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Testing the Effects of Collective Civic Education Messages in the University Classroom
This paper contributes to research efforts exploring the impact of varied civic education
approaches on students. A one-credit course, designed as the intervention in a pre-
experimental design, underscored the importance of collective political participation and
attempted to strengthen the skills needed to engage in populist democratic politics. These
included the communication skills of negotiation, compromise and persuasion. Findings
from pre and post semester questionnaires indicate the course had limited effects on
students’ sense of political efficacy. Yet they also reveal subtle aggregate improvements
in self perceived political skills and in projected likelihood of participating in political
activities. Meanwhile, post semester focus groups helped to identify opportunities for
improving the curriculum in future course offerings.
Recently, American politicians, educational professionals and academics alike
have expressed a renewed interest in civic education, many with the hopes of stemming a
generation gap in participation. Until recently, however, turning to civic education as a
solution to the participatory ills facing the United States may have received a polite snub
from scholars in the field of political socialization. Studies of formal civic education in
the classroom as a socializing agent fell out of favor by the 1960s. Several studies,
ranging as far back as 1963, found that such endeavors had little impact on attitudes and
behavior (Beck 1977, Jennings, Langton and Niemi 1974, Langton 1969 and Langton and
Jennings 1968). As Niemi and Junn (1998) note, “research in political science has sent
a…narrow but explicit message: civics courses have virtually no effect on the political
knowledge or values of high school students” (147).
Yet renewed interest in civic education as a remedy has been motivated by the
declining participation levels of younger generations. Research findings indicate
classroom learning can have a positive effect on political knowledge, and that this type of
Convention