Promoting Civic Knowledge and Political Efficacy Among Low-Income Youth Through Applied Political Participation

Studies indicate growing disparities in youth civic knowledge and political efficacy based on socioeconomic status, parental educational attainment, and race. Most studies of youth political participation focus on the effect political efficacy and civic knowledge have on political participation. Few report on the effect political participation has on political efficacy and civic knowledge. This article describes an intervention that coupled civic literacy workshops with applied political participation to increase the civic knowledge and political efficacy of low-income, ethnically diverse high school students. Over three years, 47 high school students enrolled in Upward Bound participated in a six-hour civic literacy workshop. Upon conclusion of the workshop, students spent a day meeting with legislators and attending legislative hearings. Results indicate increases in political efficacy and significant increases in civic knowledge among the youth after both the workshop and the visits with elected officials

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements