Civic Engagement among Latino Youth

in Sonoma County

Sonoma State University

  Civic Engagement among Latino Youth in Sonoma County is a research project conducted by Sonoma State University, financed with a grant from CIRCLE: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, from the School of Public Affairs of the University of Maryland.

Principal Co-Investigators: Dr. Carlos A. Benito from the Economics Department, specializing in Economics of Education and Coordinator of Assessment of Student Learning at Sonoma State University; and Dr. Francisco H. Vazquez from the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies, specializing on the History of Ideas, and director of the Hutchins Institute for Public Policy Studies and Community Action, at Sonoma State University, the sponsor of this project. The research team of this project is integrated with faculty, researchers, and students from SSU, and it is supported and advised by other SSU professionals, and by school administrators and teachers from Sonoma County school districts.

The objective of this research is threefold:

• To determine the degree of civic engagement of Latino Youth in Sonoma County, in relationship to students from other groups;
• To explain differences in civic engagement among students from different ethnic groups;
• To identify activities to improve the civic engagement of different students groups, if this was necessary.

Civic engagement is here understood in a broad sense, as to include civic engagement associated with political awareness and action, community services, and volunteering.

Among the major groups of explanatory factors to be studied are: civic knowledge, human values, family background, socioeconomic status, culture of origin, and other demographic characteristics. Relationship between civic engagement and the proposed explanatory factors will be investigated by means of statistical methods. The main data-generating tool will be a statistical survey. Statistical findings will be validated with focus groups.

Activities to improve civic engagement will include: generation of information for teachers, school administrators, education researchers interested on developing curriculum, programs, or teaching strategies for civic education and service learning; communicating the findings to policy makers concerned with access to quality education; communicating the findings to NGOs, community leaders, and public agencies interested on youth support; providing access of teachers and students to the findings, by means of a web page in the Internet.