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Offline and Online Civic Engagement Among Adolescents and Young Adults from Three Ethnic Groups

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Abstract

Levels of civic engagement are assumed to vary according to numerous social and psychological characteristics, but not much is known about online civic engagement. This study aimed to investigate differences and similarities in young people’s offline and online civic engagement and to clarify, based on Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB), associations between motivation for civic engagement, peer and parental norms, collective efficacy, and civic engagement. The sample consisted of 755 youth (native German, ethnic German Diaspora, and Turkish migrants) from two age groups (16–18 and 19–26; mean age 20.5 years; 52 % female). Results showed that ethnic group membership and age moderated the frequency of engagement behavior, with Turkish migrants taking part more than native Germans, who were followed by ethnic German Diaspora migrants. Analyses based on TPB showed good fit for a model relating intention for offline and online civic engagement to motivation for civic engagement, peer and parental norms, and collective efficacy. Ethnic group moderated the findings for offline civic engagement and questioned the universality of some model parameters (e.g., peer and parental norms). This study showed the utility of the TPB framework for studying civic engagement but also reveals that the predictive utility of peer and parental norms seems to vary depending on the group and the behavior under study. This study highlights the importance of including minority samples in the study of civic engagement in order to identify between-group similarities and differences.

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Notes

  1. The analyses are based on data from the PIDOP project (http://www.fahs.surrey.ac.uk/pidop/), a multinational research project funded by the EU under the 7th Framework Programme.

  2. When looking at within group variations in our sample it appeared that males (M = 0.05, SD = 0.71) tended to have higher socioeconomic status than females (M = −0.04, SD = 0.67), t(754) = 1.81, p (two-sided) = .071. There were no other within group differences according to age or ethnic origin. Thus, we may have potentially masked gender effects by controlling for SES in our analyses. However, repeating our analyses without controlling for SES did not lead to any significant gender effects. Thus, we are confident that the lack of gender differences in our study is real.

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Acknowledgments

The empirical research upon which this paper is based was supported by a grant received from the European Commission 7th Framework Programme, FP7-SSH-2007-1, Grant Agreement no: 225282, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP) awarded to the University of Surrey (UK), University of Liège (Belgium), Masaryk University (Czech Republic), University of Jena (Germany), University of Bologna (Italy), University of Porto (Portugal), Örebro University (Sweden), Ankara University (Turkey) and Queen’s University Belfast (UK).

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Leipzig, Seeburgstr. 14-20, 04103, Leipzig, Germany

    Philipp Jugert

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Jena, Jena, Germany

    Katharina Eckstein, Peter Noack & Alexandra Kuhn

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany

    Alison Benbow

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Jugert, P., Eckstein, K., Noack, P. et al. Offline and Online Civic Engagement Among Adolescents and Young Adults from Three Ethnic Groups. J Youth Adolescence 42, 123–135 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-012-9805-4

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