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Examining the Role of Contexts in Youth Civic Development:

Thesis advisor: Jacqueline V. Lerner / In the United States, young people have the power to change the country, and they are exercising this power every day in many different ways (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, 2021). Beyond the contributions that youth civic engagement makes to societal well-being (Flanagan & Levine, 2010), it also contributes to young people’s own positive development (Lerner et al., 2015). Given these societal and individual benefits, it is important to investigate the correlates of youth civic engagement. Guided by positive youth development perspectives, my three independent but related dissertation studies examine the contextual correlates of civic engagement among young people. Study One investigates how different family characteristics and school characteristics separately and interactively predict adolescent civic engagement. Study Two examines thriving as a potential underlying process through which engagement in youth development programs promotes adolescent civic engagement. Study Three focuses on social media as a platform for civic actions, including those aiming to redress inequalities (i.e., critical actions), among White, cisgendered and heterosexual American young adults. Together, results from the three studies suggest the important role of growing up in ‘civic contexts’ in the development and sustainment of civic engagement among young people. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_110064
Date January 2023
CreatorsLe, Trang U.
PublisherBoston College
Source SetsBoston College
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, thesis
Formatelectronic, application/pdf
RightsCopyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.

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