An Ecological Systems Approach to the Civic Education and Engagement of Adolescents

This study is an investigation of direct and indirect school and neighborhood effects on adolescents ’ civic knowledge and voting intentions utilizing data from the 1999 IEA Civic Education Study and the U.S. Census. The nationally representative U.S. sample consists of 2,729 students from 119 schools (in 119 neighborhoods) nationwide. I utilize multi-level regression techniques to give a precise estimate of the separate and shared impact of individuals, schools, and neighborhoods on youth civic engagement. For civic knowledge, student demographics, civic experiences in school, and learning civic topics are important predictors. The school and neighborhood context are not as strongly related, and only the neighborhood immigrant population is a significant predictor. For voting behavior, student civic experiences in school and learning civic topics predict voting behavior, while the effects of demographic characteristics (gender and SES) are found to vary between schools. School demographic and neighborhood characteristics directly relate to voting behavior, but also indirectly relate through interactions with student demographics