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Taking College-Level Political Science Courses and Civic Activity

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Book cover Technology and Civic Engagement in the College Classroom

Abstract

The annual Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey (2013) showed a 40 percent decrease in the number of incoming college freshmen who think that keeping up with politics is important. In 1966, 60 percent of this group thought that keeping up with politics was important (Galston 2004), while only 36.1 percent thought so in 2013 (Eagan et al. 2013). This trend coincides with research findings that indicate that the percentage of young adults who exercise suffrage has declined in this timeframe (Levine and Lopez 2002; Miller and Shanks 1996), and that young adults are less apt than their elders to engage in other forms of political activity such as contributing money to political parties or candidates, contacting their elected officials, or voting (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Zukin et al. 2006).

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Authors
  1. Kenneth W. Moffett
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  2. Laurie L. Rice
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Editor information

Suzanne M. Chod William J. Muck Stephen M. Caliendo

Copyright information

© 2015 Suzanne M. Chod, William J. Muck, and Stephen M. Caliendo

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Moffett, K.W., Rice, L.L. (2015). Taking College-Level Political Science Courses and Civic Activity. In: Chod, S.M., Muck, W.J., Caliendo, S.M. (eds) Technology and Civic Engagement in the College Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-50451-7_2

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