Civics education at the high school level: an interdisciplinary approach to educating diverse populations the utilization of school psychology to better a political science project

This dissertation is a single case study of an interdisciplinary research project combining the fields of school psychology and political science, exploring a new role for school psychology. The single case design was utilized in order to document the project and provide an understanding of the process. The interdisciplinary team included undergraduate political science interns, the director of the Youth Political Participation Program at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, and a school psychology graduate student from the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. The team worked to design, implement, and evaluate a high school civics education program within one academic year. The program was designed to increase the civic engagement levels of high school seniors. Civics education has decreased and many students are unprepared to be active citizens after graduating high schools. The program was implemented in two urban high schools and one out of district high school. Individuals in these populations have been found to have lower levels of political participation. Many barriers were faced during the design, implementation, and evaluation phases, and discussion includes how barriers were overcome. A key component of the project were trainings provided by the graduate student for the undergraduate interns. These trainings taught the undergraduates about program design, implementation, and evaluation, schools as systems, and working with diverse populations. Direct feedback was collected from students and school staff and analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The program was found to be effective in all schools, though effectiveness varied based on population.Psy.DIncludes bibliographical references (p. 121-127)by Matthew G. Strobe