The Role of School Culture in Shaping Political Trust Among Adolescents

The literature on political trust highlights the critical role of schools as socializing agents in fostering critical citizenship among adolescents. Prior research demonstrates that positive interactions with teachers and peers can enhance adolescents’ confidence in institutions, especially when institutional quality is high. However, two key issues remain unresolved. First, the role of civic education in shaping trust remains unclear, as its predictive power varies across studies. Specifically, the impact of civic education may depend on factors such as teachers’ training in civic topics and the broader civic education culture emphasized by schools. Second, it is unclear whether the adolescents’ experiences in school alone drive these evaluative attitudes, as pupils from privileged socio-economic backgrounds may be more responsive to the positive socializing influence of schools. Addressing these gaps has significant policy implications as it clarifies whether school culture—defined by the quality of teacher training and curricular emphasis on civic education—genuinely influences adolescents’ development of political trust. This study uses hierarchical models to leverage cross-sectional data containing country-level, school-level and individual-level variables from twenty countries across three waves to examine the effects of school-level civic education practices on evaluative trust. Specifically, it examines how these effects interact with individual-level factors, such as family political sophistication and socio-economic status, as well as country-level performance indicators. By analyzing the interplay between school culture, individual characteristics, and country performance, this research provides insights into how schools contribute to adolescents’ trust in political institutions.