By Hugh McIntosh, Sheldon Berman, and James Youniss

March 2010

“CIRCLE Working Paper #70” describes a five-year evaluation of a high school program designed to encourage schoolwide democratic deliberation.  The intervention involved, in part, organizing the school into clusters of 100 to 150 students that met for one hour each week to discuss governance and other school-related issues, perform community service, and pursue other cluster-related activities.  The researchers, Hugh McIntosh, Sheldon Berman, and James Youniss, found that over the five-year evaluation, the rate of participation in community service increased by 23 percentage points.  They attribute this increase to the clustering intervention, since 17% of all seniors (28 of 169) in 2007 reported that the only service they performed was in their cluster.  In addition, they note that the increase in community service participation spread widely throughout the student population, including males and females, Whites and non-Whites, high- and low-SES students, highly active students, and students who seldom get involved in non-academic school activities. The qualitative findings from this study support the idea that adult support plays an important role in building youth civic engagement.

*Download CIRCLE Working Paper #70 “A Five-Year Evaluation of a Comprehensive High School Civic Engagement Initiative”

Suggested Citation:  McIntosh, H., Berman, S., & Youniss, J. (2010). A Five Year Evaluation of a Comprehensive High School Civic Engagement Initiative (CIRCLE Working Paper No. 70). Retrieved from Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) website: http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/WorkingPapers/WP_70_McIntosh_Berman_Youniss.pdf

Interviews with Experts Available; Contact David Roscow at
703-276-2772 x21 or dave@tricomassociates.com

Tisch College, Medford/Somerville, Mass - In the special election for Massachusetts Senator, young voters (age 18-29) preferred Democrat Martha Coakley over Republican Scott Brown by 58%-40% (with 2% for other candidates), according to a survey of 1,000 voters conducted on January 19, by Rasmussen Reports.

About 15% of Massachusetts citizens between the ages of 18-29 turned out to vote.* For citizens age 30 and older, turnout was about 57%.

For comparison: 25% of young citizens (age 18-29) voted in the 2008 Massachusetts presidential primaries, and 47.8% of young Massachusetts citizens voted in the 2008 presidential elections, according to CIRCLE’s analysis. Seventy-eight percent of under-30 voters in Massachusetts chose Barack Obama in the 2008 general election; 20% chose John McCain.

While national youth turnout was very strong in 2008 (when 52% of young American citizens voted), youth turnout in the 2009 Virginia and New Jersey Gubernatorial races was poor (17% and 19%, respectively), and even lower in Massachusetts this Tuesday. “Three state elections do not necessarily make a national trend, but there is clearly an issue right now with youth turnout and enthusiasm,” said CIRCLE director Peter Levine. “It will be interesting to see the turnout of young voters in November’s mid-term elections.”

According to the Rasmussen survey, most young people who did vote were enthusiastic about Coakley: 89% of her young supporters said they voted for her, not against Scott Brown; and 43% were “very favorable” toward her. Their most important issue was the economy, whereas for voters overall, the number one issue was health care.

Of those Massachusetts voters who said that health care was the most important issue in the Senate campaign (56%), 86% opposed the Democrats’ plan. That was probably one contributor to Scott Brown’s victory. But young voters favored the health care plan, 55%-40%.

Young voters were less likely to be “strong” supporters of President Obama than Massachusetts voters overall (30% of youth versus 35% of all voters), but they were more likely to support him at least “somewhat.” (Sixty-seven percent support the president somewhat or strongly).

* To estimate the turnout of young people who voted in the 2010 Massachusetts Senate Special Election, CIRCLE used the following data sources: (1) the number of ballots cast in the Sentate Special Election according to the New York Times (2) the youth share of those who voted, as reported by Rasmussen’s survey of people who said that they voted, and (3) the estimated number of 18-29 year old citizens taken from the  2009 Census Current Population Survey, December File.

The January edition (v7. i1) of CIRCLE’s quarterly newsletter, Around the CIRCLE, can be downloaded from here. The newsletter includes a variety of articles including:

• Volunteering Eases Return to Civilian Life for Young Veterans
• Youth Turnout Down in New Jersey, About the Same in Virginia, Compared to Past Elections
• New CIRCLE Working Papers on Civic Engagement
• 2009 Civic Index Report Finds Civic Engagement Under Stress in the Recession
• Effects of Election Day/Same Day Registration on the Youth Vote

If you would like to receive a hard copy of CIRCLE’s quarterly newsletter, please send an email to Emily Hoban Kirby at Emily.Kirby@Tufts.edu with your address.

by Hugh McIntosh & Marco A. Muñoz

December 2009 

In Working Paper #69, the authors examine the civic engagement outcomes that Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in  Louisville, KY, has chosen to promote in its students. Using a large sample in an urban school district, the study finds that the most important predictors of youth civic engagement were community service, political discussion, and environmental conservation. It reinforces the claims that community service, discussion of politics, and nonsport extracurricular activities boost civic engagement. As the authors suggest, the outcomes constitute a vision of civic engagement that sees youth as well-rounded citizens capable of engaging in civil, political, and problem-solving activities, both individually and socially. The findings provide intriguing evidence of the potential value of environmental conservation, conflict resolution skill, and character education as pathways to civic engagement.

*Download CIRCLE Working Paper #69 “Predicting Civic Engagement in Urban High School Students”

November 2009

Tisch College, Medford/Somerville, Mass. - Recent veterans who have volunteered since returning to the United States show a better adjustment to civilian life than their fellow returned servicemen and women who have not volunteered, according to a new report issued in time for Veterans Day. The report shows that volunteering helps bolster ties to the community and eases the transition back to civilian life.

• Download press release
• Download the fact sheet

by Michael McDevitt

November 2009

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, and listen to opponents if they lived in Republican counties compared with Democratic youth living in liberal or balanced counties.  Compared to Republican youth residing in the same communities, Democratic youth in Republican counties were also more likely to engage in political discussion, to pay attention to news media, and to express confidence in their ability to comprehend campaign issues. The frequency of disagreeing in conversations predicted support for liberal activism. Disagreeing was a particularly strong predictor of supporting liberal activism for youth living in red counties.

These findings support the theory—proposed by McDevitt and colleagues in other studies—that young people sometimes express political identities through conflict and disagreement, not because they come to share the views of parents, teachers, or majorities in their communities.  The research in summarized in CIRCLE Working Paper #68 “Spiral of Rebellion: Conflict Seeking of Democratic Adolescents in Republican Counties.” Read the rest of this entry »

Turnout of Voters Under Age 30 is 19% in New Jersey, 17% in Virginia, and 12% in New York City
Interviews with Experts Available; Contact David Roscow at
703-276-2772 x14 or kathleen@tricomassociates.com

Tisch College, Medford/Somerville, Mass. -  Young voters played a major role in the 2008 presidential election, but less so in 2009.  In the New Jersey governor’s race, turnout decreased by seven points to 19% between 1997 and 2009.  In Virginia, turnout decreased by just one point to 17% between 1997 and 2009.  Less than one in five eligible young people voted in both states. A majority of young people preferred the Democratic candidate in New Jersey and the Republican candidate in Virginia.

To produce state-level youth voting estimates immediately following an election, CIRCLE relies on preliminary exit polls, which are subject to revision.   We must use 1997 for comparison because no turnout data are available for more recent off-year elections in these two states. Thus we do not know the change since 2005, the most recent gubernatorial election year in Virginia and New Jersey. Comparisons to the presidential election year of 2008 are misleading because turnout is always much lower in odd-numbered years.

Table 1: Turnout in Gubernatorial Elections, ages 18-29

As a proportion of all the people who voted, in 2009, under-30s represented 9% in New Jersey and 10% in Virginia. (“Turnout” is the proportion of all young citizens who voted, shown above.)

In Virginia, where Republican Robert F. McDonnell won the election by a large margin, young voters preferred McDonnell to Democrat R. Creigh Deeds by 54% to 44%. In New Jersey, young voters preferred Jon S. Corzine over Christopher J. Christie by 57% to 36%. In New York City, young voters preferred Michael R. Bloomberg to William C. Thompson Jr. by 49% to 48%. These results are according to exit polls conducted by Edison Research.

Data from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential elections show that youth turnout in Virginia, New Jersey, and nationally had been steadily increasing in presidential years:

“Although 17 and 19 percent are low turnout numbers and far from satisfactory, they should be put in context,” said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. “Turnout is always much lower in off-year gubernatorial elections than in presidential years. Also, it is a statistical mistake to generalize or make predictions based on a very small sample, such as two governors’ races. We do know, however, that gubernatorial campaigns and independent, nonpartisan groups put more resources into mobilizing youth in 2005 than they did in 2009. Other research shows that campaigning to young voters is effective at raising their turnout.”

As another way of estimating the turnout trends, CIRCLE analyzed the  number of votes cast in 13 precincts in VA and 5 precincts in NJ that have relatively high concentrations of college students.  These precincts were the focus of non-partisan get-out-the-vote efforts of the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project in 2005. We compared the turnout rate of registered voters from the 2001 and 2005 Gubernatorial Election with Tuesday’s turnout of registered voters and found that the number of voters decreased by an average of seven percentage points (compared to 2001) in the precincts studied in VA (see Table 3) and increased by three percentage points (compared to 2001) in NJ (see Table 4). Again, it is important to note that the campaign and nonpartisan resources devoted to youth outreach were smaller in 2009 than in 2005. For instance, in New Jersey the PIRGs made 16,000 get-out-the-vote contacts in 2005 and 9,000 in 2009.  The PIRGs did not have a get-out-the-vote effort in VA in 2009.

*Download the Press Release

More information on youth voters and civic engagement can be found online at www.civicyouth.org.

* The estimated number of young people who voted in the 1997 VA and NJ Governor’s races were calculated using: (1) the number of ballots cast in each race according to the media, (2) the youth share of those who voted, as reported by CNN/Time Exit Poll, and (3) the estimated number of 18-29 year old citizens taken from the 1997 Census
Current Population Survey, March Demographic File.

CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) conducts and promotes research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25. A part of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, CIRCLE has received funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Carnegie Corporation of New York and several other foundations.

The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, a national leader in civic engagement, prepares students from all fields of Tufts University to become engaged public citizens and community leaders.

Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized as one of the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across the University’s schools is widely encouraged.

According to a new paper by Judith Torney-Purta and Britt S.Wilkenfeld, “Civic education, especially when it is interactive and involves discussion of current issues, is an important way to develop the skills that young Americans need to succeed in the 21st Century workforce. Students who experience interactive discussion-based civic education (either by itself or in combination with lecture-based civic education) score the highest on “21st Century Competencies,” including working with others (especially in diverse groups) and knowledge of economic and political processes. Students who experience neither interactive nor lecture-based civic education have the lowest scores on all of the 21st Century competencies examined. This group, which comprises about one-quarter of all American students, shows not only low levels of knowledge but also a relatively low level of willingness to obey the law.”

The report, entitled “Paths to 21st Century Competencies through Civic Education Classrooms,” was commissioned by the American Bar Association Division for Public Education and the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools with some involvement by CIRCLE.

• Download the executive summary (PDF) or
• Download the full report (PDF)

Suggested citation: Torney-Purta, Judith and Wilkenfeld, Britt S. (2009). “Paths to 21st Century Competencies Through Civic Education Classrooms: An Analysis of Survey Results from Ninth-Graders.” Washington, DC: Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools and American Bar Association Division for Public Education. Accessed from CIRCLE via http://www.civicyouth.org/?p=360.

By Kim Castle, Janice Levy, and Michael Peshkin

October 2009

In CIRCLE working paper (#66), authors Kim Castle, Janice Levy and Michael Peshkin assess the outcomes of an in-person campus drive in which students were offered a choice of college-state voting in Illinois, or home-state voting by absentee ballot. The study found that the great majority of students who came from swing states chose to vote back home. Students from swing states preferred home-state voting over local voting by an 8-to-1 ratio. The study also found high turnout rates both for students who voted locally and by absentee ballot. 79% of students who registered locally voted, and 84% of students who got an absentee ballot voted. Although absentee voting is more complicated than local voting, most students chose absentee voting. The study concluded that:

•  Students can be diligent voters with high turnout, both by absentee ballot and in local voting.
• Students who can vote in their home state or their college state are strongly influenced in that choice by the closeness of the presidential election.
• Even in the internet era, in-person voter drives reach many students who would not otherwise vote.

*Download CIRCLE Working Paper #66 “Local and Absentee Voter Registration Drives on a College Campus”
*Download the Press Release

Suggested Citation:  Castle, K., Levy, J., & Peshkin, M. (2009). Local and Absentee Voter Registration Drives on a College Campus (CIRCLE Working Paper No. 66). Retrieved from Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) website: http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/WorkingPapers/WP_66_CastleLevyPeshkin.pdf

by Andrea Finlay and Connie Flanagan

September 2009

In CIRCLE working paper (#67) and factsheet “Civic Engagement and Educational Progress in Young Adulthood”, the authors find that young adults (those between the ages of 16 and 30 at baseline) who make academic progress over a four-year period are also more likely to participate in civic activities such as voting, volunteering, and accessing social media to discuss current events. This relationship holds for young adults from low-income backgrounds as well as high-income backgrounds.

The authors note that some groups are more likely than others to make educational progress over the four years. They find that low-income youths who make academic progress over the four years are more likely to participate in sustained engagement, such as volunteering and voting, than low-income youths who make no educational progress. In addition, disadvantaged youths who make educational progress are more likely to access media for information on current events. The authors note that factors such as divorce and having young children are especially disadvantageous in furthering educational progress.  African-American, Hispanic and American-Indian youths are less likely to make educational progress than any other racial group; they are also more likely to come from families with lower incomes.

The authors propose several interpretations of their findings: educational progress may lead to higher levels of engagement; sustained service may link young adults to opportunities and mentors that assist them in continuing their education; and more motivated young adults may be more likely to continue their education and get engaged in civic affairs.
* Download CIRCLE Working Paper #67 “Making Educational Progress: Links to Civic Engagement During the Transition to Adulthood”
* Download CIRCLE fact sheet “Civic Engagement and Educational Progress in Young Adulthood”