Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Using a unique large-scale survey of students in the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) matched to student administrative records, we examine whether grit—the ability to persevere in the pursuit of goals—predicts a number of metrics of student well-being, including academic achievement, school engagement, and civic engagement. Our analysis uses a variety of identification strategies, including models with controls, lags, geographic fixed effects, family fixed effects, and twin pair fixed effects. In addition to validating (and extending) previous findings that show that grit predicts achievement, we also provide evidence that grit’s contributions are not limited to academic performance. Grit is also a strong predictor of students’ levels of engagement with their school, community, and democracy. Gritty students have stronger connections to teachers, peers, and schoolwork, fewer absences, and are more likely to volunteer in their community, show an interest in politics, and plan to vote when they become old enough to do so.

Our results provide insights that cut across disciplinary boundaries and speak to current policy debates. From an education policy perspective, our results add nuance and clarity to the roots and consequences of psychosocial or "non-cognitive" attributes like grit. We provide evidence that these non-achievement metrics may be critical not only in determining student performance in school, but also for determining their levels of engagement with schools, communities, and democracy more generally. These added benefits may further justify in-school investments in psychosocial skills like grit as a means of improving overall student well-being. These results also support a rethinking of models of political socialization to incorporate the psychosocial skills children develop. This paper takes a meaningful step in that direction—showing that while children and early adolescents may not be developing political attitudes and values when they are very young, they are developing the general—not explicitly political—attributes that persist as resources transferrable to the political domain in adulthood. These go beyond the civic skills, political knowledge, or cognitive abilities that children are thought to learn when they are in school. In short, the ability to be gritty, tenacious, and perseverant appears to play a vital, yet underexplored role in encouraging civic participation.