Longitudinal Study of the Psychosocial Effects of Political Participation by Children: the ‘Ágora Infantil’ Programme

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the effect of participation-based democratic innovations on psychological empowerment and group identification of children. To do so, it analyses the impact on the participants of a participatory democracy programme for groups of schoolchildren, ‘Ágora Infantil’ (AI). Evaluation is performed via a longitudinal study carried out over two years, with pre and post quantitative measurements of the target and control group. The sample consisted of 182 boys and girls. The data were gathered via a questionnaire made up of items prepared by a group of experts for the current study based on Zimmerman’s empowerment theory (American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(5), 581–599, 1995, 2000). Items were also taken from other authors, for example affective links, which were used as an indicator to measure group identification (Gaviria et al. International Journal of Social Psychology, 30(3), 531–562, 2015). The results show that institutional political participation generates positive changes in the participants. More specifically, the children improved in the two components of psychological empowerment (intrapersonal and interactional), with an intensification of relationship links with the group (the class). These findings demonstrate the political and psychosocial importance of these participatory innovations being introduced and their medium-term effects.