Nonpartisan Voter Engagement: Preparing the Next Generation of Social Workers

Background and Purpose:

Policy created by elected officials is responsive to those who vote. Therefore, ensuring equitable voter turnout is vital to an equitable democracy. Given that social workers frequently work with low-propensity voters, preparing social work students to engage clients in voting is an important step in addressing turnout. This presentation reports findings from an evaluation of a nonpartisan voter engagement assignment embedded within two social work education programs over three years. This assignment was embedded within macro practice classes and tied to student field placements. Students were required to conduct an assessment of the voting patterns, potential barriers to voting, and needs of targeted client or community groups, and then develop a plan for engaging these groups in voting.

Research Question:

This evaluation sought to answer whether completion of an applied, nonpartisan voter engagement assignment increases each of the following:

• Social work students’ willingness to vote in local, state, and federal elections in the future;
• Social work students’ perception of the importance of voter engagement to the profession as well as their own practice;
• And social work students’ willingness to engage others voting.

Methods:

BSW and MSW students enrolled in macro classes at two large, public universities completed pretests prior to beginning a unit on voter engagement and posttests upon completion of the nonpartisan voter engagement assignment. Pretests and posttests contained fixed choice questions that sought to measure perceptions of the importance of voting, self-reports of current and future voting behaviors at multiple levels, the likelihood of engaging others in voting, as well as demographic questions. Over three years of implementation, students completed 455 pretests and 475 posttests. Due to the categorical and ordinal level of the data, nonparametric tests were used to analyze differences between pretests and posttests.

Results:

Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed significant increases in students’ likelihood to vote in federal elections (Z = -8.753, p < .001), state elections (Z = -10.818, p < .001), and local elections (Z = -10.962, p < .001) after completion of the assignment. Wilcoxen signed-rank texts also found significant increases in students’ willingness to encourage others to register g (Z =-7.318, p < .001); to help register others (Z = -11.021, p < .001); to encourage others to vote (Z =, p < .001); to help others in the voting process (Z = -3.101, p < .001); and to educate others about voting issues (Z = -9.623, p < .001). Finally, 88% of students reported that voting was important or moderately important to their practice; an increase of 44% from prestests, which was statistically significant (Z = -16.010, p < .001).

Conclusions and Implications:

Results from this evaluation evidence the effectiveness of applied, nonpartisan voter engagement assignments in increasing students’ perception of the importance voting as well as the likelihood of voting themselves and engaging clients in voting in the future. These results support the implementation of nonpartisan voter engagement in other schools of social work.