This thesis investigates the effect that a variety of demographic, educational, cognitive, and health-related variables have on civic engagement. Civic engagement is defined as a combination of frequency of volunteering and feelings of political efficacy. International survey data from 34 countries are used to provide a cross-national view of the predictors of civic engagement. We use canonical correlation analysis to investigate the widespread effects of predictor variables on both facets of civic engagement (volunteering and political efficacy) and the effects that are linked to only one facet. Furthermore, we use country-level socio-demographic data to link patterns of civic engagement of potentially marginalised groups to the representation those groups have at the community level and the political level. Our results highlight the importance of cognitive skills and skill building resources in supporting engaged citizens: literacy skill, numeracy skill, educational attainment, and number of books in the home are found to be strong predictors of civic engagement across all countries. The present thesis contributes to knowledge by employing a common measure of civic engagement across all countries, using an analysis method that allows and accounts for variance shared by multiple facets of civic engagement, and by investigating civic engagement across a wide variety of countries. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / This thesis investigates the factors that affect how involved someone is in their community or society. This involvement is known as civic engagement, which we define as a combination of levels of volunteering and political efficacy (the belief that one can affect politics). A wide variety of potential influencing factors are considered, including literacy and numeracy level, education, health level, and immigration and language background. We use data from an international survey to investigate the effects of these variables on levels of civic engagement in 34 countries. We use a statistical method that highlights how our variables of interest influence civic engagement as a whole, and how the variables specifically influence levels of volunteering or political efficacy. By analyzing the effects of the variables across diverse countries and measures of civic engagement, we shed new light on the factors that promote civic engagement around the world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/27861 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Battershill, Kaitlyn |
| Contributors | Kuperman, Victor, Humanities |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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