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How School can Teach Civic Engagement Besides Civic Education: The Role of Democratic School Climate

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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

Civic engagement, defined as involvement in community life, is influenced by reciprocal relationships between individuals and contexts and is a key factor that contributes to positive youth development. The present study evaluates a theoretical model linking perceived democratic school climate with adolescent civic engagement (operationalized as civic responsibility and intentions for future participation), taking into account the mediating role of civic discussions and perceived fairness at school. Participants were 403 adolescents (47.9 % male) ranging in age from 11 to 15 years old (mean age = 13.6). Path analysis results partially validated the proposed theoretical model. Higher levels of democratic school climate were associated with higher levels of adolescent civic responsibility; the association was fully mediated by civic discussions and perceived fairness at school. Adolescents’ civic responsibility, then, was positively associated with a stronger intention to participate in the civic domain in the future.

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Notes

  1. In order to obtain a representative sample of the population in the whole city, the sample was not stratified by school, thus, the sample is not representative of the schools’ population (although approximates the size of the different schools), with the number of students in each school ranging from 1 to 20 across 71 different schools.

  2. According to several studies (e.g., Abraido-Lanza 1997; Rosario et al. 2005), in models without latent variables, standard fit indices are not particularly useful because they are often not sensitive to errors in model equations that are expressed from the W matrix. To demonstrate this, in a previous work (Lenzi et al. 2012b), a simple Monte Carlo simulation was performed based on parameters of the model.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are very thankful to Valentina Gili for her valuable contribution in the development of the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, via Belzoni 80, 35131, Padua, Italy

    Michela Lenzi, Alessio Vieno, Massimiliano Pastore & Massimo Santinello

  2. The Gevirtz School, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Jill Sharkey & Ashley Mayworm

  3. Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Valle d’Aosta, Aosta, Italy

    Luca Scacchi

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  1. Michela Lenzi
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  2. Alessio Vieno
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  3. Jill Sharkey
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  4. Ashley Mayworm
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  6. Massimiliano Pastore
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  7. Massimo Santinello
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Correspondence to Michela Lenzi.

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Lenzi, M., Vieno, A., Sharkey, J. et al. How School can Teach Civic Engagement Besides Civic Education: The Role of Democratic School Climate. Am J Community Psychol 54, 251–261 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9669-8

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