Inside Student Government: The Variable Quality of High School Student Councils

Abstract

Background/Context

Student governments are the first direct experience that youth have of representative government. However, very little research has been done on student councils in spite of their ubiquity in American high schools and consistent references to their positive effects on the political socialization of youth.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This article studies how student councils are variably organized across the nation to determine how and why better or worse quality experiences of representative government are being had by youth just before they enter adulthood and have the opportunity to be engaged in the nation's political system.

Research Design

The authors conducted interviews with student council sponsors, collected a nationally representative sample of student council constitutions, and then looked at the variance in student powers and faculty controls over council endeavors.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The study finds that student councils are variably organized by school charters and by income levels and race of student populations. Elite public schools afford councils unprecedented powers and low faculty oversight, whereas impoverished schools and those with disadvantaged minorities tend to lack councils or merely have ones that perform social functions. By contrast, private religious schools have the most active councils engaged in a wide range of activities, but their decisions and memberships are constrained by a great deal of faculty oversight. Such variation in representative government has implications for political socialization and the types of citizens being developed in the United States.