Education in the United States has a foundational public purpose: to prepare students for effective citizenship. The idea that an educated and engaged citizenry is essential to the health of a democracy motivated the creation of government-run "common schools" in the early decades of the nation and remains an important value in modern…

This study aims to find a link between strong civic norms at school and engagement in the political process. Although adolescent civic engagement has been a topic of concern for many years, it has not been put to a careful empirical test, in part because few surveys of students contain detailed contextual information about their school community…