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Diverging Paths: Understanding Racial Differences in Civic Engagement Among White, African American, and Latina/o Adolescents Using Structural Equation Modeling
Author(s) -
LittenbergTobias Joshua,
Cohen Alison K.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1002/ajcp.12027
Subject(s) - civic engagement , structural equation modeling , health psychology , ethnic group , democracy , white (mutation) , african american , diversity (politics) , positive youth development , sociology , social psychology , psychology , gender studies , public health , political science , developmental psychology , politics , medicine , ethnology , mathematics , nursing , anthropology , law , gene , biochemistry , statistics , chemistry
There is increasing concern about the large civic engagement gap between Whites and Latina/o and African American youth. Some suggest this may be because traditional models and measures of civic engagement may not be as applicable for youth from historically marginalized groups. With an urban sample of middle and high school‐age youth ( n = 903, 52% female), we used structural equation modeling to identify differences in civic pathways between youth from different racial/ethnic backgrounds. We found significant differences between groups including much stronger relationships between exposure to democratic practices and civic self‐efficacy and knowledge for African American and Latina/o youth than for White youth and a stronger relationship between civic knowledge and future civic engagement for Whites and Latina/os than for African Americans. These findings suggest that educators and researchers interested need to take into account the diversity of youths' racial experiences when examining youth civic development.