Beutel, AnnSchwartz, Bria2023-05-052023-05-052023-05-12https://shareok.org/handle/11244/337562The purpose of this descriptive study is to analyze trends in the political engagement plans of high school seniors from 1976 to 2019. Using the Monitoring the Future dataset, I address the following research questions: Have expectations of voting and protesting changed for U.S. high school seniors over time? If so, do patterns of change vary by gender and racial-ethnic identity? Findings show that voting and protesting expectations have declined for young women and men during the time period. Young women are consistently more likely to expect to vote than young men throughout the period, but it is less significant of a difference over time, suggesting the gap may be closing. While voting expectations have declined over time for all three of the racial-ethnic identity groups in my study, white individuals are more likely to expect to vote over time than Black and Hispanic individuals. A gender gap in protesting that favored young men has declined over time. Results also indicate that expectations of protesting have decreased over time (2005-2019) for young white and Hispanic individuals but not for Black individuals.voting expectationsprotesting expectationshigh school seniorsgender and race-ethnicity