Longitudinal Outcomes of K-20 Civic Engagement Partnerships

• In Event: Which Pedagogies Lead to Engagement?

Abstract

Recent events have highlighted the lack of knowledge about government, its policies, and its processes and some citizens’ unwillingness to engage in non-violent, respectful democratic deliberation to work through differences and create policy to solve our common problems. Many Americans also have a thin understanding of our global-local connections, assuming that some form of isolationism is still feasible. Meanwhile, K-12 civics curriculum has been gutted, and co-curricular funding for learning about and practicing civic engagement has declined due to budget cuts and increased investment elsewhere (Owens 2017 and Owens & Riddle 2013). Consequently, only high schoolers from affluent families have been able to continue a robust civic education through costly co-curricular activities requiring readily available, family-based transportation. The inability to participate in co-curricular learning activities which augment or replace in-class learning leaves these students further behind their more affluent classmates, also hindering their chances for college admission, scholarships, and above-living wage employment; further, they may lack the knowledge, skills, experiences, and sense of efficacy to develop and promote changes which could transform their circumstances and bring equity to our political, economic, and social systems (McCartney 2017).
The TU-Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) Model United Nations conference, now entering its 22nd year, was founded to help address inequities in access to civic education and provide a year-long global civic engagement learning opportunity for Maryland high schoolers regardless of their families’ socio-economic circumstances. A majority-minority program, it connects participants with TU students and professors in role-playing simulations. While many versions of Model UN have existed for decades, the TU-BCPS version is unique because it is a free, comprehensive, year-long program which brings high schoolers and college students together in an accessible and mutually beneficial global and civic engagement learning program. Most other versions are very costly and serve as fundraisers for college Model UN teams, or a few are quick simulations for a few hours on one day, generally held in wealthier school districts and/or rarely if ever including activities fully developed and supervised by teachers or college-level educators.
Our existing self-report data from post-conference high school student and high school teacher surveys shows that the program has been very successful in advancing high school participants skills, knowledge, and college and career preparation per our learning objectives, which include developing writing, research, and oral presentation skills; problem-solving capabilities; preparation for higher education, career, leadership, and global citizenship; experience in working with others from a variety of contexts and perspectives; and knowledge on various countries’ politics, cultures, and problems and contemporary international relations. While high schoolers’ self-report data strongly endorses this model, we have engaged external data research for non-self-report longitudinal information. This project asks: Which long-term college and career outcomes are associated with participation in the TU-BCPS Model UN?
Longitudinal research about what works for whom and under what conditions and which long-term associations may/may not exist with participants’ college and post-collegiate professional choices and successes is sparse. Using a list of TU-BCPS Model UN high school participants from 2007-2020 (n=2600), this project uncovers data provided with the help of the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center (MLDSC) regarding participants’ long-term collegiate, graduate school, and career outcomes. We will use existing MLDSC dashboard information as a comparison group of Maryland public high school graduates. This dashboard will allow us to discern if there are any significant differences in college, career, and salary outcomes between the participant group and the Maryland-wide MLDSC group with the same MLSDC data points. We seek to determine whether: this program achieves its goals in associated college and career outcomes for high school participants; this program should/should not be replicated; economically inclusive experiential learning is/is not associated with positive college and career outcomes for participants; and, for TU, participants in this program do/do not attend TU at rates higher than the program cost. Thus, this program may/may not be a low-cost recruiting tool for colleges and universities. While we do not seek to claim causation, as many factors lead to students’ academic and career success, we can discern trends and associations which may help us to promote the model to other institutions and better understand the long-term impacts of inclusive K-12 civic engagement and experiential education programs.

Authors

• Alison Rios Millett McCartney, Towson University

• Michele Calderon, University of Maryland Baltimore County

• Nicole Golemboski

• Danielle McNerney