Do Sociocultural Factors Drive Civic Engagement? An Examination of Political Interest and Religious Attendance

Abstract

The U.S. simultaneously faces declining rates of and barriers to engagement, despite the importance to society and benefits to the participant. Research largely focuses on individual demographics, social, and economic characteristics, but what role do sociocultural factors play in civic engagement? This study examines the influence of political interest and religious attendance on five measures of civic engagement—formal volunteering, informal volunteering, public meeting attendance, voting, and blood donation. Religious attendance plays a greater role in volunteering while political interest plays a greater role in political participation. This work illustrates how different factors relate to different types of engagement. Findings demonstrate the need to move beyond socioeconomic factors to examine sociocultural factors that may influence civic engagement and the need for multiple measures of engagement.

Personal Aspects of Religiosity and Civic Engagement: The Mediating Role of Prayer

“…Previous research indicates that regular attendance at religious services is associated with participation in the community or volunteer work (Wilson and Musick 1997). Factors such as social networks (Lewis et al 2013;Pancer 2015), religious vs. secular schooling (Hill and Den Dulk 2013), socio-cultural aspects (Piatak 2023) and how the religious community interacts with social and political activities (Glazier 2020) are significant in the relationship between religiosity and civic engagement. Researchers are not in agreement on why religious people are more socially engaged or to what extent religious beliefs or activity is associated with political activity.…”

Who Substitutes Service for Politics? Assessing the Roles of Youth and Partisan Alienation in Americans’ Forms of Civic Engagement

“…Speculation that Americans are substituting service for politics, or expressive for electoral political action, contradicts the civic participation literature's traditional view and considerable empirical findings (Dalton 2009;Oser, Hooghe, and Marien 2013;Rosenstone and Hansen 1993;Strach 2012;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995;Zukin et al 2006) that these forms of participation are complementary. These forms of participation share several common correlates, with some variation by study and form, including education, income, whiteness, personality dispositions, church attendance or involvement, and even political awareness and interest (e.g., Musick and Wilson 2008;Piatak 2023;Strach 2012;Theiss-Morse and Hibbing 2005;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995;Zukin et al 2006). Concerns about public problems motivate both (Han 2009;Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995).…”

“…Recent studies find that younger Americans are not consistently less likely than their elders to report political participation, when asked about activities other than voting (Dalton 2016; 2020; Rouse and Ross 2018), though others observe campaign involvement increasing with age (Huddy, Mason, and Aaroe 2015; Mason 2018; Zukin et al 2006). Moreover, volunteering and other nonpolitical civic participation is not clearly highest among the young (Piatak 2023; Zukin et al 2006); its relationship with age appears nonlinear (Musick and Wilson 2008). Some assert that what youth (if not also others) avoid is merely electoral politics, while their citizenship style features expressive political activities that they may pair with volunteering and other problem-solving work (Chou et al 2017; Dalton 2009; Loader, Vromen, and Xenos 2014; Sloam 2014; Zukin et al 2006).…”

“…Neither narrative has been adequately assessed, however, because civic engagement scholarship virtually exclusively models extent of participation in political and nonpolitical civic activity independently of each other, rather than modeling their mixes (e.g., Piatak 2023; Zukin et al 2006). Explicitly “political” participation research thus groups service specialists with the civically disengaged.…”

“…2.One exception is Piatak’s (2023) controls for party affiliation, ideology, and lack of ideology. All are statistically insignificant.…”