Between 1976 and 1982, teenagers improved their performance on citizenship/social studies items measuring political knowledge and attitudes--13-year-olds by nearly three percentage points and 17-year-olds by about two percentage points. Results for the various population groups indicated that improvements tended to be greater for lower achieving and disadvantaged students than for groups typically considered more advantaged. When results were analyzed by different areas of political knowledge and attitudes, gains were most apparent on categories dealing with knowledge about government and the political process, while categories concerned largely with attitudes typically showed little change over the 6-year period spanned by the assessments. It is interesting to note that males and females performed about equally well on political knowledge and attitude items, with the exception of a sizable female advantage on items measuring respect for the rights of others. Blacks and disadvantaged-urban students were typically farthest below the nation on items dealing with knowledge about the structure and function of government and closest to national levels on items concerning respect for the rights of others. Primary type of information provided by report: Procedures (Overview); Results (Change). (HFG)