- Study (Kegel & Scheidig, 2026) on politician school visits: pre-post survey at two German schools (n=104) after a 90-minute dialogue event.
- Results: Small-to-moderate, significant gains in students’ image of politicians, internal/external efficacy, plus knowledge and interest.
- Limits: No randomization or control group, small convenience sample, limited generalizability and unclear added value vs. standard civics lessons.
A recent study by Kegel and Scheidig (2026) thus considers the effect of politician visits to schools on the political attitudes of adolescents. Evaluating these dialogue programs is relevant for multiple reasons: Firstly, schools provide access to a wider set of the population. Secondly, political opinions are still being formed in adolescence, making the stage more important and effective for civic education. Lastly, many young people feel underrepresented by politics. Considering an outreach program of a German state parliament, the authors seek to answer the question: How do students’ attitudes differ from before to after meeting a politician in the school context? Their analysis suggests that in-school visits with politicians are associated with improvements in students’ image of politicians and in both internal and external political efficacy.
While previous studies have shown that contact between political candidates and citizens can increase electoral support for the former, their impact on attitudes towards democracy more generally remains understudied. Further, most studies have focused on natural interactions with adults and thus suffer from self-selection. Despite the increase of civic engagement programs (including school visits by politicians) as a response to growing mistrust and disengagement in the electorate, they have not yet seen sufficient scientific evaluation.
Kegel and Scheidig focus on three different aspects of attitudes on democracy, which they expect to be improved through intergroup contact. Firstly, they expect personal contact with a politician to influence the image of politicians in students’ minds. Next to humanizing politicians, the event may give them the chance to explain the challenges and inner workings of parliaments, as well as the personal challenges of their job. Secondly, students may learn more deeply and experience validation in conversation with the politician, thus feeling higher internal efficacy (i.e., the belief that one can understand and participate in politics). Lastly, the event might increase their feelings of external efficacy (i.e., the belief that the political system is responsive to one’s concerns).
To test their hypothesis, the authors gathered novel data at two German schools in the spring of 2023. While the schools were selected for convenience instead of randomly, both differed in type and location. The schools took part in an initiative by the parliament, which consisted of a 90-minute event with a member of the parliamentary presidium that included an introduction, a short documentary, and a student-led Q&A session with the politician. To assess the impact on their attitudes, the students were asked to answer a short questionnaire right before and about a week after the event. Next to six items on politician image and short item scales for internal and political efficacy, the survey measured demographic factors as well as political interest and knowledge. 104 students provided responses at both time points (68 in School 1; 36 in School 2).
The findings confirm the authors’ hypotheses, with the paired t-tests showing increases between the pre- and post-survey means for all three variables, which is further confirmed by an Ordinary Least Squares regression with student fixed effects. While the effect sizes are on the low-moderate side, all of them are statistically significant, underscoring the possible positive impact of school visits by politicians. Next to improvements in students’ image of politicians and perceptions of internal and external efficacy, the authors also observed positive effects on political knowledge and interest. Interestingly, the effects did not seem to be related to demographic markers. This might have been caused by the small size of the participant group, but could also indicate that the treatment is effective across groups.
The authors acknowledge that the study faces multiple limitations, especially regarding its external and internal validity. These were affected in particular by the convenience selection of the cases as well as the modest number of participants and the questionnaire's limited size – all of which were introduced to improve the feasibility of the logistically intense context. Further, the study’s validity could have been increased by the introduction of a control group, which was not done due to ethical and logistical concerns. It is also unclear to what extent the talk with the politician specifically added value compared to a general civic education intervention, which opens an interesting avenue for further research. Despite these limitations, the study is an important and novel contribution to the research on civic education, shining light on the value of targeting young people through dialogic programs.
