Who Are the “Journalism Kids”? Academic Predictors of Journalism Participation in Secondary Schools

Abstract

Prior scholastic journalism research did not adequately address the possibility that journalism students perform better academically because of their backgrounds and inherent abilities. Using Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 data, this study shows that high school journalism attracts better students. Although for-credit and extracurricular programs differentiate journalism student characteristics, journalism students generally tend to have greater English self-efficacy, higher English grade point average, greater involvement in schools, be female and White, or have a higher socioeconomic background than those who do not participate in journalism. Future assessments of journalism's contribution to academic achievement should account for students' pre-journalism characteristics.

Mixed Message Media

“…Of the 461 high school journalists responding to the survey, 361 (78 percent) were female and 100 (22 percent) were male. This approximates the general composition of high school journalism classes across the United States (Bobkowski et al 2016).…”

“…More than 90 percent of secondary schools in the United States offer curricular or extracurricular journalism opportunities, and approximately 18 percent of US students in grades 10 to 12 take journalism classes or produce student news publications or digital media (Bobkowski et al 2012(Bobkowski et al , 2016. While white students are more likely than non-white students to participate in for-credit journalism programs, there are no racial or ethnic discrepancies in extracurricular journalism program participation (Bobkowski et al 2016).…”

“…National US data shows that students who end up participating in journalism start out with higher grades and higher self-efficacy in English, and some are also more involved in school activities than non-journalists (Bobkowski et al 2016).…”

“…In numerical terms, journalism classrooms are dominated by girls and women. National US figures show that in the graduating class of 2004, 68 percent of high school journalists were female and that, accounting for other factors, female students were twice as likely to take journalism as their male counterparts (Bobkowski et al 2016). Journalism teachers also tend to be female, with a 3:1 or 4:1 female-to-male ratio among them (Dvorak et al 1994;Filak et al 2009).…”

“…These include discussions of current issues and events, engagement in service learning, contributing to how a school functions, and participating in democratic processes. Research shows that taking journalism in high school is related to civic engagement beyond high school, with former high school journalists voting more often in their late teens and 20s than those students who did not take journalism (Bobkowski and Miller 2016).…”