2005 Poverty Research Small Grants
Funded research
Civic and Political Engagement: The Role of Poverty in the Context of Race, Ethnicity and Neighborhood.
Eric Plutzer, Associate Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Penn State University. Julianna Sandell, Penn State University Department of Political Science.
Description
Poverty diminishes levels of political participation both in electoral politics and in local community and civic organizations. Low levels of participation of the poor have been shown to have tangible effects on public policies. For example, in states where voter turnout among the poor is relatively high, welfare benefits tend to be more generous.
Since poor citizens cannot hope to influence elected officials through campaign contributions or insider lobbying, political participation is an important avenue for having a voice in the formulation of public policies that affect them.
This project seeks to understand political participation in developmental perspective. We examine a cohort of adolescents and measure their civic and political participation when they are in their early- and mid-twenties. We expect to show how various family transitions (e.g., teen or early adult parenthood), achievements (e.g., high school graduation), and financial hardships and life stressors all contribute to higher or lower levels of civic involvement. Based on research by ourselves and many others, we expect the effects of these life course and SES variables differ across race and ethnicity, and across community context -- though the magnitudes of such differences are difficult to forecast
Our primary data set is the National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS: 1988-2000) and we employ hierarchical models in which schools and/or neighborhoods are the contextual units.
