While democracy is meant for all, not all citizens feel equally confident to participate in it. This sense of confidence, often referred to as political efficacy, is important since it boosts citizens’ engagement with political democracy. The literature on political efficacy shows sharp sociodemographic inequalities in how self-efficacious citizens feel regarding political processes. These differences are already manifesting before adolescents formally take part in political democracy. Yet, there is limited understanding of how these inequalities develop over time and what accounts for these inequalities. In this paper, we analyze panel data among Dutch adolescents during their formative years (ages 12 to 16). The results demonstrate that internal and external political efficacy develop differently during adolescence; while internal political efficacy constantly rises, external political efficacy fluctuates more. In addition, while stark inequalities in internal political efficacy are already visible at age 12, these inequalities are less prominent in external political efficacy. The existing inequalities in internal and external efficacy, however, are substantially diminished by the time adolescents are 16 years old. Furthermore, political conversations with parents and peers correspond with growth in internal political efficacy but do not play a role in external political efficacy. Finally, contrary to our expectations, discussions with teachers play no role in the development of both political efficacy types. Our results show the stark distinct nature of internal and external political efficacy and that we should study them separately. Additionally, the results indicate that the sharp differences among adults are not yet solidified during adolescence.

In preparing generations for the future, schools fulfill a qualification and a civic task: providing youngsters knowledge and skills for the labor market, and equipping them to navigate democracy and society. Little research has considered how schools combine these tasks, particularly in relation to schools’ student composition in terms of socioeconomic (dis)advantages across vocational and academic tracks, the focus of this study. By means of a unique, combined dataset, qualification and civic outcome indicators of 101 Dutch secondary schools were examined. Results showed that schools’ qualification and civic outcomes were more positively related in academic than in vocational tracks, possibly informed by schools’ student composition: the role of student composition was stronger in academic than vocational tracks for both qualification and civic outcomes. This is discussed in relation to schools’ role in mitigating versus reproducing societal inequalities.

Whether students educated in different ability tracks in secondary education develop different levels of civic and democratic engagement is yet unclear. To explore this issue, we focus on how schools bring students of different tracks and family backgrounds together, and whether such between‐school differences are associated with varying growth rates in civic and democratic engagement during secondary education. Using newly collected 4‐year panel data starting at the very beginning of the Dutch tracked educational system, the Dutch Adolescent Panel on Democratic Values (DAPDV), we study developments in institutional trust, societal interest, voting intention, and political knowledge. Growth curve models show that much of the variation between tracks and between schools is rather stable, although track differences in institutional trust became more pronounced. Although schools that are more compositionally diverse vary from homogeneous schools, track differences are largely present already at the start of secondary education. Within‐individual transition models show that students moving up to more advanced tracks do gain in political knowledge.