Leadership Experiences: Educating for Diverse Citizenship

Abstract

The purpose of this article was to examine the association between first-year students' participation in cocurricular leadership experiences and their diverse citizenship, the extent to which students are open to diversity, value diversity, and engage in efforts to improve their communities. We utilized Thriving Quotient survey data from first-year students at a large public research university and analyzed the data using propensity score methods to match leadership participants and non-participants. The results suggested first-year students who participated in leadership experiences were significantly more likely than first-year students who did not participate in leadership experiences to express diverse citizenship, controlling for other academic and social engagement variables.