What Can Be Done?

Much effort has been spent searching for the root of youth withdrawal from politics and on finding solutions. Most have assumed that the decline is due to changes in attitudes. Increased levels of apathy, cynicism, and alienation are often dubbed the culprits. Although negative attitudes exist in individuals of all ages, young peoples' mistrust of politics “has translated into a reduced tendency to vote” (Patterson 2002, 89). One of the authors of this study has also suggested that changes in mobilizing institutions (local party organizations) are partly to blame (Shea and Green 2004). As political parties neglect young people, they are further driven away from politics.

Still another line of inquiry has focused on changes in civic education. High school programs have “traditionally been seen as mechanisms by which young people can be socialized to more participatory lifestyles” (Eagles and Davidson 2001, par. 2). Yet, only 64% of young people ages 15 to 26 report they have taken a high school course on civics or American government (Kurtz, Rosenthal, and Zukin 2003). A report by the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools (2003), for example, found that one-third of high school seniors lacked a basic understanding of how government works. The solution, then, is to better tool the young citizen for civic life. Indeed, many high school and college programs have been developed to promote knowledge, interest, and involvement in politics. MTV's Rock the Vote is based on the logic that more information and a greater sense of efficacy can spur involvement.

Studies have shown that high school level civics programs can improve political knowledge. Niemi and Junn, for example, found that while the effects are modest, civics curriculum taken by high school seniors does “enhance what and how much they know about American government and politics” (1998, 147). They found a 4% increase in “overall political knowledge attributable to the amount and recency of civics coursework” and suggest the influence of civics education on civic knowledge is “above and beyond individual motivation and family socialization influences” (148).

But will more traditional courses prove to be a panacea? Two studies in the early 1990s painted a “very disturbing picture” of the failure of civics classes in America (Cogan 1997). While civics education may be able to better socialize students into the democratic processes, it seems that they are not as effective in creating participatory citizens. These reports conclude that “this generation is ill-prepared to keep democracy alive in the 1990s and beyond” (22). In fact, many of the students interviewed “cited their poor civics education as a primary reason for their apathy” (22).

The problem, many speculate, may well be in the content of these courses. A report entitled “The Civic Mission of Schools,” by the Carnegie Corporation and CIRCLE (2003), illustrates how the curriculum of civics courses has become diluted. The standard civics class only describes and analyzes government “in a more distant way, often with little explicit discussion of a citizen's role” (14). The authors of the report suggest that “teaching only rote facts about dry procedures is unlikely to benefit students and may actually alienate them from political participation, such as voting” (20).

Peer-to-Peer Learning

Beyond enhancing the content of traditional courses, another innovative avenue for reaching young citizens in recent years has been peer-to-peer learning. Boud, Cohen, and Sampson define this process as “teaching and learning strategies in which students learn with and from each other without the immediate intervention of a teacher” (1999, 414). The goal is to train a contemporary or near contemporary to introduce a curriculum (Irish et al. 2003). Among the many benefits often attributed to peer-based learning are the development of skills related to collaboration, a deeper level of reflection and exploration of new ideas, and the relatively modest costs for such programs. While the research on its potential to engage students in civic life is a bit sketchy, some studies suggest peer-to-peer programs can prove effective (see, for example, Cohen, Kulik, and Kulik 1982).

Helen Sonnenberg Lewis (1962) examined the “peer-associated determinants of adolescents' feelings of political competence and interest in political participation” (as cited in Orum 1978, 222). These are two characteristics that are likely not acquired directly from parents, so they can be strongly influenced by peers. Her evidence shows that young people who interact and work with others their age are more likely to express political competence and interest in political participation. By simply interacting with peers in an organized setting, young people are more likely to become involved in politics.

There is some contemporary evidence that young people working to engage other young people in the democratic process have the effect of increasing political participation. Nickerson, Friedrichs, and King (2004) conducted a study of the Michigan Democratic Party's outreach to young voters. Known as the Michigan Democratic Party's “Coordinated Campaign” of 2002, they focused on the future of the party as well as the state of young voters. This “Youth Coordinated Campaign” (YCC) that was led by the party's newly formed youth caucus reached out to 98,000 voters between the ages 18–35 through 24,000 phone calls, 14,000 door knocks, and 60,000 door hangers. It is important to note that the majority of the volunteers involved in this effort were young themselves, usually under-30 year olds from colleges or high schools. The post election results illustrated that the 18–35 cohort had turned out in greater numbers than in past elections. In 1998, they were 9% of the electorate, while in 2002 they represented 17%.

Another technique with great potential is called “super-treatments,” or intensive voter education seminars. Donald Green and Alan Gerber have researched and written extensively on the impact of various voter mobilization techniques, and are optimistic about super-treatments. In their path-breaking book, Get Out The Vote (2004), they mention one program aimed at high school seniors in five Connecticut schools. In the program, small groups of high-school seniors were given brief, intensive voting seminars stressing the importance of voting and giving the opportunity to register to vote and cast a mock ballot using an actual voting machine. The seminars produced a statistically significant 14% rise in turnout. They write: “Looking at the effects of ‘super treatments’ represents an important new frontier in this line of research” (93).

Why Bother? Our Peer-to-Peer Civic Engagement Program

The Center for Political Participation (CPP) began working early in the summer of 2004 to design a peer-to-peer curriculum to encourage high school seniors to get involved in the political process. A youth-friendly program called Why Bother? The Importance of Voting in America was created by Allegheny students Adam Fogel and Sarah Schmitt. It took the form of a PowerPoint presentation that delivered exciting animations and images, popular music, important historical information, and current-events examples to motivate young adults to get involved in politics. By answering the question “Why Bother?” the goal of the program was to allow college students to explain to high school students how their generation can have a voice in the political process.

Why Bother? covered five elements during a 45-minute presentation. First, it addressed how political issues can directly affect young people. For example, they learned about young activists in Seattle who reversed an ordinance that limited their access to popular music concerts. Second, to combat the notion that “all candidates are the same,” the program discussed key party differences in the 2004 election. Third, it provided examples of how a small number of votes can decide an election—particularly in swing states—as the 2000 presidential election demonstrated. Fourth, the presentation moved to a discussion of the rights and obligations of citizens in a democracy, and finally it explained the mechanics of voting; how to register and how to pull the levers in the voting booth (the mechanism used in northwestern Pennsylvania in 2004). Roughly 15 minutes of presentation time was saved for questions and answers.

From September to October 2004, the presentation was given to 468 students at eight different high schools in northwestern Pennsylvania. Four college students were trained to give the presentation—and each did so at two different high schools. Great care was taken to ensure that material was presented the same way at each school (an exact script was carefully constructed, for example).

Testing the Effectiveness of the Program

Part of the purpose of the Why Bother? program was to test the effectiveness of super treatments. Would college students be able to effectively encourage high school students to get involved in the political process? We designed a split-half experiment to measure behavioral and attitudinal changes. Two groups of students were established at each school—an experimental and a control group. Great care was taken to assure that there was no systematic bias regarding the types of students in the different groups. For example, the “best kids” were not selected for the treatment.

Shortly after the 2004 election we returned to six of the participating high schools to survey student political attitudes and behavior. An exact survey was administered to both groups in each school. In all, 370 students participated in the written post-election survey. Responses to behavioral and attitudinal questions were then compared to ascertain the effects of the presentation. Given that the selection of the groups was random, any differences could be attributed to the treatment.

The survey asked students about several areas of political behavior. We asked students: to gauge the amount of attention they pay to politics, hoping to find that the presentation had increased student awareness and consumption of political news; how much they and their family follow politics; how much they discussed “the election or politics” with their family and their friends; if they had tried to persuade someone to vote a certain way this year; and if they were registered and if they voted in the election.

In terms of attitudes, the subjects were asked questions about their feelings toward government and elections. Did they believe that government pays attention to what young people think, and how much difference do they think young people can make in elections? We also asked them how often they could trust the government to do the right thing.

Findings

Of the 370 respondents, nearly one half (45%) heard the presentation. Our sample was 50% male and 50% female, with 89% of the students classified as seniors. Thirty-four percent of the respondents were over 18. For a description of respondents see Table 1.

Both behavioral and attitudinal differences were detected between the control and the treatment groups. (Likely due to the small sample size, most results did not quite reach statistical significance—as noted below). Results for behavioral measurements are presented in Table 2. We found that eligible students in the experimental group (51%) were more likely than students in the control group (38%) to report that they were registered to vote (Chi-square 4.810, significance .090). Of the registered students, those in the experimental group were much more likely to actually vote than were those in the control group; 74% to 58% (Chi-square 7.853, significance .097). Put a bit differently, those who took part in our one-hour presentation were roughly 40% more likely to go to the polls than those who did not (provided they were eligible and registered).

Students who heard the presentation (44%) were more likely than the control students (34%) to report “quite a bit” of discussion with their friends about the election. Behaviors apparently unaffected by the presentation were likelihood to discuss the election with family and likelihood to persuade someone else to vote a certain way.

In terms of attitudes, here too the presentation seems to have made a difference. Students who heard the presentation expressed higher feelings of political efficacy than those in the control group, as noted in Table 3. Students in the experimental group (59%) were more likely than students in the control group (44%) to share the opinion that government listens to young people “a good deal of the time” or “some of the time.” Put another way, students in the control group (56%) were more likely than students who heard the presentation (41%) to feel that government does not pay much attention to what young people think. Attitudes unaffected by the presentation concerned youth political power and trust in government. Over 90% of both groups felt that young people can make a difference in elections, and the majority of students in both groups (over 70%) felt they could trust the government to do the right thing at least some of the time.