Assessing and Predicting News-Related Activities in America’s Secondary Classrooms

U.S. secondary schools provide a setting for youth to learn about news, and several state legislatures are debating K–12 news literacy initiatives. Yet little empirical data has been collected concerning the frequency of student engagement with news-related classroom activities and what predicts which students encounter these activities. A national, probability-based survey of parental-filial (13–17-year-olds) dyads ( N = 755) finds that the strongest predictors of students engaging in news-related activities are whether they are currently enrolled in a social studies course and whether the student perceives teachers in their school as prioritizing student voices.