From Apathy to Activism: Political Participation among Public and Private University Students in Bangladesh

Abstract

Student politics remains deeply contested in Bangladesh, yet few empirical studies compare public and private university students using a single validated instrument that can statistically test group differences. This cross-sectional study addressed that gap using stratified random sampling to survey 400 students (200 public, 200 private) across eight universities. Drawing on the Civic Voluntarism Model, it examined political attitudes, engagement, active participation, the July 2024 movement, and the institutional environment using Cronbach's α, independent-samples t-tests, χ² tests, correlations, and multiple regression in SPSS. Because the questionnaire's original item groupings did not hold together statistically, revised composite scales were constructed and used throughout (α = 0.77- 0.84). Public students scored significantly higher than private students on all three composite measures, with large effect sizes (d = 1.57-2.04), and reported markedly higher direct participation in the July 2024 movement (100% vs. 78%, χ²(1) = 47.22, p < .001), a finding that should be interpreted with some caution given the complete absence of variation among public respondents. A multiple regression predicting active participation (R² = 0.715) identified political engagement as the strongest predictor (β = 0.49), followed by university type (β = 0.34), which remained significant despite its collinearity with family income. These results suggest that the public-private participation gap reflects institutional context as much as individual attitudes and engagement, with implications for how universities structure channels for student political expression.