We study how colleges shape their students' voting habits by linking millions of SAT takers to their college-enrollment and voting histories. To begin, we show that the fraction of students from a particular college who vote varies systematically by the college's attributes (e.g. increasing with selectivity) but also that seemingly similar…

College experiences can contribute to teaching, learning, and instruction within higher education. The framework for this essay treats the college community as prototypic of the U.S. political society. Several aspects of the national political culture have been approximated within a collegiate culture. For example, every political problem within…

While U.S. voters delivered a significant change in the 2024 federal elections, they opted for steady leadership at the state level. No state board of education shifted in partisan control, and only five seats saw a shift in political party out of 27 races that were contested in the general election. This policy update looks at the results of…

Elections in fledgling democracies are punctuated by perceived and observed cases of vote buying otherwise also called electoral clientelism -- regarded as a major threat to democratic consolidation. Notions of vote buying are variously captured in the burgeoning literature on democracy, but the ongoing scholarly discussions have failed to engage…

Since March of 2020, two pandemics have hit the United States of America like a bag of bricks. The health pandemic as a result of COVID-19 that has killed over 180,000 Americans and the racially-charged genocides that continues to murder our Black brothers and sisters. As a result of constant disregard for Black lives, in part 1, we analyze the…

Nancy Thomas is director of the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education at Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. In the Question & Answers (Q&A) presented in this article, New England Journal of Higher Education (NEJHE) Executive Editor John O. Harney asks Thomas about her insights on higher education, citizen…

In this Q&A, NEJHE Executive Editor John O. Harney asks Mary K. Grant, president of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, about the institute's work connecting postsecondary education to citizenship and upcoming elections.

The aim of this study is to bring under the spotlight the need for a broader public sector accounting education plan that would facilitate the development of participatory citizens. The study develops a conceptual framework that links citizens' government accounting literacy with various community-related decisions and in particular citizens'…

The majority of voters in South Africa still do not take democratic elections for granted, but the decline in voting participation is a cause for concern in South Africa, as in other parts of the world. In addition, widespread student protests at higher education institutions during 2015 and 2016, including those at African and South African…

When U.S. Sen. Barack Obama launched his bold bid in 2007 for the presidency of the United States, the contingency of college-aged voters was paramount to deciding the outcome of the election. As in past big election years, college students mobilized in large numbers, that year mostly rallying to Obama's call to help him lead a major turnaround in…

The student vote can very well determine the outcome of the 1972 presidential elections. (HS)

Free elections are one of the fundamental principles of any parliamentary democracy. The constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Basic Law, stipulates in its article 20(2) that "all state authority emanates from the people" who exercise that authority "by means of elections and referendums and through special…

Examines the media's influence on the political information available to the public and its impact on voting behavior in state and local elections. (RB)

Discusses a national survey suggesting that college students could be a key demographic force in the 2004 elections. (EV)

The early and formative years of women's involvement in the political structure of the United States was filled with high hopes, especially issues related to women and children. Educational reform was one of the major goals that women hoped to achieve. As demonstrated by an in-depth look at the 1920 National Convention of the Republican Party,…