Education for deliberative democracy: The long-term influence of kids voting USA (original) (raw)

This progress report provides evidence for persistent influence of Kids Voting USA, an interactive civic curriculum taught during election campaigns. The entire research project consists of multiple waves of student and parent interviews, covering a three-year period. Respondents were recruited from families in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida. The students were juniors and seniors when first interviewed in the aftermath of the 2002 election. The survey results from that year, described in an earlier report, are used as a baseline indication of the immediate influence of KVUSA. Those results provided substantial evidence for the initial effects of Kids Voting on students, on parents, and on family norms for political competence. The question now is whether this optimistic impression is warranted once we take a look at the long-term effects. In other words, did the curriculum exert a lasting influence or was its impact fleeting and ultimately inconsequential in the lives of students and parents? Based on a second wave of interviews, this report describes the extent of Kids Voting effects one year after student participation. The results show a consistent and robust influence of Kids Voting after the passage of 12 months despite controlling for demographics such as family socioeconomic status and parent history of voting. In 25 tests of curriculum influence, KVUSA netted 21 effects in the areas of news media use, discussion, cognition, opinion formation, and civic participation. Deliberative Democracy. We judge KVUSA as a successful catalyst for deliberative democracy, as students continued on toward a discursive path to citizenship after the end of the curriculum. Not only did the frequency of discussion increase in the long run, students became more skilled at holding political conversations. For instance, the curriculum promoted dispositions such as the willingness to listen to opponents and feeling comfortable about challenging others in discussion. Students learned to partake in passionate-but civil and respectful-discourse. Also evident is a desire that is at the heart of deliberative democracy: motivation to validate opinions by testing them out in conversations and seeing if they are persuasive. Curriculum Components. When considering the curriculum components collectively, service learning and encouraging people to vote exerted the most consistent influence. Both activities allow older students to interact with people outside the high school, providing realistic opportunities for community involvement. Taking sides in debates and teacher encouragement of student opinion expression also stood out as particularly effective elements of Kids Voting. Thus, peer discussion that allows for uninhibited and heartfelt expression is more beneficial for civic education than safe, subdued exchanges. High School Journalism. In light of the Knight Foundation's interest in high school journalism, this report provides a supplemental analysis of the effects of newspaper experience on various dimensions of civic involvement. In a process that seems to parallel KVUSA effects, participation in journalism increased the number of discussion partners, active processing of political information, and opinion formation. Effects on Parents. Our prior studies showed that Kids Voting stimulates parents' civic involvement indirectly, by prompting student-initiated discussion at home. Here we were able to show that these results persist over time. This phenomenon illustrates that political socialization should not be viewed as a process that begins and ends in childhood. We present a model of second-chance citizenship in which parents increase their political involvement due to their children's participation in Kids Voting.