The school’s role in youths’ political efficacy: can school provide a compensatory boost to students’ political efficacy?

Abstract

In the democracies of today, school often have a dual role to play. Not only should they give students the knowledge they need to enter the labour market, they should also teach young people about democracy, and develop students' capacity to exercise their citizenship. A third task for schools is to enhance political equality in society by supporting the least privileged students. In this study, we explore how school can contribute to increased equality by strengthening students' political efficacy. Upper secondary students' political efficacy levels are compared over time by creating four groups on the basis of their educational choices and experiences of the school and teaching environment. The results indicate that school matters for the development of political efficacy, but not in the same ways for all students. Signs of there being compensatory effects of having a positive school/teaching environment are found for students on vocational programmes, but not for those on academic programmes. Moreover, the results suggest that classroom/teaching factors play a more important role than the social environment offered by schools.

Political efficacy in adolescence: Development, gender differences, and outcome relations.

“…In the studies by Krampen (1990Krampen ( , 1998, self-concept of one's own political competence was found to be a stable construct which did not show any mean level changes across adolescent years (i.e., ages 14 to 17). Given that other studies showed increasing mean levels for constructs of individual political socialization including efficacy beliefs related to the performance of specific politicsrelated actions (Eckstein et al, 2012;Kerestes et al, 2004;Sohl & Arensmeier, 2015;Zaff et al, 2011), these findings of stability across adolescence are surprising. Instead, students' political efficacy or self-concept of one's own general political competence would have been expected to increase across adolescent years.…”

Engagement, passivity and detachment: 16‐year‐old students’ conceptions of politics and the relationship between people and politics

“…Hoskins et al, 2012;Sohl & Arensmeier, 2015), we should strengthen further the bottom-up perspective on politics, focusing on the (extended) public sphere as a central arena for participation. This focus includes empowering students through participation in discussions, practice in facing opposition and critically reviewing arguments and political information in social media (Journell et al, 2015), including rhetoric with emotional appeal.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that discussing politics and social issues in the classroom is strongly associated with students' interest in politics and political efficacy (Kahne et al, 2013;Sohl & Arensmeier, 2015). Teachers play a significant role in supporting and challenging students in such discussions, to facilitate learning experiences where student voices take the lead (Leighton, 2012;Freire, 2014).…”

Role of school climate and personality in the development of Czech adolescents’ political self-efficacy

“…Scales measuring local and school PSE (i.e. internal political efficacy) were constructed based on general guidelines for creating self-efficacy scales (Bandura, 2006) and more general political self-efficacy measures Sohl & Arensmeier, 2015). Using four items, participants assessed their belief that they could carry out four local political activities: organizing a local demonstration; organizing a petition; negotiating with local politicians; and leading a group that stands up for some local cause (e.g., "If I wanted, I think I would be able to negotiate with local politicians").…”

“…Although this dimension of classroom climate typically has not been considered in studies of political self-efficacy (Sohl & Arensmeier, 2015 being an exception), peers play a crucial role in adolescents' development (Brown, 2004). More specifically, relationships with classmates can affect adolescents' self-efficacy beliefs.…”