The Community Colleges’ Role in Developing Students’ Civic Outcomes.

COMMUNITY colleges; CIVICS education; EDUCATIONAL outcomes; SERVICE learning; COLLEGE campuses

Objective: Ideally, community colleges both democratize opportunity and develop in students the civic skills necessary to meaningfully participate in a democratic society. This national pilot study examines the individual and institutional factors associated with greater civic agency, capacity, behavior, and knowledge among students after at least 1 year of community college attendance. Method: Using survey data obtained from both community college students and administrators via a new civic outcomes survey and institutional questionnaire, this research utilizes both descriptive and multivariate statistics to identify associations between individual and institutional characteristics and behaviors leading to greater civic outcomes. Results: Holding students’ incoming characteristics and pre-college behaviors constant, this study shows that community college students’ academic and extracurricular behaviors, as well as institutions’ intentionality toward civic engagement, are associated with higher levels of civic agency, capacity, behavior, and knowledge. Contributions: Results of this study indicate that by making visible and measurable commitments to civic learning and democratic engagement on campus, and by creating opportunities for students to interact with one another, wrestle with thorny social or political issues, and engage in their communities, colleges can help create informed citizens who are skilled in democratic practices and committed to lifelong engagement. For community colleges, this is especially important, given their large population of students from groups historically marginalized in the nation’s education and political systems and their mission to both democratize opportunity and do the work of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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