Elections Have Consequences for Students

This piece is available in full for FREE over at the Center for Educator Learning and Wellness website. (Click here to access that free version.)

The vast majority of students obviously can’t vote. 

However we personally feel about the election, students did not choose the winners and losers.  And yet elections have such profound consequences for young people.

I would imagine many students were extremely anxious leading up to the election.  Whether they followed the nuances of policy debates and the armchair quarterbacking of news media-- and more students do exactly that than we probably think-- they have been paying attention and soaking up the mood of the adults in their lives. 

And yet they have no control over the outcome, and almost none over the process.

Some teachers are already voicing concerns about a potential increase in problematic student behavior following the election, similar to what was reported in 2016.

Following the 2016 election, a survey of 10,000 educators from Teaching Tolerance found that significant majorities believed the election had negatively impacted school climate and student anxiety, as well as “verbal harassment, the use of slurs and derogatory language, and disturbing incidents involving swastikas, Nazi salutes and Confederate flags”. And, specifically, 80% of teachers surveyed said they were seeing “heightened anxiety on the part of marginalized students, including immigrants, Muslims, African Americans and LGBT students.”