Advocating for Engagement: Do Experiential Learning Courses Boost Civic Engagement?

In political science and academia more broadly, it is well understood that widespread civic engagement is a bedrock for a robust democracy. This premise drives disciplinary and institutional efforts to foster experiential learning settings that empower students to take up the responsibilities of active citizenship and the cultivation of student political engagement at our institutions of higher education. Yet, this widely shared commitment exists alongside significant disagreement about how we ought to define civic engagement, how engaged courses ought to be structured to generate significant impacts, and how to measure and assess the outcomes of such experiences. In this article, we outline promising results of a new educational initiative called the Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation (ENACT). This national program that engages undergraduates at colleges and universities in state legislative politics in collaboration with legislators, staffers, and community organizations. The findings presented here provide preliminary evidence that ENACT course experiences have powerful impacts on students when compared alongside non-experiential courses. Specifically, engaging students directly in state legislative processes yields promising results with higher reported levels of political engagement and political efficacy, and greater likelihood to engage in civic action.