Understanding Multilevel Citizenship in Rural Adolescents

Abstract

This dissertation explores how a multilevel model of citizenship worked with rural adolescents as a means to better understand how educators can revitalize and increase adolescent willingness to participate in both civil and political activities. This study uses an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach to survey and interview high school seniors from twenty rural schools in Eastern Kansas. It seeks to determine how adolescents’ willingness to participate at the local, national, and global level might vary, what factors impact an adolescent’s willingness to participate at each level, what pattern of factors existed across all three levels, and how they would define each of the levels. Based on the survey results, respondents were more willing to participate at the local and national level than the global. However, within these results, four factors were found to be statistically significant at all three levels: discussions with parents and peers, involvement with a religious youth group, and parental involvement in trying to solve problems. In evaluating these items further through a semi-structured interview, these factors were found to be important in that they helped to foster the development of a connection to specific levels. This demonstrates that within a multilevel model of citizenship, factors that were found significant at all three levels were the context and process factors that fostered making a connection to these imagined communities. The value of this study is that it provides a different model of evaluating civic and political efficacy by placing it within a multilevel model of citizenship, where previous studies have only implied a local or national focus. If adolescents can indeed have diversified interest in participating at various levels, then these findings provide a fresh look at ways to perhaps increase and better understand adolescent willingness to be civically and politically engaged.