Who you are, where you go, and who you know: a study of civic participation of youth in Chicago neighborhoods

Abstract

Community violence is a pervasive and damaging social phenomenon, occurring with alarming frequency in economically disadvantaged communities of color. The detrimental consequences of violence exposure in adolescents is well understood; however, comparatively little is known about the ways in which Black youth may be empowered to make productive changes in their communities in the face of that adversity. Specifically, there is a dearth of research on whether and how community violence impact gifted Black youth, who both have the cognitive and moral ability to deliberate these themes as well as the threat to personal identity that makes these events salient. The antecedents and consequences of community violence are situated within the contextual framework of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems model, with a specific focus on the person-level factors of moral identity and purpose development in gifted youth. In the empirical study, the relationship between community violence, various psychosocial factors, and civic and community engagement was examined utilizing data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Results indicate that civic engagement by youth in their late teen years was the best predictor of community engagement (both formal and informal) in young adulthood, while voting attitudes in young adulthood were not predicted by any model variables.