Understanding Adolescents’ Civic Identity From a Narrative Perspective

Abstract

For a more comprehensive understanding of adolescents’ civic development, research is needed that explicitly examines civic identity and how it develops. Drawing on narrative identity theory and methodology, we qualitatively and quantitatively described adolescents’ civic identity using written narratives from a racially/ethnically, socioeconomically, and geographically diverse sample of 1,013 adolescents. We applied theoretically-derived narrative codes of meaning, coherence, and self-event connections to adolescents’ narratives; derived developmental themes inductively; and conducted supplemental quantitative analyses. Findings suggest snapshots of different processes of civic identity development, which include making personal connections from civic engagement to the self and deepening meaning and self-event connections through interactions with others. At the highest levels of meaning, coherence, and civic self-event connections, adolescents connected civic engagement to larger social issues and social change. Quantitative findings further indicated that the three narrative components co-occur, especially at the highest levels, and that civic identity components vary depending on identity content. Results have implications for theories of civic development and narrative identity and offer practical implications for supporting youth’s civic identity development.