The Effect of the Introductory Political Science Course on Student Attitudes Toward Personal Political Participation

Somit, Albert; Tanenhaus, Joseph; Wilke, Walter H.; Cooley, Rita W.

doi:10.2307/1951993

Cited by 24 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…These models include: demographic factors like age (Strate et al 1989), gender , race (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1993), marital status (Stoker and Jennings 1995), education (Leighley and Nagler 1992b), income (Leighley and Nagler 1992a), occupational prestige Prewitt 1969a, 1969b), and home ownership (Highton and Wolfinger 2001); attitudinal and behavioral factors like interest in the campaign , access to political information (DiMaggio, Hargittai, and Neuman 2001), general political knowledge (Galston 2001), strength of partisanship (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1992), feelings of civic duty (Blais and Young 1999), internal and external efficacy (Finkel 1985), political trust (Hetherington 1999), church attendance (Cassel 1999), personal skill acquisition , humanitarianism (Jankowski 2007), altruism (Fowler 2006a), and patience (Fowler and Kam 2006); social factors like interpersonal communication (McLeod, Scheufele, and Moy 1999), social identification (Fowler and Kam 2007), group consciousness (Miller, Gurin, and Gurin 1981), socialization (Cho 1999), the status of neighbors (Huckfeldt 1979), political disagreement (Mutz 2002), and social capital (Lake and Huckfeldt 1998); and institutional factors (Jackman and Miller 1995) like closeness of the election (Shachar and Nalebuff 1999), contact from political organizations (Wielhouwer and Lockerbie 1994), campaigns (Ansolabehere and Gerber 1994), civic education (Somit et al 1958), polling locations (Gimpel and Schuknecht 2003), and barriers to registration (Rosenstone and Wolfinger 1978). However...…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout

Fowler

Dawes

2007

SSRN Journal

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout

Fowler

Dawes

2007

SSRN Journal

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“…May 2008 (Wielhouwer and Lockerbie 1994), campaigns (Ansolabehere et al 1994), civic education (Somit et al 1958), polling locations (Gimpel and Schuknecht 2003), and barriers to registration (Rosenstone and Wolfinger 1978).…”

Section: Genetic Variation In Political Participationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic Variation in Political Participation

2008

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T he decision to vote has puzzled scholars for decades. Theoretical models predict little or no variation in participation in (Aldrich 1993;Downs 1957;Feddersen and Sandroni 2006;Riker and Ordeshook 1968). When one person votes, everyone with the same preferences benefits from the increased likelihood that their preferred outcome will result. Yet those who do vote must bear the cost of time and effort required to learn about election alternatives and go to the polls. In large populations, the probability that a single vote will change the outcome of an election is miniscule (Gelman, King, and Boscardin 1998), meaning that even very small costs to the individual typically outweigh the expected benefits he or she would receive from voting. As a result, classic game theoretic models that assume indi- viduals are self-interested and fully optimizing in their behavior show that the equilibrium amount of voter turnout approaches zero as the population becomes large (Palfrey and Rosenthal 1985). Yet in spite of this theoretical result, millions of people do vote, suggesting that something other than self-interest or optimizing behavior drives their decision (Bendor, Diermeier, and Ting 2003;Feddersen and Sandroni 2006;Fowler 2006b). In addition, the fact that millions of people abstain suggests that there may be inherent variation in the human tendency to participate in politics.Empirical models of turnout and political participation have tried to explain this variation using numerous covariates inspired by a vast literature (Plutzer 2002;Timpone 1998;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995), including demographic factors like age (Strate et al.

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“…For nearly three decades following the publication of Langton and Jennings' 1968 APSR article, "Political Socialization and the High School Civics Curriculum in the United States," the conventional view among political scientists was that civic education had only marginal impact on students' democratic orientations. In numerous early studies (e.g., Langton & Jennings, 1968;Somit, Tannenhous, Wilke, & Cooley, 1958), differences in political knowledge and democratic attitudes and values such as efficacy, trust, and tolerance among students who were exposed to various levels of civic education were "extremely weak, in most instances bordering on trivial" (Langton & Jennings, 1968, p. 858). While effects of civic education were sometimes found to be larger when students were exposed to specialized text materials and instruction (Patrick, 1972), the vast majority of early studies supported the view that the school civics curriculum has "little or no impact on [the] political attitudes of students" (Ehman, 1980, p. 107).…”

Section: The Effects Of School-based Civic Education: Theoretical Permentioning

confidence: 99%

Civic Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Alternative Paths to the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic Values

Finkel

Ernst

2005

Political Psychology

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Despite the proliferation of civic education programs in the emerging democracies of Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, there have been few recent evaluations of the effectiveness of civics instruction in achieving changes in democratic orientations among student populations. We present findings from a study conducted in 1998 that examined the impact of democratic civic education among South African high school students. Using a battery of items to gauge democratic orientations, including measures of political knowledge, civic duty, tolerance, institutional trust, civic skills, and approval of legal forms of political participation, we find that civic education had the largest effects on political knowledge, with the magnitude of the effect being approximately twice as large as the recent Niemi and Junn (1998) finding for the United States. Exposure to civic education per se had weaker effects on democratic values and skills; for these orientations, what matters are specific factors related to the quality of instruction and the use of active pedagogical methods employed by civics instructors. Further, we find that civic education changed the structure of students'orientations: a "democratic values" dimension coalesces more strongly, and in greater distinction, from a "political competence" dimension among students exposed to civic education than among those with no such training. We discuss the implications of the findings for our theoretical understanding of the role of civic education in fostering democratic attitudes, norms, and values, as well as the practical implications of the results for the implementation and funding of civic education programs in developing democracies in the future.

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The Effect of the Introductory Political Science Course on Student Attitudes Toward Personal Political Participation

Cited by 24 publications

References 1 publication

Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout

Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout

Genetic Variation in Political Participation

Civic Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Alternative Paths to the Development of Political Knowledge and Democratic Values

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