Michael McDevitt

Bio: Michael McDevitt is an academic researcher from University of Colorado Boulder. The author has contributed to research in topics: Journalism & Political socialization. The author has an hindex of 17, co-authored 32 publications receiving 1324 citations. Previous affiliations of Michael McDevitt include University of Texas at Austin.

From Top-Down to Trickle-Up Influence: Revisiting Assumptions About the Family in Political Socialization

Abstract: A growing number of theorists are calling for a revival of research on political socialization based on the premise that children are active in their own civic development. We advance this argument a step further by proposing a model of family communication that reverses the roles of parents and children as conventionally understood in political socialization. Adolescent children are not merely receptive to political stimulation; they possess the power to transform patterns of family communication in ways that benefit themselves and their parents. We first challenge a series of interrelated assumptions about the nature and direction of influence in the family. We then document evidence of "trickle-up influence," in which child-initiated discussion--stimulated by a civics curriculum--prompts the parent to increase her civic competence via increased news media use, knowledge gain, and opinion formation. The parent's response reflects her desire to maintain a leadership role in the family, and more important...

Closing Gaps in Political Communication and Knowledge Effects of a School Intervention

Abstract: A model of family influence that reverses the traditional roles of parents and children is presented to explain the results of a school intervention that narrowed political communication and knowledge gaps between parents of high and low socioeconomic status (SES). Students' exposure to a civics curriculum stimulated adolescent news media use at home and discussions with parents about an ongoing election campaign. These discussions, in turn, stimulated parents to pay more attention to news and to gain political knowledge. Students in Grades 5 through 12 and one parent from each family were interviewed in a quasi-experimental evaluation of the civics curriculum (N = 457 pairs). Parents in low-SES homes had not been strongly socialized to politics in their own youth, but their children's exposure to the school intervention provided them a second chance at citizenship. This study highlights the capacity of the child to stimulate political communication in low-SES families.

The Roots of the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge in Adolescence

Abstract: Why do men score better than women do on tests of political knowledge? We consider the roots of the gender gap in political knowledge in late adolescence. Using a panel survey of high school seniors, we consider the differences between young men and young women in what they know about politics and how they learn over the course of a midterm election campaign. We find that even after controlling for differences in dispositions like political interest and efficacy, young women are still significantly less politically knowledgeable than young men. While campaigns neither widen nor close the gender gap in political knowledge, we find important gender differences in how young people respond to the campaign environment. While partisan conflict is more likely to promote learning among young men, young women are more likely to gain information in environments marked by consensus rather than conflict.

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

Abstract: The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Democracy and education.

Abstract: Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.

The Ecology of Human Development

Abstract: This chapter explores the ecology of human development, those forces in the person's environment that affect and influence development. Urie Bronfenbrenner's model of the human ecosystem guides the discussion, making connections between children in families and in communities and the larger society that surrounds them. The human ecosystem model is much like the study of the natural ecology, focusing on the interactions between subjects at various levels of the environment as they affect each other. The interaction between individual and environment forms the basis of an ecological approach to human development. This view sees the process of development as the expansion of the child's conception of the world and the child's ability to act on that world. Risks to development can come from both direct threats and the absence of opportunities for development. Sociocultural risk refers to the impoverishment in the child's world of essential experiences and relationships.