Adolescent voluntary associations are particularly well positioned in the life course to encourage voting as youth become full citizens. Extracurriculars socialize students into voting by habituating them to civic engagement and by connecting them to politically engaged cultures. We establish this argument by testing the effects of high school…

This working paper is a summary of the author's dissertation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for her doctoral degree under the supervision of Dr. Judith Torney-Purta (successfully defended February 4, 2009). In her study she explored potential explanations for disparities in adolescent civic engagement through a comprehensive…

A study of adolescents living in red and blue counties during the 2006 midterm elections shows a striking pattern of Democratic youth thriving in political expression and debate when exposed to Republican ideological climates. Democratic adolescents were more likely to talk with parents and friends about politics, disagree openly, test opinions,…

The purpose of this project was to gain a better understanding of dimensions of trust and inter-relationships between those dimensions during the adolescent years. Drawing from survey data collected at the beginning and end of a semester in eighty middle- and high-school social studies classes, relationships were assessed between: social trust,…

The goal of this project was to produce a set of civic measures with sound psychometric properties appropriate for use with young people ages 12-18. Measures selected tap aspects of adolescent civic behaviors, opinions, knowledge, and dispositions. The measures are easy to administer and can be used by educators, staff of community-based…

It is well documented that individuals with higher levels of education tend to be more civically engaged. In a two-part study conducted for the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), the authors provided empirical evidence using 1988-2000 panel data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988…

Ways of enhancing knowledge of political institutions, processes and positions are the focus of many prescriptions for improving civic education and civic engagement among young people. A recent data source including a rigorously developed test of knowledge, provides an opportunity to empirically compare the performance of students in the United…

Volunteer rates vary tremendously across states and age groups. In recent years, young people have exhibited rising volunteering rates, particularly high school students and college freshmen. When comparing the volunteer rates for different age groups in 2002 and 2003, 16-18 year olds volunteer at consistently higher rates than their college-age…

A shrinking number of Americans are interested in politics?a trend pronounced among younger citizens. Politicians, academics, civic leaders and others are scrambling to find solutions. This study was commissioned by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) and focuses on local political parties.…

The following report represents the findings from the qualitative portion of the News for a New Generation project. This data provides information about what kinds of news is available for young people, why producers create youth-oriented news the way they do, and what young people say they really want in news. The combination of textual analysis,…

Volunteering rates among young people are generally higher than they are among adults 26 and older. However, measuring volunteer rates among all adults is a difficult task. In recent years, efforts at measuring volunteering have produced widely different estimates, largely because of the methods employed to measure volunteering. For example, the…

One reason to offer sports in school is to teach youth the values, skills, and habits that will make them more active, engaged, and responsible citizens. Past evidence on the civic effects of sports is mixed, but points to some potential positive civic effects. This fact sheet uses recent data from the 2002 National Youth Survey of Civic…

The papers in this collection were written by an interdisciplinary group to address two main questions: What conditions deter young 'involvement in politics and civic life? What reforms could enhance youth engagement? Most of the contributors met face-to-face in Washington, DC in March 2005 to discuss their papers and the general issue of youth…

Giving Back to the Community: African American Inner City Teens and Civic Engagement was an exercise in ethnographic research. Intentionally different from the more common quantitative studies conducted on civic engagement, this qualitative data gathering project was intended to focus solely on the patterns of civic engagement habits of low income…

This research assumes a relatively stable lifeworld for young people. For example, it assumes that the meaning of volunteering or service is sufficiently similar across multiple contexts to remain a valid and stable indicator. By extension, it also assumes that the lifeworld of young people today is not undergoing a period of rapid, and perhaps…