Democratic Political Socialization on University Campuses

This paper intends to contextualize early research on political socialization with recent developments that provide new considerations for the transmission of democratic political learning at a more advanced learning stage. It attempts to demonstrate this literature on political socialization as the foundation for evaluating the continuing research of the Penn Democracy Project in the field of democratic political socialization of undergraduate students. In light of the political socialization literature, this paper reveals the results of the most recent iteration of the Penn Democracy Project research study, which provide insight into the state of citizenship at the University of Pennsylvania. The overarching conclusion of this study supports the notion that while the University of Pennsylvania offers resources and opportunities for undergraduates to foster civic values, through specialized courses; centers; and funding for clubs, it fails to actively cultivate a shared culture of citizenship among its students. Finally, this paper evaluates strategic policy initiatives to effectively increase democratic citizenship education for undergraduate students at the University of Pennsylvania and introduces possible considerations to transplant this “Penn Model” on other university campuses.