Institutional effectiveness in promoting undergraduates' commitment to civic values: Catholic higher education and Latino/a students

Catholic college and universities in the United States share a rich history of providing educational opportunities to generations of students who had little access to higher education. For students who were marginalized from the mainstream by their religion, their status as immigrants, or their ethnicity, Catholic high education served as a catalyst for social mobility, empowering Catholic Americans to achieve new levels of economic and political success. As reflected in the mission statements of many Catholic colleges and universities today, educating students who participate in society and are committed to serving the people of the world is an overarching goal of Catholic higher education. This study explores the effectiveness of Catholic colleges and universities in achieving that goal, particularly in the context of an increasingly diverse U.S. population, and an increasingly Latino population of American Catholics.; To explore the institutional effectiveness of Catholic institutions in promoting commitment to civic values among undergraduates, this study used longitudinal data from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) to examine students' commitment to civic values at four types of institutions: Catholic, other religious (non-Catholic), private (nonsectarian), and public. The sample included 23,544 students from 142 institutions: 7,713 students from 37 Catholic institutions; 6,442 students from 55 other religious (non-Catholic) institutions; 6,148 students from 35 private (nonsectarian) institutions; and 3,201 students from 15 public institutions.; The study used descriptive analyses to compare subgroups of students according to institutional type and race. Multivariate analyses were conducted to determine the relative importance of institutional type when factors such as pre-college commitments to civic values, background characteristics, pre-college and in-college activities and experiences, and other institutional characteristics. Results of the analysis indicate that attending a Catholic college or university had a direct, positive influence on student's commitment to civic values. Among Latino/a students, attending a Catholic college or university again had a direct, positive influence on student's commitment to civic values.