income

	Middle-Class	Working-Class	African		Native
	Anglos	Anglos	Americans	Latinos	Americans
Political trust	3.00	2.79	2.46	2 46	2.30
Political efficacy	6.16	6.19	5.78	6.10	5.00
Citizen duty	12.32	11.53	10.67	10.88	8.03
Partisan attachment	2.64	1.68	1.73	1.24	0.48
n	44	122	37	125	58

Note: We rely on a one-way ANOVA to calculate the statistical difference among the five groups of students for each of the variables in Table 3. In each case, the differences across the groups is statistically significant (p < .05). p values are based on two-tailed tests. Higher scores on each of the dependent variables indicate greater attachment to the political system (e.g., higher trust). See Note 28 for the exact question wording.

and are far less attached to the political system. Latinos, compared with African Americans and Native Americans, pay more attention to the news and are more knowledgeable about politics. And African Americans are more attached to the political parties than are Latinos or Native Americans.

In the final analysis, we try to explore how family and school resources and personal experiences influence students’ understanding about politics and their political attachment. For this analysis, we develop six ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models where we explain the variance in young people’s understanding of the Bill of Rights, their knowledge of basic facts about politics, their feelings of trust, efficacy, and civic duty, and their attachment to one of the political parties.

To assess the impact of family resources on the dependent variables, we included the measures of political discussion with parents and the attention to the news. We included a third variable as a proxy for family income: the percentage of students who qualify for the federal school lunch program in the student’s school.31 To measure the impact of school resources, we included the school skills variable introduced earlier. In addition, we also included an aggregate variable measuring the percentage of teachers with greater than 10 years of experience in the student’s school.32 To capture racial and ethnic experiences, we employ a series of binary variables representing the four ethnic and racial groups in our sample: Anglos, Native Americans, Latinos, and African Americans.33

The results in Table 4 reveal that family resources, school resources, and race and ethnicity all influence knowledge about politics and views about

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Fridkin et al. / Political Engagement of Young People 617

politics and government.34 We begin with the first two OLS regressions predicting knowledge of the Bill of Rights and general political knowledge. We find that family resources are important for understanding students’ knowledge about politics and government. In particular, students who talk with their parents about politics and pay attention to the news score significantly higher on both of the knowledge indices. Similarly, school resources influence knowledge scores, with students who have more opportunities to practice democratic skills receiving significantly higher knowledge scores. Also, teacher experience influences students’ scores on the Bill of Rights index.

In addition, controlling for family and school resources, race, and ethnicity continue to influence students’ level of understanding about politics. Anglos, for example, are significantly more knowledgeable about the Bill of Rights, compared with Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans. Also, Native Americans score significantly lower than do all the other students on both of the knowledge indices.

Turning to attitudes toward politics and government, family resources once again play an important role. For example, students who talk with their parents about politics are significantly more trustful, more efficacious, and more attached to a political party and have a greater sense of civic duty. Similarly, students who follow the news are more efficacious and trustful and have a greater sense of civic duty. School resources are consequential, too, for predicting students’ affect toward politics and government. Students who have more opportunities to practice democratic skills are significantly more likely than are other students to score higher on each of the four attitudinal measures. In addition, students in schools with more experienced teachers hold more positive attitudes about politics. In particular, the coefficient for teacher experience reaches statistical significance in three of the four models.

Finally, race and ethnicity significantly influence students’ views about politics, after controlling for family and school resources. For instance, Anglos are more trusting, more efficacious, and more attached to the major political parties, when compared with Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans. In contrast, Native Americans, when compared with the other minority students, are significantly less likely to be attached to the Democratic and Republican parties. Finally, and somewhat anomalously, Latinos and especially African Americans score higher than do other students on the civic duty scale.

In summary, Anglos are on the path to participation in the political world, whereas their minority counterparts lag behind. And the gap between Anglo

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618

Table 4

Ordinary Least Squares Regression Estimating the Impact of Race and Ethnicity, Family and School Resources on Political Information and Political Attitudes

	Political Information			Political Attitudes
	Bill of	Political	Political	Political	Civic	Partisan
	Rights	Knowledge	Trust	Efficacy	Duty	Attachment
Constant	4.7(0.66)**	0.38(0.37)	1.4(0.25)**	3.6(0.54)**	6.1(0.88)**	1.5(0.38)**
Native	–1.0(0.42)**	–0.41(0.24)**	–0.17(0.16)	–0.33(0.35)	–0.70(0.57)	–0.92(0.25)**
Latino	0.12(0.30)	–0.08(0.17)	–0.06(0.12)	0.16(0.25)	0.63(0.41)*	–0.27(0.17)
African American	–0.25(0.47)	–0.15(0.26)	–0.02(0.17)	0.17(0.38)	1.20(0.62)**	0.16(0.27)
Family resources
Talk to parents	0.45(0.14)**	0.30(0.08)**	0.21(0.05)**	0.56(0.11)**	0.57(0.18)**	0.31(0.08)**
Watching news	0.06(0.02)**	0.06(0.01)**	0.02(0.01)**	0.06(0.02)**	0.11(0.03)**	0.01(0.01)
School lunch	–0.79(0.63)	–0.18(35)	–0.28(0.24)	–0.23(0.52)	–1.23(0.85)	–1.43(0.36)**
School resources
Teacher experience	1.64(0.82)*	0.53(0.46)	0.71(0.31)**	1.20(0.67)*	4.18(1.07)**	–0.67(0.47)
Practice democratic	0.38(0.14)**	0.28(0.08)**	0.12(0.05)**	0.24(0.12)**	0.72(0.19)**	0.24(0.08)**

	skills
N	436	436	436	436	436	436
R2	.16.	19	.13	.15	.21	.20

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Fridkin et al. / Political Engagement of Young People 619

and minority students on the precursors of participation is surprisingly wide at the tender age of 14. Perhaps most notably, Native Americans, compared with all the other students, score disturbingly low on measures related to the likelihood of embracing a civic life.

Conclusion

Children as early as the eighth grade are on a trajectory to either participate in the American political system or to sit on the sidelines of democratic life. This article, with modest data, has identified several patterns regarding the political awareness and political affect of young people. First, the key theoretical underpinnings to civic engagement (i.e., the presence of rudimentary information, the opportunity to practice democratic skills, positive attitudes toward government) covary by race, ethnicity, and resources.

Second, the characteristics of home and the opportunities available at school shape children’s attitudes toward government and politics. For example, when parents talk to children about politics, children are more likely to have positive views of government and are more likely to hold information about government. Also, parents, schools, and teachers, by offering kids opportunities to watch the news and practice democratic skills, can shape what children believe about government. This is encouraging news for the thousands of teachers working to imbue children with a sense of political engagement and ownership.

Third, the power of children’s experiences, as represented by the crude measures of ethnicity and race, appears to be related to several measures of engagement, even in the face of controls for family and school resources. Although far from definitive, these results suggest that it would be worthwhile to probe students and parents about the content of their discussions concerning how the government treats minorities. It would be interesting to ask about discussions centering on the interactions of government and minorities both across history and today.

Our findings, although intriguing, are preliminary. Therefore, we hope this study encourages scholars to think about the utility of large-scale panel studies with several thousand students. With large-scale panel studies, it may be possible to fully disentangle the influence of race, ethnicity, and resources. Such studies may also help us trace the dynamic process that unfolds as young people begin to acquire attitudes about government, politics, citizenship, and democracy until the time when these attitudes begin to crystallize. Simultaneously, it would be advantageous to interview the

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620 American Politics Research

parents of the students each time the children are contacted. This design would thereby allow scholars to examine two distinct generational cohorts moving through time.

An important goal for democratic theorists and practitioners is to broaden civic participation across all elements of U.S. society. There are numerous approaches to achieve this goal. We believe that basic research can yield information that will be useful to policy makers designing and implementing programs to heighten civic engagement.

Notes

1.Children’s impressions of the political world are seen via the lens of “ethnic identity.” Young people develop ethnic identities in stages beginning in the early teenage and middle school years and finishing in the college years and mid-20s (Cross, 1978; Phinney, 1989).

2.“As recently as the eve of World War II, segregation was a formidable solution to the ‘Negro problem’ in the South and the ‘Mexican problem’ in the Southwest” (Montejano, 1987, p. 259). And, congressional legislation and treaties between the United States and various tribes established reservations and separate educational facilities to solve “Indian problem” decades earlier (Vine & Wilkens, 1999).

3.Researchers have shown that discrimination, especially government-initiated prejudice, is psychologically damaging for children and adolescents (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Rumbaut, 1996; Sanchez & Fernandez, 1993).

4.Previous scholars have examined how religion, family values, and culture influence minority citizens’, especially immigrants’, views about politics (e.g., Anderson & Evans, 1976; F. C. Garcia, 1973; Lamare, 1982; Schwartz, 1971; Skerry, 1989). The examination of these types of factors, although certainly important when studying the political participation of young people, is beyond the scope of this study.

5.A recent report by the Center for Information and Research in Civic Learning and Engagement indicates that turnout by young minority citizens (ages 18-24 and 18-29) increased in the 2004 presidential elections (Lopez, 2005). In fact, data from 2004 indicate that turnout, across all age cohorts, increased in comparison to recent presidential elections. Turnout in 2004, 55.3% of the voting age population, was the highest turnout in a presidential election dating back to the 1968 election. Most likely, the increase in turnout in 2004 was because of, at least in part, intense “get out the vote campaigns” by political parties and interest groups (Gerber & Green, 2000; Green, Gerber, & Nickerson, 2002).

6.The strata were: (a) middle-class Anglo school, (b) working-class Anglo school,

(c) Hispanic school, (d) African American school, and (e) Native American school.

7.This is true nationally as well, with most U.S. schools starting “citizenship training” in eighth grade (Niemi & Hepburn, 1995). All of the students, with the exception of one class, had taken a civics course.

8.Of course, our sample of students is not a representative sample of the nation, and, therefore, one needs to be cautious when drawing generalizations from our study.

9.See, for example, Nie, Junn, and Stehlik-Barry (1996) and Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995).

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Fridkin et al. / Political Engagement of Young People 621

10.We realize that the task of untangling race and ethnicity from resources is even more difficult because race, ethnicity, and resources are intimately interconnected in our society. In other words, it is not enough to simply control for one of these factors while isolating the impact of another. Indeed, resources, race, and ethnicity may jointly (or conditionally) influence children’s understanding of politics.

11.All of the survey items were borrowed from the National Election Study, the General Social Science Study, or the IEA Civic Education Study, a comparative survey instrument conducted in 29 countries.

12.According to the 2000 census, Anglos are eight times as likely as Native Americans to have household telephone service, Anglos are almost six times as likely as Hispanics to have telephone service, and Anglos are three times as likely as African Americans to have telephone service in their homes.

13.The use of incentives is a common technique used to increase survey participation. Research has shown that both monetary and nonmonetary incentives can increase response rates significantly, without biasing the content of the responses (e.g., Brennan, Hoek, & Astridge, 1991; Church, 1993; Mizes, Fleece, & Roos, 1984). The use of incentives is not considered unethical as long as the amount of payment and the proposed method and timing of the disbursement is not coercive (http://humansubjects.asu.edu/).

14.The following are the exact question wordings: “During the school year, have you done any of the following things in any class at school? Give a speech or an oral report? Taken part in a debate or discussion in which you had to persuade others about your point of view?”

15.To assess students’ participation in school-related activities, we asked students to “circle any school activities that you have participated in during the current school year.” We provided a list of more than 18 activities, including “instrumental” activities and “expressive” activities, based on Glanville’s (1999) distinction. Instrumental activities include participating in programs such as Model UN or working on the student council, whereas expressive activities include school sports programs, cheerleading, and school band. If a student indicated participation in an instrumental activity, the student received a score of 1; if the student did not indicate participation in an instrument activity, the student received a 0.

16.The exact question wording is, “Thinking about the current school year, how often do you usually talk about politics or national issues with your parents? Would you say at least once a week, at least once a month, or hardly ever?”

17.The news index included the following three items: “How many days in the past week did you watch the national news? How many days in the past week did you watch the local news on television? How many days in the past week did you read a daily newspaper?”

18.These differences between middle-class Anglos and each of the minority youth groups (i.e., Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans) are statistically significant at p < .05.

The difference between middle-class Anglos and working-class Anglos is statistically significant at p < .10.

19.These differences between working-class Anglos and each of the minority youth groups (i.e., Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans) are statistically significant at p < .05.

20.The differences between Native American students and Latinos and African Americans are statistically significant at p < .01. The difference between Latinos and African

Americans is not statistically significant.

21.The difference between middle-class Anglos and each of the other groups of students is statistically significant at p < .10 for talking with their parents about politics. The difference

between middle-class Anglos and working-class Anglos, African Americans, and Native

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622 American Politics Research

Americans is statistically significant at p < .10 for paying attention to the news. The difference in attention to news between middle-class Anglos and Latinos is not statistically significant.

22.The difference between Latinos and each of the other groups (i.e., working-class Anglos, African Americans, and Native Americans) is statistically significant at p < .10.

23.The three questions included in the index are: “Do you think it is good or bad for a democracy when one company owns all the newspapers?”; “Do you think it is good or bad for a democracy when everyone has a right to express their opinions freely?”; “Do you think it is good or bad for a democracy when there exists a separation between church and state?” Students were given the following response categories: very good, good, bad, or very bad.

24.The following are the knowledge index items, with each item presented in a multiple choice format: (a) “Whose responsibility is it to nominate judges to the U.S. Supreme Court? Is it the job of the President, Congress, or the Governor?”; (b) “Do you happen to know which party has the most members in the House of Representatives in Washington?”; (c) “Do you happen to know which party has the most members in the U.S. Senate?”; (d) “Which of the two major parties is more conservative at the national level?”; (e) “Who is primarily responsible for carrying out United States foreign policy?”; (f) “In the United States, what do labor unions, civil rights groups, business associations, and environmental organizations all have in common?”; (g) “Imagine that Congress is considering severe cutbacks in programs to protect the environment. Which national interest groups would be most concerned about and opposed to such a policy?”

25.The difference between middle-class Anglos and working-class Anglos on the knowledge and Bill of Rights indices is not statistically significant.

26.The differences between the middle-class Anglos and African Americans and Native Americans on the Bill of Rights index and knowledge index are statistically significant at p < .10

The differences between the working-class Anglos and African Americans and Native Americans on the Bill of Rights index and knowledge index are statistically significant at p < .10.

27.A plethora of research has documented the importance of civic duty, political efficacy, political trust, and party attachment for understanding people’s willingness to engage in conventional and unconventional political activity (e.g., Abramson & Aldrich, 1982; Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960; Verba et al., 1995).

28.We measured political trust with the following question: “How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right?” We report the percentage answering “just about always” or “most of the time.” We measured political efficacy

with an index combining the following items: “Public officials don’t care much what people like me think” (agree strongly = 1, agree somewhat = 2, neither agree nor disagree = 3, disagree somewhat = 4, disagree strongly = 5); “Over the years, how much attention does the

government pay to what the people think when it decides what to do?” (a good deal of attention = 3, some attention = 2, not much attention = 1). We measured civic duty with the fol-

lowing four items: “Do you think it is important for a good citizen to obey the laws?”; “Do you think it is important for a good citizen to vote in every election?”; “Do you think it is

important for a good citizen to be patriotic towards the United States?”; “Do you think it is important for a good citizen to join a political party?” (very important = 4, somewhat important = 3, somewhat unimportant = 2, very unimportant = 1). We measure partisan attachment

with the standard 7-point party identification question. Students who strongly identified with either party were given a score of 3, students weakly identifying with a party were given a score of 2, and students who did not identify with either party were given a score of 0.

29.For example, middle-class Anglos and working-class Anglos are significantly more

trusting than are Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans. The differences between each group of Anglos and each group of minority students are statistically significant at p < .05.

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Fridkin et al. / Political Engagement of Young People 623

30.Middle-class Anglos are significantly more attached to the political parties than are working-class Anglos, African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. Native Americans are significantly less attached to the political parties, compared with working-class Anglos, African

Americans, and Latinos. African Americans are more attached to the political parties than Latinos and Native Americans. These differences are statistically significant at p < .05.

31.The school-level data were collected from three sources: www.greatschools.net, Arizona Department of Education (www.ade.state.az.us), and www.publicschoolreview.com. To measure family resources, we also examined whether average income and average education level for the community surrounding the school affected the dependent variables in Table 4. However, these variables failed to reach statistical significance in each of the equations.

32.To measure school resources, we also looked at whether standardized test scores by school and student-teacher ratio affected the dependent variables in Table 4, but these variables failed to reach statistical significance in each of the equations.

33.Anglos are in the excluded variable; they are captured by the constant in the ordinary least squares (OLS) equations.

34.We need to be cautious when interpreting the results of the OLS regression because the data are not drawn from a random sample of the population.

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