Civic Bonding of School and Family: How Kids Voting Students Enliven the Domestic Sphere, (The)

The influence of Kids Voting USA, an interactive civics curriculum taught during election campaigns, is assessed in the context of three field experiments that took place during the fall of 2002. The research sites are Maricopa County, Arizona; El Paso County, Colorado; and Broward/Palm Beach counties, Florida. Presented are findings from the first wave of a panel study on the long-term effects of the curriculum on high school juniors and seniors and their parents. Data were collected from N=559 student-parent dyads. Results from standardized questionnaires are supplemented with focus-group interviews of students. The authors identify the initial curriculum effects on students, on parents, and on the family system as a setting for developmental growth. After looking at impacts of the entire curriculum, we examine whether specific components help to account for particular results. Finally, they point to implications for innovations in civics education. A central goal of the study was to develop a conceptual map of the civic bonding of school and family, in which students influence parents to pay more attention to politics, and parents encourage students to participate more actively in civics activities at school. As evident in the findings, the process begins with Kids Voting instruction, which emphasizes peer-group conversation. Students acquire an interest in partisan debates and begin to appreciate the importance of strengthening their knowledge so as to back up opinions. Students then initiate conversations with parents, and in doing so gain confidence as young citizens who have the ability to influence others. Parents respond by paying more attention to news and by acquiring opinions they can use in subsequent conversations with children.