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…

Education beyond high school is generally considered important for access to good jobs. Education is also a route to civic incorporation; people with more years of education tend to be more engaged in community affairs. This working paper looks at the educational progress over four years of a national sample of young adults and the relationship…

CIRCLE has issued two releases estimating youth turnout in the 2004 presidential election. The first release was issued on November 3rd and provided the earliest turnout estimates based on National Election Pool (NEP) state and national exit polls and a preliminary vote count. The second was a Fact Sheet released on November 8th which provided…

College experience and volunteering are positively correlated. Measurable differences in civic activity exist between young people who attend college and young people who do not. This fact sheet explores volunteering as civic engagement among youth with college experience, ages 19-25, which was down for the second year in a row in 2006. The…

Young people?s interest in the 2004 presidential election is at its highest since 1992. According to a September MTV/The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) poll conducted by CBS News, 81 percent of young registered voters are paying close attention to the campaign, compared to 85 percent in 1992, the last…

In recent years, young people? particularly high school students and college freshmen? have exhibited rising volunteering rates. Most Americans report that they volunteer. However, those who say they volunteer range from people who contribute a few hours each year to those who work every day on an unpaid basis. This fact sheets looks more closely…

What difference does a sense of trust in a political system, schools, or fellow citizens make for young people's civic and political participation? Some argue that a certain amount of skepticism among adult citizens motivates participation rather than complacency. Is that also true for young people? Or, is there a threshold level of trust…

This fact sheet discusses young people and political campaigning on the Internet. It explains how the Internet has become a powerful force in political campaigns. A survey released by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press on January 11, 2004 found that the Internet is gaining importance as a source of political news, especially for…

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,…

No other group is as disengaged from elections as youth. Voter turnout in the United States trails that of other industrialized societies, and is particularly anemic among youth between the ages of 18 and 24. The purpose of this study was to assess whether young people's expertise with information technology could be harnessed to stimulate a…

Civic involvement is a powerful opportunity in which young citizens can be more engaged in society. It provides young citizens with various opportunities to see themselves as contributing members to the community-at-large. Civic involvement enhances citizenship and civic engagement, allowing young citizens to develop a sense of community as an…

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…

This fact sheet presents data on the role that "moral values" played in the 2004 youth vote, based on the National Election Pool (NEP) national exit poll. It concludes that the defining moral characteristic that separates today's youth from older generations may be their increased tolerance for other religions, races, and sexual orientations.…