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Family Affluence, School and Neighborhood Contexts and Adolescents’ Civic Engagement: A Cross-National Study

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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

Research on youth civic engagement focuses on individual-level predictors. We examined individual- and school-level characteristics, including family affluence, democratic school social climate and perceived neighborhood social capital, in their relation to civic engagement of 15-year-old students. Data were taken from the 2006 World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey. A sample of 8,077 adolescents in 10th grade from five countries (Belgium, Canada, Italy, Romania, England) were assessed. Multilevel models were analyzed for each country and across the entire sample. Results showed that family affluence, democratic school climate and perceived neighborhood social capital positively related to participation in community organizations. These links were stronger at the aggregate contextual than individual level and varied by country. Canadian youth participated most and Romanian youth least of the five countries. Gender predicted engagement in two countries (girls participate more in Canada, boys in Italy). Findings showed significant contributions of the social environment to adolescents’ engagement in their communities.

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Notes

  1. The index, developed by the Institute of Social Studies, synthesizes 200 indicators of community life, participation and intergroup relations into five indicators and allows evaluation of how different societies across the world perform on five dimensions of social development.

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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, Massimo Santinello & Sonia Mazzardis

  2. Center for Community Studies, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Douglas D. Perkins

  3. Institute for Health and Social Policy and Douglas Mental Health University Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Frank J. Elgar

  4. Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Antony Morgan

Authors
  1. Michela Lenzi
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  2. Alessio Vieno
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  3. Douglas D. Perkins
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  4. Massimo Santinello
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  5. Frank J. Elgar
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  6. Antony Morgan
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  7. Sonia Mazzardis
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Correspondence to Michela Lenzi.

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Lenzi, M., Vieno, A., Perkins, D.D. et al. Family Affluence, School and Neighborhood Contexts and Adolescents’ Civic Engagement: A Cross-National Study. Am J Community Psychol 50, 197–210 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-012-9489-7

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