Welcome to the web site for “The Classroom-Kitchen Table Connection,” an Eagleton Institute research project funded by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at the University of Maryland.

The project is designed to evaluate the role of news media in assisting students to learn more about politics and public life. Public high schools in central New Jersey are invited to participate in the project. On this page you will find links to a summary of the project, and background information on the principal investigators for the research.

For more information on the project and participation in the research, please contact the principal investigators, Dr. Tim Vercellotti (e-mail: tim.vercellotti@rutgers.edu) or Dr. Elizabeth Matto (e-mail: ematto@rci.rutgers.edu).

Project Summary
Previous research tells us that systematically incorporating newspapers into school curricula improves standardized reading and math scores. But there is little research to tell us whether these efforts are effective in increasing political knowledge among their target audiences, in increasing political talk among students and between students and their families, or in affecting attitudes about government and politics. We propose to address these questions with a quasi-experiment designed for high school students in central New Jersey.

Students at participating high schools will have the opportunity to read about and discuss politics and current events, and will complete three surveys as part of the research. Eagleton researchers will provide all of the necessary materials for the experiment, and will be happy to meet with interested teachers and administrators to discuss the project in more detail. The principal investigators also will be available to meet with teachers and students at the conclusion of the research to discuss the findings.

Principal Investigators

Tim Vercellotti
Assistant Research Professor, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University

Tim Vercellotti supervises and engages in research design, data collection, and data analysis for quantitative and qualitative studies of public opinion. Clients include academic units at Rutgers University, federal and state government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

Recent projects have examined the effects of voter identification requirements on voter turnout for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and public attitudes toward campaign finance reform for the New Jersey Clean Elections Project. Vercellotti also designs questionnaires and analyzes data for the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.

Prior to joining Eagleton, Vercellotti served as assistant professor of political science and directed statewide polling at Elon University in Elon, NC. Vercellotti holds a doctorate in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Elizabeth C. Matto
Research Associate, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University

Elizabeth Matto received her Ph.D. in American Politics from the George Washington University. Prior to her work at Eagleton, she taught a variety of courses at Princeton University, Temple University, and the George Washington University.

Matto has been involved in several projects since joining Eagleton. She organized and moderated a discussion of voter apathy for the Civic Engagement and Political Participation Program at Eagleton. Matto also served as a rapporteur for the "Political Generation Next: America's Young Elected Leaders" conference in May 2003. Additionally, she worked with Jane Junn, associate professor at Eagleton, on a study of immigrant and minority voting behavior by collecting and presenting data for a web page on the subject and co-authoring the introductory chapter to New Race Politics: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Voting.

Matto currently is developing Eagleton’s Youth Political Participation Program. This year, she will pilot two new programs: “RU Ready,” a citizenship training initiative directed at high school seniors in surrounding communities, and “The Eagleton Assessment,” an online civic engagement survey that measures the levels of civic engagement of high school students in participating schools.