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Political Engagement Project

Project Summary
In order to strengthen undergraduate education for responsible, engaged citizenship, the Political Engagement Project describes and assesses the impact of 21 undergraduate courses and extra-curricular programs designed to foster informed political engagement, broadly defined to include community engagement with a systemic dimension and other aspects of public policy, as well as electoral politics at local, state, and national levels. Nine American Democracy Project campuses are collaborating in the work of this project. These courses and programs are located at a diverse set of institutions across the country

The project documents the goals and pedagogies of the participating courses and programs, students’ perspectives on their experiences in the program, and the impact of these experiences on key dimensions of political development such as knowledge and understanding, active involvement, sense of political efficacy and identity, and skills of democratic participation. Students complete a survey before and after the course/ program, and a subset of students from each of the 21 is interviewed in depth. The faculty leaders were also interviewed and completed a survey.

Analyses of these data show that the courses and programs do succeed in increasing students’ political understanding, participation, skills, and action. This is so both for students who enter the courses and programs with little interest in politics and those who enter already very interested and engaged.

Given widespread charges of liberal bias on college campuses, it is interesting to note that students are entering these courses and programs with a broad spectrum of political beliefs, and their party identification and political ideologies (self-ratings of liberal-conservative) do not show significant change from pre to post.

The Political Engagement Project is also preparing a book, Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Political Engagement, for faculty and administrators who want to promote undergraduate political engagement. The book is structured around the key goals and pedagogies of education for politicalengagement - structured reflection, research and action projects, outside speakers, and external placements. The book spells out the specific purposes these pedagogies serve and offers guidelines for using them, warnings about challenges they present, and suggestions for overcoming those challenges. The book also addresses the importance of open inquiry and diversity of opinion in education for democratic participation, along with strategies for ensuring open-minded consideration of alternative perspectives. Educating for Democracy was published in 2007 by Jossey-Bass.

The Political Engagement Project is directed by Elizabeth Beaumont, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, and Anne Colby and Thomas Ehrlich, both of whom are Senior Scholars at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Participants

California State University, Monterey Bay
CUNY, Medgar Evers College
Ferris State University
Illinois State University
Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
Sam Houston State University
Kennesaw State University
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Western Kentucky University


Partner Organizations
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The New York Times