The Civic Value of Education: How Scholastic Experiences Create Active Citizens
| Published date | 01 July 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221144053 |
| Author | Samuel V. Stoddard |
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
American Politics Research
2023, Vol. 51(4) 492–509
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X221144053
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The Civic Value of Education: How Scholastic
Experiences Create Active Citizens
Samuel V. Stoddard
1
Abstract
Political scientists have long recognized educational attainment as a strong predictor of voter turnout, but the mechanisms
through which educational experiences lead voters to the polls remain underexplored. This research begins to open this
proverbial black box to understand the specific types of scholastic experiences that encourage voting. Grounded in
previous findings by scholars of policy feedback and political socialization, a mix of qualitative and quantitative data analyses
reveal that nonacademic high school experiences can have powerful and lasting interpretive effects. Participants in
performance and service-based extracurricular activities are consistently recognized for their efforts and connected to
their communities, leading to interpretations of dignity, efficacy, and civic duty. As a result, these young Americans are
more likely than their peers to vote in early adulthood. Further analyses uncover critical effects based on socioeconomic
status: many interpretive educational experiences have more profound impacts on the voting behaviors of young citizens
who may lack opportunities for positive political socialization in their home and social environments. Unfortunately, those
young Americans whose participatory behaviors could be most impacted by uplifting extracurricular experiences are also
least likely to have access to and participate in these programs, a gap that may have been exacerbated during the recent
pandemic.
Keywords
voter turnout, civic education, political socialization, extracurricular
Introduction
For decades, scholars interested explaining political par-
ticipation in a variety of ways have taken for granted that
educational attainment fosters political participation, con-
trolling for it in their work (see, for example, Barreto &
Muñoz, 2003;Leighley & Vedlitz,1999;Mutz, 2002,Olsen,
1970;Putnam, 1995; among many others), but few attempts
have been made to understand how educational experiences
produce such an effect.
1
Most who have investigated the
impacts of educational experiences have understood school
attendance as purely academic, asserting that education
matters for political participation because schools are
venues for resource development, the acquisition of
knowledge or skills that encourage or aid future political
activity. One such idea, advocated by Galston (2001,2004)
and many education policymakers, asserts that a particular
type of instruction engenders future political participation:
civics. Quantitative assessments of civic instruction have
found that it can produce small but significant increases in
political knowledge; however, these relative knowledge
advantages fade quickly (Campbell & Niemi, 2016;Niemi
& Junn, 2005). While no researcher has successfully linked
classroom civics instruction to any particular form of
political behavior, there is an inarguable theoretical con-
nection between taking a civics course and voting, partic-
ularly given that states that require civi cs instruction do so in
students’final year of high school, as young citizens first
become eligible. Still, the fleeting nature of the knowledge
gained through these courses suggests that the participatory
value of civics education is not solely measured in
knowledge acquisition, but also in positive attitudes about
government and citizenship. Verba et al. (1995) proposed a
wider view of resource development, which asserts that the
communication and organization skills young people learn
at school can also be useful in the political arena, such as by
helping new voters to understand their choices and navigate
the electoral process. Much of their analysis centered on
experiences with private organizations such as churches;
nevertheless, the model presented is applicable to any venue
1
Department of Political Science, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA,
USA
Corresponding Author:
Samuel V. Stoddard, Department of Political Science, College of the Holy
Cross, 1 College St., Worcester, MA 01610-2395, USA.
Email: sstoddar@holycross.edu
where participants develop and practice communication and
organization skills. When applied to education, this broader
conception of resources expands beyond the social studies
classroom to consider other academic experiences. The
knowledge and abilities gained through schooling un-
doubtablyplaysomeroleinfosteringincreasedvoter
turnout among young citizens, but scholars of political
socialization and policy feedback point this research toward
another mechanism: interpretive effects .
Political socialization research has singled out adolescence
as a crucial time for the development of lasting attitudes
toward community and government. Just as psychologists
recognized adolescence as a unique and important devel-
opmental stage (see, for example, Erikson, 1968), during
which values and critical thinking skills emerge (Damon,
1983;Kohlberg, 1976), political scientists have surmised that
political values and preferences, as well as the habits they
ultimately inform, are also formed during young adulthood
(Easton & Dennis, 1967;Jennings & Niemi, 1968,1975;
Merelman, 1969). While these attitudes and behaviors may
wax and wane as young people become more politically
sophisticated (Beck & Jennings, 1991), they are generally
recognized as extremely sticky, tending to strengthen over
time and ultimately becoming static as individuals advance
into adulthood (Converse, 1969,1976;Plutzer, 2002). If we
accept that political values and habits are formed during high
school, we are still left to wonder exactly what types of
scholastic experiences contribute to this development. Policy
feedback theory suggests an answer by illustrating how the
experiences citizens have interacting with government lead
them to adopt attitudes that either encourage or discourage
civic participation.
The complex ways that policies and their administration
affect the political attitudes and behavior of the populace
was surely recognized by shrewd politicians long before it
was explored by political scientists (Soss & Schram, 2007).
As interested and affected groups experience and react to
policies, they develop interpretations about themselves and
the role of government, which then influence their pref-
erences and actions, creating a feedback loop (Pierson,
1993;Schneider & Ingram, 1997). Much consideration of
these effects was spurred by the rise of the modern welfare
state, recognizing that these targeted programs can have a
variety of effects on participants (Piven & Cloward, 1971;
Skocpol, 1991). Continuing this focus on benefits pro-
grams, Soss (1999) and Mettler (2002) showed how ex-
periences interacting with government through the
administration of government programs impact citizens’
perceptions of themselves and their feelings toward not just
the specific program, but government in general; Mettler
labeled these interpretive effects, the results of what I deem
interpretive experiences. Soss (1999) described how
means-tested welfare programs, which participants de-
scribed as difficult to navigate and unresponsive to their
concerns, left citizens feeling externally inefficacious
about government generally, in other words, skeptical of
their own power and influence. Conversely, Mettler’s
(2002) interviews with recipients of the G.I. Bill re-
vealed evidence of resource effects, but also significant
feelings of dignity that encouraged participants to become
more politically conscious, even to adopt feelings of civic
duty. Thus, policy feedback theory points toward digni-
fying interpretive experiences as one way in which in-
teractions with public institutions can foster lasting civic
predispositions. Turning back to educational effects,
Campbell (2006) demonstrated how experiences at school
can produce a feedback loop, leading to attitudes about
communities and citizenship. For the purposes of this
research into scholastic experiences, policy feedback
theory indicates that the connection between education and
voter turnout may be based on how effectively schoolslead
adolescents to interpret attitudes such as civic duty, dignity,
and efficacy.
In seeking to understand why education matters for
voting, this research focuses specifically on the impacts of
young citizens’high school experiences. I propose a new
view of educational effects, the theory of interpretive ex-
periences, which broadens our conception of relevant
scholastic experiences beyond those aimed at academic
outcomes. In addition to opportunities for resource devel-
opment, educational experiences also teach students a lot
about the role of government, their relationships to their
communities, and their statuses as citizens. The experiences
young Americans have at school are interpretive, that is,
they create lasting and influential attitudes about public
institutions, community, and citizenship. In the context of
this research, the theory of interpretive experiences asserts
that young people who have scholastic experiences that
publicly honor their achievements and connect them to their
schools and broader communities will be more likely to vote
as adults. For most young Americans, high school is their
first opportunity to act as mostly autonomous individuals
within communities, the first time they take the lead in
managing their own relationship with a government insti-
tution. Positive or dignifying high school experiences may
lead young people to see value in communities, public
institutions, and their own active participation in these
collectives, attitudes that manifest as eagerness to continue
to actively engage with institutions and communities when
they become adults. Those who feel respected and dignified
as they attend high school, the one government institution
that most dominates their civically formative teenage years,
may come to expect valuable experiences from future in-
teractions with other public institutions, including our
electoral democracy. As they grow into adults, these young
citizens should welcome new opportunities to participate in
community affairs and politics, such as voting once they
reach legal age. The interpretations young people derive
from their high school experiences may also be more lasting
than resource effects, and knowledge effects in particular,
Stoddard 493
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