scholarly journals Doing Less with More: Cohorts, Education and Civic Participation in America

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Horowitz

Decades of social science research demonstrate the impact of education on civic participation. However, prior scholarship generally assumes that the returns to education do not change over time or geographic space. Absolute educational effects are not always plausible; as more individuals obtain a college degree, there are a greater number of qualified individuals competing for the same social resources. The present study tests the impact of education on civic participation, and whether this effect changes as the number of college-educated individuals increases over birth cohorts. The present findings suggest that in some cases, a college degree's impact on civic participation declines as more individuals obtain college degrees. The findings challenge commonly held assumptions about the effect of higher education on civic participation. Furthermore, the findings suggest that while sending an individual to college may increase civic participation, encouraging all high school students to go to college may undercut the benefits of college attendance.Keywords: higher education, cohorts, civic engagement, volunteering

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley E. Mitchell ◽  
Justin Q. Moss

This study examines the impact of a residential horticultural career academy, Camp Tomorrow’s Undergraduates Realizing the Future (TURF), conducted from 2010 to 2016 at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in Stillwater, OK. Each year, up to 25 Oklahoma high school students were engaged in 2 weeks of hands-on activities representing a variety of horticulture-related careers. Instructors for Camp TURF included OSU faculty, staff, and graduate students from the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, related OSU departments, and horticulture and landscape architecture industry professionals. The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education sponsored this career academy, which was geared toward potential first-generation college students, and helped to expose students to the university atmosphere as well as expand their knowledge of science- and math-related career fields. Pre- and postassessments given at Camp TURF show significant changes in college readiness and familiarity with horticulture careers, but did not necessarily increase interest in particular horticulture and landscape architecture careers. Upon following up with academy graduates, we learned that the academy has been a positive experience for numerous attendees, with 76.6% going on to higher education and two students majoring in horticulture and landscape architecture-related areas.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-153
Author(s):  
Müge Çelik Örücü ◽  
Sühendan Er

The relationships that exist among brothers and sisters have been much less researched and observed than other kinds of family relationships. Thus, the impact of sibling dyads' gender and age difference on Turkish adolescents' communication satisfaction and trust was examined. The sample consisted of 272 (154 female, 118 male) Turkish high school students, all of whom were aged between 14 and 18 years and had 1 younger sibling. They were asked to complete the Sibling Communication Satisfaction Scale and the Dyadic Trust Scale. A significant gender difference was obtained for both trust and communication satisfaction, wherein females were more likely than males were to trust and be satisfied with their level of communication with their siblings, especially in the case of same-gender siblings. However, no significant result was found for age difference in terms of either trust or communication satisfaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7736
Author(s):  
Erin Gallay ◽  
Alisa Pykett ◽  
Constance Flanagan

Insofar as race, class, and gender have profound effects on people’s environmental experiences, and consequently their activism, the environmental field needs more work on the environmental experiences and insights of groups whose voices have been missing, including youth of color who live in urban areas in the U.S. In this paper, we focus on African American and Latinx students engaged in environmental projects in their urban communities and the impact of such projects on promoting pro-environmental leadership, agency, and behavior. We draw from written reflections and focus group interviews of several hundred 4th–12th graders (majority middle- and high-school students) who participated in place-based civic science projects. Thematic analyses of student responses found that students engaged in work on local environmental issues cultivated an appreciation for the natural world and an understanding of human-nature interdependence and the ties between the local environment and their communities’ health. Through taking action with others in their communities, students viewed themselves as contributors to their communities and started to form environmental identities in ways that are not traditionally measured. Findings point to the need for forms of environmental education that are contextually grounded and centered on environmental justice in urban areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-351
Author(s):  
Scott Desposato ◽  
Gang Wang

AbstractDemocracy movements in authoritarian regimes usually fail and are repressed, but they may still affect attitudes and norms of participants and bystanders. We exploit several features of a student movement to test for enduring effects of social movements on democratic attitudes. College students were the core of the movement and had wide exposure to the ideas and activities of the movement, as well as the suppression of the movement. College-bound high school students had limited exposure to the movement and its activities. Time of college entry could in theory be manipulated and endogenous, so we also use birthdate as an exogenous instrument for enrollment year. Applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity, we test for the impact of exposure to the movement on long-term attitudes. We find significant attitudinal differences between those in college during the movement, and those who started college post-movement. These results are strongest for alumni of the four universities that were most connected to the movement.


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 501
Author(s):  
Fethi Mansouri

This article reflects on the ethical and epistemological challenges facing researchers engaged in contemporary studies of Islam and Muslims in the West. Particularly, it focuses on the impact of the constructions and categorisations of Muslims and Islam in research. To do this, it considers the entwinement of public discourses and the development of research agendas and projects. To examine this complex and enmeshed process, this article explores ideological, discursive and epistemological approaches that it argues researchers need to consider. In invoking these three approaches alongside an analysis of a collection of recent research, this article contends that questions of race, religion and politics have been deployed to reinforce, rather than challenge, certain essentialist/orientalist representations of Islam and Muslims in the West in research. As this article shows, this practice is increasingly threatening to compromise, in a Habermasian communicative sense (i.e., the opportunity to speak and be heard for all concerned), the ethical and epistemological underpinnings of social science research with its emphasis on inclusion and respect.


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