TY - JOUR
T1 - Promoting Voter Turnout
T2 - an Unanticipated Impact of Early-Childhood Preventive Interventions
AU - Holbein, John B.
AU - Bradshaw, Catherine P.
AU - Munis, B. Kal
AU - Rabinowitz, Jill
AU - Ialongo, Nicholas S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We wish to thank audiences at the University of Virginia, the University of California Berkeley, Duke University, Furman University, Brigham Young University, Pew Research, the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, and the Civics Center/American Constitution Society for their feedback. We are grateful to Calliope Holingue for help with the data collection process.
Funding Information:
Funding for this research was provided to Holbein by the National Science Foundation (SES-1657821) and Ialongo from the National Institutes of Health (MH570005, DA11796, DA044184) and a NIDA training grant (DA007292).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Society for Prevention Research.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Preventive interventions in early childhood have a range of behavioral and health effects. However, there is an emerging literature extending this work to include acts of civic engagement, such as voting. Given that America has one of the lowest and most disparate rates of voter turnout in the world—and most of the current efforts aimed at boosting voter turnout and making the electorate more representative of the general public are proximal to the voting experience—there is a need for a better understanding of the potential long-term impact of early-childhood programming on civic engagement in adulthood. This paper builds on theories of political socialization and prior research demonstrating significant impacts of the Fast Track preventive intervention on voter turnout to examine the extent to which there are positive impacts on voter participation for other evidence-based preventive interventions targeting children’s social and emotional capacities. Specifically, we leveraged data from a randomized controlled trial of the classroom-centered (CC) and the family school partnership (FSP) preventive interventions delivered in first grade. We analyzed data from approximately 700 urban, predominately African American, public school students who were randomly assigned to classrooms that either implemented (1) the classroom-centered intervention (which included the good behavior game), (2) the FSP intervention, or (3) the business as usual (i.e., control group). Data from the trial were combined with archival voter data when the youth were in their early 30s. Analyses demonstrated positive impacts of the CC preventive intervention on voter turnout more than two decades after exposure to the prevention program. Taken together, these findings provide additional evidence that some of the attributes that promote active participation in democracy can be fostered in early childhood—long before most interventions that have previously tried, and often failed, to increase voter turnout.
AB - Preventive interventions in early childhood have a range of behavioral and health effects. However, there is an emerging literature extending this work to include acts of civic engagement, such as voting. Given that America has one of the lowest and most disparate rates of voter turnout in the world—and most of the current efforts aimed at boosting voter turnout and making the electorate more representative of the general public are proximal to the voting experience—there is a need for a better understanding of the potential long-term impact of early-childhood programming on civic engagement in adulthood. This paper builds on theories of political socialization and prior research demonstrating significant impacts of the Fast Track preventive intervention on voter turnout to examine the extent to which there are positive impacts on voter participation for other evidence-based preventive interventions targeting children’s social and emotional capacities. Specifically, we leveraged data from a randomized controlled trial of the classroom-centered (CC) and the family school partnership (FSP) preventive interventions delivered in first grade. We analyzed data from approximately 700 urban, predominately African American, public school students who were randomly assigned to classrooms that either implemented (1) the classroom-centered intervention (which included the good behavior game), (2) the FSP intervention, or (3) the business as usual (i.e., control group). Data from the trial were combined with archival voter data when the youth were in their early 30s. Analyses demonstrated positive impacts of the CC preventive intervention on voter turnout more than two decades after exposure to the prevention program. Taken together, these findings provide additional evidence that some of the attributes that promote active participation in democracy can be fostered in early childhood—long before most interventions that have previously tried, and often failed, to increase voter turnout.
KW - Early childhood
KW - Political socialization
KW - Preventive interventions
KW - Voter turnout
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U2 - 10.1007/s11121-021-01275-y
DO - 10.1007/s11121-021-01275-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 34279777
AN - SCOPUS:85110822941
SN - 1389-4986
VL - 23
SP - 192
EP - 203
JO - Prevention Science
JF - Prevention Science
IS - 2
ER -