From the empire state to the north star state: Voter engagement in the 2016 election

Abstract

Voter engagement has the potential to be a fundamental part of social work practice and a key to the professional socialization of social work students. This article describes a classroom-based voter engagement project conducted in two undergraduate social work programs in different U.S. states with significantly different voting laws. We describe the rationale of the project, the implementation process of the project, the evaluation of the project, and review the results in the context of the 2016 election. We suggest future research that can help develop best practices and methods for implementation of voter engagement in social work practice and education in the future.