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For information about our grants, please see "funded work in progress."

A good source of news is the new homepage of the National Alliance for Civic Education (NACE), which is frequently updated as a kind of "weblog" for civic education and youth civic engagement.

To sign up for periodical email updates from CIRCLE, please email Dionne Williams and ask to be added to the list.

May 24, 2007: A new CIRCLE Working Paper provides a set of civic measures with good psychometric properties that are appropriate for use with young people ages 12-18. These measures tap aspects of adolescents civic behaviors, opinions, knowledge, and dispositions. These measures are easy to administer and can be used by educators, staff of community-based organizations, program evaluators, and scholars. The paper was written by Constance A. Flanagan, Amy K. Syvertsen, and Michael D. Stout of The Pennsylvania State University and can be downloaded from here.

April 17, 2007: CIRCLE releases two complimentary fact sheets. "Volunteering Among Young People," analyzes trends in volunteering using the 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation Survey, as well as other data sources. "Youth Volunteering in the States: 2002 to 2005," uses the volunteering supplement of the Current Population Survey to describe volunteer rates among various age groups of young people.

Read the press release for "Volunteering Among Young People" here.

April 5, 2007: CIRCLE releases "Religious Service Attendance and Civic Engagement Among 15 to 25 Year Olds." This fact sheet reports that young people who attend religious services are more likely to vote and volunteer. The data also showed that those who attend religious services regularly are more likely than their counterparts to belong to groups involved in politics, display a campaign button or sign, and donate money to candidates or a party.

April 2, 2007: A new CIRCLE Working Paper has found that students expressed interest in civic engagement and increased their understanding by reading sophisticated texts similar to those that political scientists use to communicate with each other. Read more about Working Paper 54: Improving Texbooks as a Way to Foster Civic Understanding and Engagement by Marilyn Chambliss, Wendy Richardson, Judith Torney-Purta, and Britt Wilkenfeld.

March 8, 2007: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet: Civic Engagement Among Young Men and Women. The new fact sheet shows how young men and women perform on the 19 measures of civic engagement. Utilizing data from the 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation Survey, and several other sources, we provide new information on the civic engagement of youth, confidence in government, and following public affairs and the news, by gender. Generally we find that young men are among the most engaged in a wide range of political activities despite lower voter turnout rates, and young women are among the most engaged in civic activities such as volunteering, and also the most likely to vote.

February 7, 2007: New CIRCLE research shows that while the majority of young African-Americans between ages 15-25 believe government should do more to solve problems, there has been a nearly 20-point increase since 2002 in the percentage of young African-Americans who say that “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient.” This shift in attitudes was also found for young people of all racial groups, though not as drastic as among African-Americans.


Despite this loss in confidence in government, African-American youth are the most politically engaged racial/ethnic group. Compared to other groups, African-Americans are the most likely to vote regularly, belong to groups involved with politics, donate money to candidates and parties, display buttons or signs, and contact the media. Click here to read the press release.

January 25, 2007: High school students who are involved in volunteering, school required community service, and student government are more likely to graduate from college and achieve greater progress in reading, math, and science, according to two new studies released by CIRCLE. The two new CIRCLE Working Papers (“Civic Engagement and High School Academic Progress” and “Do Gender and Ethnicity Affect Civic Engagement and Academic Progress”) by Professors Alberto Davila and Marie T. Mora offer a detailed look at the impact of participation in civic engagement activities during high school on the academic performance of youth.

January 9, 2007: Meira Levinson, a teacher and a scholar, documents evidence of a growing civic achievement gap between students of different races and socio-economic and immigration status in her new CIRCLE Working Paper (#51) The Civic Achievement Gap . She maintains that this gap will lead to serious political disadvantages for many young immigrants and students of color.

The Working Paper is drawn from a forthcoming book by the author. Using previous research and her own experience as a teacher in urban schools in Boston and Atlanta , Dr. Levinson shows that poor non-white students demonstrate lower levels of civic and political knowledge, skills, positive attitudes toward the state, and participation, than their wealthier and white counterparts.

December 14, 2006: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet: Young Voters in the 2006 Elections. Using data from the National Election Pool, National Exit Poll, 1992-2006, the fact sheet provides information on 2006 youth voter turnout, voter turnout trends, and youth voter attitudes. Read the press release of the fact sheet here.

November 16, 2006: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet: Immigrant Youth Demographics. The fact sheet compares the numbers of 18-25 year-old immigrants by nativity status, gender, race, ethnicity, geographic distribution, country of origin, year of arrival, marital status, educational attainment, and assesses population trends from 1994-2006.

November 8, 2006: CIRCLE issues press release on the preliminary estimated youth voter turnout rate for the 2006 midterm election. Analysis from exit polls (as of 9 am on Nov. 6) estimated youth voter turnout at 24%; two million more young people voted than in 2002. Click here to read the press release.

October 30, 2006: CIRCLE has releases a new fact sheet: 2006 Youth Demographics. The fact sheet compares the numbers of 18-25 year-old residents and citizens by gender, race, ethnicity, geographic distribution, marital status, military status, unemployment, educational attainment, and assesses population trends from 1968-2006.

October 17, 2006: CIRCLE has recently published several detailed fact sheets that update, refine, and in some respects complicate, our knowledge of the links between college education and civic engagement. The release of these new CIRCLE fact sheets is in conjunction with Campus Compact's 20th Anniversary celebration. Below are links to the four new fact sheets.

October 16, 2006: New exploratory research by Roderick Watts and Omar Guessous of Georgia State University investigates the link between math and civic engagement. The research is based on an evaluation of the Young People's Project (YPP)—a national program that recruits, trains, and deploys high school and college Math Literacy Workers for mentoring middle and elementary school students. Learn more by downloading CIRCLE Working Paper (#50): "Civil Rights Activists in the Information Age: The Development of Math Literacy Workers in the Young People's Project".

October 3, 2006: Young people are working in many ways to improve their communities and the nation by volunteering, voting, protesting, and raising money for charity and political candidates. In addition, African-American and Asian-American youth are the most engaged, according to a new CIRCLE survey. But, the findings also show that a large group of young people are completely disconnected from civic life. In the last year, more than 36 percent of young people aged 15-25 volunteered, nearly 20 percent have been involved with solving community problems, and almost a quarter had raised money for charity. To download the complete report, The 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation, click here.

September 18, 2006: CIRCLE analyzed the data for the National Conference on Citizenship's new Civic Health Index, released on September 18, which tracks 40 civic indicators since the 1970s and shows separate trends for youth and other subgroups. Simultaneously, the Case Foundation released a groundbreaking white paper by Cynthia Gibson entitled "Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement," which draws on CIRCLE's research.

September 7, 2006: CIRCLE releases 52 new fact sheets that report "quick facts" on young voters in the midterm elections. For information on the number of young people eligible to vote in 2006, the racial composition of voters in past midterm elections, and more click here.

In addition, a new report from CIRCLE and Young Voter Strategies analyzes specific get-out-the-vote tactics to uncover what works, what doesn't and what the tactics cost per vote.

August 7, 2006: New research on the Kids Voting USA program suggests that student civic growth can occur in spurts, especially around big political events such as elections. The research, summarized in CIRCLE Working Paper 49: Experiments in Political Socialization: Kids Voting USA as a Model for Civic Education Reform , provides eight recommendations for teaching civics. Three Kids Voting curriculum activities showed promising results for long-term civic development: frequent classroom discussion about election issues, teacher encouragement of opinion expression, and student participation in get-out-the-vote efforts. The research is based on a three-year panel study by Michael McDevitt and Spiro Kiousis.

June 16, 2006: CIRCLE releases two new Working Papers containing assessment tools for measuring the effects of civic education programs. The first Working Paper (#47), “Developing Indicators and Measures of Civic Outcomes for Elementary School Students,” contains two sets of instruments designed to be used at the elementary school level. The measures include a student survey of civic knowledge, skills and attitudes and a set of corresponding grade level observation checklists of student skills and behaviors. The tools were created by Bernadette Chi of the East Bay Conservation Corps, JoAnn Jastrzab of Abt Associates Inc., and Alan Melchoir of the Center for Youth and Communities at the Heller School , Brandeis University.

The second Working Paper (#48), entitled “Assessing School Citizenship Education Climate: Implications for the Social Studies,” focuses on the middle- and upper-grade levels. It presents the School Citizenship Education Climate Assessment —a self-assessment tool developed to help schools evaluate their citizenship education strategies and policies—and examines its implications for social studies classes. The tool was created for the Education Commission of the States (ECS) by Gary Homana, Carolyn Barber and Judith Torney-Purta of the University of Maryland and is available at  from here. The ECS Web site also contains a set of items for assessing outcomes of civic education in the areas of knowledge, skills, and dispositions across the elementary, middle, and high school grades.

May 15, 2006: CIRCLE releases a new working paper entitled College Students and Politics: A Literature Review. The authors are Nicholas V. Longo (Kettering Foundation) and Ross P. Meyer (New York University). They review the literature on college students' political attitudes and behaviors.

April 25, 2006: On April 25 in New York City , CIRCLE brought together leading scholars, practitioners and grant-makers to discuss CIRCLE's ongoing research on the civic engagement of immigrant youth. The meeting had two main purposes: to discuss the measurement of immigrant youth civic engagement; and to consider the implications of existing research.

Twenty-one participants gathered at The New School University, amidst growing political and media discussion about the future of immigration laws and immigrants. A summary of the meeting will be available in the June edition of CIRCLE's newsletter, Around the CIRCLE.

April 17, 2006: CIRCLE Director Peter Levine spoke along with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Gov. Roy Romer, and others at the launch of the National Advisory Council of the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools. The event, held at the National Press Club in Washington, was televised by C-SPAN and covered in a nationally syndicated column by David Broder. Levine's speech is here.

March 24, 2006: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet that describes federal policies for civic education and service. Although states and localities have primary responsibility for civic education and service-learning, current federal policies are also significant. (See also the Education Commission of the States' database of state civic education policies, which was co-funded by CIRCLE.)

March 15, 2006: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and CIRCLE jointly release a consensus report by 22 scholars that explores the civic effects of attending college and the benefits of various approaches to civic learning in higher education. The authors represent the fields of political science, psychology, economics, philosophy, sociology, research in higher education, and women's studies. The report concludes with a research agenda.

February 21, 2006: A new CIRCLE working paper edited by Peter Levine and James Youniss collects fourteen short essays by leading scholars in political science, pyschology, education, communications, and sociology. Each scholar suggests ways to expand the study of youth civic engagement to include institutions and cultural contexts as well as the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of individual youth. The collection, entitled "Youth Civic Engagement: An Institutional Turn," can be found here. (The conference that generated these papers was funded by a separate grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to the Life-Cycle Institute of Catholic University of America; CIRCLE collaborated with the Life-Cycle Institute.)

February 15, 2006: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet and Working Paper explore the effect that sports participation can have on the civic engagement of young people. The research finds that young people who are involved in sports report higher levels of voting, volunteering and engagement in their community than those who do not participate.

In particular, the data show that young people who participated in sports activities during their high school years were more likely than non-sports participants to have:

  • Volunteered (32 percent vs. 21 percent)
  • Registered to Vote (58 percent vs. 40 percent)
  • Voted (44 percent vs. 33 percent in 2000), and
  • Followed News Closely (41 percent vs. 26 percent)

The press release, new Fact Sheet "Participation in Sports and Civic Engagement" and Working Paper by Robert Fullinwider entitled "Sports, Youth and Character: A Critical Survey" can be found here.

January 27, 2006: "What does it mean to ask someone if he or she volunteers? It means that we have an answer totally dependent on how individuals define volunteering, without any consistency between individuals." In a new CIRCLE Working Paper, Chris Toppe, Senior Social Scientist at the Points of Light Foundation, takes on this challenge of identifying a more accurate way of measuring volunteer rates. He finds that asking behavioral questions about volunteer activities increases the number of volunteers and levels of commitment captured.

The full Working Paper "Measuring Volunteering: A Behavioral Approach" can be found here.

January 9, 2006: "The New Face of America's Social-Issues Voters" is a newly released CIRCLE fact sheet examining the role that "moral values" played in the 2004 youth vote. Based on the National Election Pool national exit poll, 23% of voters age 18-24 ranked "moral values" as their top issue influencing their voting preference.

December 6, 2005: Research by Lance Bennett and Michael Xenos introduces a "network-analysis of nonpartisan youth electoral engagement web sites." Their new working paper, entitled, "Voters and the Web of Politics 2004: The Youth Political Web Sphere Comes of Age," examines the role and growth of websites during the 2004 Presidential election. The authors find that information on voter registration, events and on-site election information have all increased since 2002. The whole array of youth-oriented election websites has also become better integrated.

For the new Bennett and Xenos Working Paper and key findings and best practices (with screenshots) from their previous work on youth voting websites, visit this page.

November 16, 2005: CIRCLE releases a guide to the 2004 youth vote that pulls together recent and historical data to further document the surge in youth participation. The guide summarizes data about youth voting in the 2004 election based on gender, race, and educational background and provides information on youth support for candidates, political party identification, and state-specific turn-out.

November 10, 2005: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet examines the link between college experience and civic engagement, including breakdowns by gender. The fact sheet is based mainly on data collected in the National Civic Engagement Survey (Spring 2002).

November 9, 2005: In a post-election press release the New Voters Project and CIRCLE report that youth voter turnout in the 2005 Virginia Gubernatorial Election increased by an average of 15.1 percent over the 2001 election in targeted youth precincts.

November 7, 2005: Karlo Marcelo joins the staff as CIRCLE's new Research Associate.

November 4, 2005: Peter Levine, CIRCLE's Deputy Director, delivered an address in Madrid, Spain to a conference of educators from the Spanish-speaking world.

November 1, 2005: Thanks to generous funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, CIRCLE will make grants in 2006 to support research on civic education at the high school level.  Details about CIRCLE's research priorities and grant parameters can be found here.  Applicants are invited to submit letters of inquiry (LOI's) no later than December 15, 2005 by 5pm Eastern Standard Time.

September 22, 2005: It has been well documented by numerous surveys that young people today are volunteering at unprecedented rates. A new report by Lewis A. Friedland and Shauna Morimoto examines the motivating factors behind volunteering.

Young people are facing higher stress, greater uncertainty and risk (although coupled with opportunities for some), and looser connections among family, friends, and communities. While parents' occupation may still predict the broad income band that children will occupy in adulthood, it will not necessarily predict educational achievement, occupation, or lifestyle. Students recognize that their future life chances rest on college attendance. Anxiety resulting from this recognition has suffused both the lives and future life-planning of all sectors of high-school-aged youth. Under these circumstances, young people of all classes are approaching service as (in part) an instrumental price to pay for college admission.

In addition to the resume-padding, this study finds that several other factors are motivating the rise in volunteer activity, and these factors vary by class and racial position, ideological disposition, and religious involvement. Additionally, the report contains a typology of youth volunteers.

September 21, 2005: CIRCLE releases a new literature review on the role that universities have played throughout history in developing citizens. The review covers a sample of formative texts on the broad topic of citizenship and the historical development of modern universities in the United States. The focus is primarily on major research universities, with the rationale that these have had disproportionate cultural and institutional influence over the development of higher education as a whole.

September 2005: CIRCLE hires Abby Kiesa as Youth Coordinator to serve as CIRCLE's liaison to practitioners.

August 26, 2005: CIRCLE seeks to hire a Research Analyst. Duties include quantitative and qualitative research; writing for a quarterly newsletter; coordinating the layout and printing of the newsletter; and answering queries. Master's degree preferred. Bachelor's degree required, preferably in a social science field. Three or more years of professional experience desired. Strong quantitative research skills required, including knowledge of at least one statistical package, such as STATA, SAS, or SPSS and familiarity with large datasets. Good writing skills required. Computer graphic skills and interest in the topic of youth civic engagement are desirable. Salary commensurate with experience. Click here for more details.

August 24, 2005: A new CIRCLE Working Paper by Michelle Charles explores how young inner city African American youth define civic engagement. The ethnographic study is based on interviews with African American teenagers age 15 to 19 living in North and West Philadelphia. Interviews were also conducted with "at risk" youth serving civic engagement organizations and other adults in the community. The author argues that the concept "giving back to community" is an important component of civic engagement that has not been formally recognized. Further, she offers recommendations for youth serving civic engagement professionals working with inner city African American teenagers.

August 17, 2005: CIRCLE releases two new working papers on differences in political engagement among college students, working college students and working youth. The study found that student-workers report higher levels of interest in politics, newspaper reading, talking politics with friends, engaging or practicing civic skills, having been asked to vote, making their views known, and political participation than students who do not work while attending college. Many student-workers appear to be pursuing bachelor's degrees, but they are also more engaged, more open to politics, and less likely to feel dissuaded by potential barriers to participation than their peers who are attending college full-time. Whether they work or not, students between the ages of 19 and 23 tend to be more politically engaged than their peers who are out of school and college altogether.

August 2005: Suburban high school students are less appreciative of the First Amendment than their counterparts in urban and rural areas, according to recent analysis of a national survey of 112,000 students sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.  The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut and released earlier this year, shows that educators are not giving high school students an appreciation of free speech and free press.

July 25, 2005: Last fall, the gap between the turnout rates of young women and men was the widest ever (for ages 18-24), and the percentages of single young people who went to the polls grew at twice the rate of their married counterparts according to new CIRCLE analysis released today. A new series of CIRCLE fact sheets shows voting gaps also big between married and single, and college and non-college youth. Click here to read the press release.

July 6, 2005: CIRCLE convenes an all-day meeting to discuss the civic and academic outcomes of small school reform. Some education leaders are arguing that traditional, large, omni-purpose, relatively anonymous high schools should be transformed into institutions of smaller size, with more coherent focus, more student participation, and more connections to the surrounding community. Students would then have more choice about which school to attend, but fewer choices about their classes and co-curricular activities once they enroll. Proponents hope that these schools will graduate a much higher proportion of their students and prepare their graduates better for school and college. It is also possible that they will produce better civic outcomes.

On July 6, policymakers, school administrators, teachers, and students all shared their perspectives on the small schools movement.
The meeting was held at the National Press Club and covered by C-SPAN. Click here to read a summary of the meeting.

June 22, 2005: CIRCLE seeks to hire a Youth Coordinator. Duties include communication of research findings to various practitioners, development of research agenda and outreach strategy, support for fundraising, and frequent travel. Bachelor's degree required; preferred are a masters and three to five years professional experience, including one to two years working in the field of youth civic engagement. Salary commensurate with experience. Click here for details.

June 20, 2005: Today more than 1 million young people (ages 16 to 24) enroll in adult literacy programs each year. A new CIRCLE Working Paper by Melanie Daniels and Marilyn Gillespie of SRI International looks into the type of civic education young people receive through adult literacy programs. The paper finds that much like the K-12 education system, the adult literacy system faces several barriers in trying to implement civic education. First, much of the funding available is tied to performance on standardized tests and at this time civics is not part of the testing and funding system. With limited resources, teachers are often forced to teach what is tested. Second, there is a need for professional development activities that allow teachers to learn more about how to teach civics-related knowledge and skills to youth.

The research is based on an online survey of over 400 programs in 46 states as well as a literature review on the adult literacy system. While the survey is not representative of the entire adult literacy system, it does provide some interesting information about the type of civic education that students receive. The report includes recommendations for researchers, policy makers and practitioners on ways to enhance civic education. Finally the report provides a list of resources for programs interested in providing civic education.

May 31, 2005: CIRCLE releases a new study on the effects of service-learning authored by Shelley Billig, Sue Root, and Dan Jesse of RMC Research Corporation. The study found that service-learning students scored higher than comparison students on several outcomes, although most of the differences were not statistically significant. Service-learning students were significantly more likely to say they intended to vote and that they enjoyed school. The study suggests that service-learning is effective when it is implemented well, but it is no more effective than conventional social studies classes when the conditions are not optimal. Being implemented well meant that it was of sufficient duration (at least a semester), that it was linked to standards, involved more direct contact with service recipients, and had cognitively challenging reflection activities among other components. The study also showed that service-learning had an effect beyond other active learning techniques. The study compared more than 1,000 high school students who participated in service-learning programs with those who did not participate in schools matched for similar demographics and student achievement profiles.

May 26, 2005: The increase in turnout by the youngest voters, age 18-24, was higher than any other age group, making it a significant and disproportionate factor in the overall jump in the number of Americans going to the polls last fall, according to CIRCLE analysis of Census Bureau data. The analysis shows that the voter turnout rate among voters under age 25 jumped 11 points, from 36 to 47 percent, from 2000 to 2004. The overall voter turnout rate grew by about four points, from 60 to 64 percent. Click here to read the press release.

May 17, 2005: The large increase in young people who voted last fall appears to be driven by a huge surge in the turnout rates among African-Americans and Latinos, who accounted for more than half of the 4.3 million additional under-30 voters who went to the polls in 2004 compared to 2000. These two groups caused the overall youth vote to go for Senator Kerry over President Bush, by 54-45%, as white 18-29 year olds favored President Bush by 55-44%, according to a new CIRCLE Fact Sheet entitled "Voting Patterns of Young People by Race and Ethnicity, 1998 to 2004."

May 10, 2005: A new CIRCLE Working Paper explores the factors that may influence a young person to join the military. The report finds that there is a positive correlation between immigration status, educational attainment and the opportunity to "get ahead" with a willingness to join the military. However, there is no correlation between a person's race and their willingness to join the military. The analysis suggests that it may be the nation's under-educated and less empowered youth who are joining the military.

April 22, 2005: In the early 1990s the civic and political leaders of the city of Hampton, VA began a process of including youth in their efforts to reinvent the city government and their town. This process represents a rare instance where a city itself has taken responsibility to help institutionalize youth civic engagement. A new Working Paper by Carmen Sirianni examines the city's efforts and provides suggestions for other cities who wish to embark on this type of government reform. Lessons from Hampton, VA include: develop a robust agency infrastructure, provide training for citizens and agency staff, and develop appropriate federal policy designs to support this work.

April 20, 2005: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet examines how teachers are prepared to provide civic education as well as their attitudes towards civic education. In addition, it explores how teachers' educational experience relates to students' civic achievement and civic engagement. The fact sheet is based on data from the IEA Civic Education Study.

April 19, 2005: New research by Nick Longo examines the role of community in civic education by looking at past examples of community organizations who have successfully provided lessons in civics such as the Hull House, the Highlander Folk School, and the Neighborhood Learning Community. The paper suggests thatcivic education should reach beyond the schools into communities and community institutions. Additionally, for civic education to be effective it needs to connect community-based learning with civic outcomes.

April 11, 2005: A new CIRCLE-supported study by Anna Greenberg compares young Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Muslims and their relationship to both religious identity and institutional religion. The report entitled, OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era, was released at an event at the Brookings Institution which took place on April 11 from 3-5pm. Speakers included Anna Greenberg, Vice President at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research; Bill Galston, Director of CIRCLE; Roger Bennett, Co-founder of Reboot; E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post columnist; and Malia Lazu, National Field Director of Cities for Progress. Download a transcript of the event.

March 31, 2005: CIRCLE releases a new Working Paper showing one way to increase youth interest in the news may be through a redesign of news Web sites. The research utilized an experimental design where subjects were assigned to view one of four different news Websites: 1) a traditional site 2) a site with a youthful design and traditional text 3) a site with traditional design and youth-oriented text and 4) a site with youthful design and youth-oriented text.

The researchers found that while young people preferred the Web sites with the youthful design and youth-oriented text, they actually learned more from the traditional news Web sites. The researchers conclude that presenting news using a modern, dynamic design format does make the source more attractive to young audiences. However, these types of features must be employed judiciously. Overloading a TV program or Web sites with too many moving elements or colorful features may not only distract consumers but may also make the information seem trivial or unreliable.

March 8, 2005: In an effort to make data more available to practitioners and other researchers, CIRCLE adds a new software package, Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA), to its Web site. SDA is a set of programs designed to provide online access and manipulation of statistical data. It also has an advanced feature that allows users to create subsets of available datasets which can then be downloaded and analyzed using statistical packages such as STATA, SPSS, or SAS. Click here to try it!

February 28, 2005: CIRCLE releases a new Fact Sheet showing young Americans are more favorable than other age groups toward people sometimes targeted by intolerance, including gays and lesbians, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants. The data show that young Americans are the most tolerant age group, and this tolerance and support for diversity is increasing over time. Some key findings include:

  • 69% of 18-29 year-old voters supported gay marriage or legal civil unions for gay and lesbian couples compared to 60% of 30-44 and 45-59 year-old voters, and 54% of those 60 and older. (2004 National Election Pool, exit poll.)
  • Between 1994 and 2000, the percentage of 18-25 year-olds who agree that blacks "have gotten less than they deserve," rose 12 percentage points to 38% (National Election Survey, NES.
  • In 2002, 60% of 15-25 year olds agreed with the statement "Immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work," compared to 51% of 26-37 year-olds, 49% of 38-56 year-olds, and 42% of those 57 and over. (CIRCLE's Civic and Political Health of a Nation Survey.)

February 18, 2005: CIRCLE release a new report by David Campbell that looks at whether open classroom environments facilitate adolescents’ civic development. The report suggests that the amount of time students spend in social studies classes does indeed correlate with their civic knowledge and their predictions for future civic engagement. However, the degree to which political and social issues are discussed openly and respectfully has a greater impact on civic proficiency than the frequency of social studies class.

In addition, it seems that high school students who attend racially diverse schools are less likely to report open classrooms; it appears that discussions of diverse or controversial opinions are more likely to be encouraged in racially homogenous classrooms. Campbell bases his analysis on data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement or IEA Civic Education Study (CES).

January 27, 2005: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet examining how volunteers initially become involved in volunteer activity with an organization across states and age groups using the Current Population Survey (CPS) September Volunteer Supplement for 2003. The fact sheet compares volunteers aged 16-25 years old to those aged 26 years and older. Most volunteers report that either they approached the organization, or that someone asked them to be become involved. When asked by someone, nearly all volunteers are asked by someone in the organization, or by a friend or relative.
Across states and age groups, volunteers differ in the means of initial involvement in volunteer activity with an organization.

January 14, 2005: CIRCLE releases a new report on college students' attitudes towards politics, and their understanding of connections between community service and involvement in the political process. The report is based on conversations at a Wingspread meeting that brought together both Wisconsin college students and politicians to discuss the disconnect between the two groups. The report suggests that one way to increase youth involvement in politics may be to develop more models that allow students the opportunity to engage in realistic political exercises through their schools or other places of civic education. Students noted that working in a soup kitchen prepared them for service work, but it did not prepare them to advocate for policies to decrease homelessness. To work on these policies, students need opportunities to engage in the realities of politics, including partisanship, without advancing one side or the other.

The complete findings from the meeting can be found in CIRCLE Working Paper 27: From the Horse's Mouth: A Dialogue Between Politicians and College Students.

January 7, 2005: CIRCLE releases a new Fact Sheet entitled Youth Voter Turnout 1992 to 2004: Estimates from Exit Polls. The Fact Sheet provides estimate of youth turnout based on national and aggregated state exit polls and the AP second day vote tally.

January 4, 2005: CIRCLE releases a report exploring what motivates young people to become political canvassers. The research shows that canvassers are significantly more civically engaged than the general population of young people in the United States even up to a year after their canvassing experience. The report also offers recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the canvass program. The complete findings from the exploratory study can be found in CIRCLE Working Paper 26: Civic Engagement and the Canvass by Dana R. Fisher.

December 14, 2004: CIRCLE releases research by Diann Cameron Kelly documenting how young minority adults interpret civic engagement. The study included 13 economically disadvantaged, high achieving young adults between the ages of 20 and 27 who had during their childhood participated in a group mentoring program. The participants were asked to keep a detailed online reflective journal on their civic experiences from adolescences to young adulthood.

Analysis of the journals suggests that kinship communities (families and caregivers) and youth mentoring programs work together to promote sustained civic engagement. These groups provide the developmental opportunities young people need in order to participate in democracy as adults. When kinship communities fail to provide examples of civic and political participation, youth mentoring organizations can serve as an additional critical resource for helping young people meet the cognitive, affective, and behavioral benchmarks that seem to result in sustained civic engagement. The complete findings from the exploratory study can be found in CIRCLE Working Paper 25: Civic Views of Young Adult Minorities: Exploring the Influences of Kinship Communities and Youth Mentoring Communities on Prosocial Civic Behaviors

December 10: 2004: CIRCLE releases a new working paper showing that one way to increase youth political participation and interest in politics may be through interactive technology. An exploratory study tested whether presenting campaign information in an interactive, entertaining manner increases youth political interest, efficacy, and participation. The research was conducted by Shanto Iyengar and Simon Jackman of Stanford University. The complete findings from the exploratory study can be found in CIRCLE Working Paper 24 Technology and Politics: Incentives for Youth Participation.

November 29, 2004: CIRCLE releases a new Fact Sheet from the first post-election survey of students at four-year colleges. Seventy-seven percent of students surveyed said they voted and 62% said they encouraged or helped someone else to vote. The full survey toplines and a press release summarizing findings are also available. The survey was conducted by Professor Richard Niemi of the University of Rochester and Professor Michael Hanmer of Georgetown University. It was administered by Schneiders/Della Volpe/Schulman with funding from CIRCLE.

November 8, 2004: CIRCLE releases a Fact Sheet showing that the turnout rate of 18-24 year old voters rose by 5.8 percentage points, as 1.8 million more people in this age group voted than in 2000. Last week, 10.5 million under-25 voters went to the polls, compared to 8.7 million four years ago, raising the turnout rate to 42.3% from 36.5%. Included in the Fact Sheet is information about first-time voters, issues that are important to young voters, and which candidate the majority preferred.

November 3, 2004: CIRCLE releases information showing that at least 20.9 million Americans under the age of 30 voted in 2004, an increase of 4.6 million over 2000, and the turnout rate among these voters rose from about 42.3% to 51.6%, a sharp rise of 9.3 percentage points. Youth voter turnout was especially high in the contested battleground states.

Because young people participated in considerably larger numbers
than they had in the past, they kept pace with the higher turnout of Americans of all ages. Voters under the age of 30 constituted the same proportion of all voters as they did in 2000. In the ten most contested states, youth turnout was 64%, up 13 percentage points from 2000.

October 14, 2004: CIRCLE releases a new Working Paper that explores differences in developmental outcomes among different types of youth organizations. The research compares three types of programs: (1) youth organizing programs, (2) youth identity support programs, and (3) traditional youth programs. The research suggests that youth organizing programs are characterized by youth's experience of higher levels of youth leadership, decision making, and community involvement in comparison with other agencies in the study. In addition, the research suggests that deliberate approaches to staffing and decision-making structures can influence youth outcomes.

October 11, 2004: CIRCLE releases new information about young voters and their interest in the 2004 presidential election. According to CIRCLE analysis of the latest polling data, young people's interest in this year's presidential election is at its highest since 1992. Additionally, there are approximately 41 million eligible 18-29 year old voters in 2004 making up one-fifth of the voting eligible population; this includes 28 million 18-25 year olds. Since 2000, 14 million young people have turned 18 and are now eligible to vote. For more on young voters see CIRCLE Fact Sheet: The 2004 Presidential Election and Young Voters.

October 7, 2004: A new report details the most successful efforts by political parties to mobilize the youth vote at the national, state, and county levels. The report was written by CIRCLE grantees, Dr. Daniel M. Shea, Director of the College Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College and John C. Green of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. Using survey data as a starting place, during the summer of 2004 the authors conducted interviews with a few dozen political party leaders who seemed to be doing innovative work to attract young voters. The report is a compilation of these interviews into "case studies" and lessons learned.

October 6, 2004: CIRCLE releases a new study documenting the effects of Kids Voting USA, an interactive civics curriculum taught during election campaigns in 39 states. This paper reports on the second wave of a three year evaluation of the program and describes the extent of Kids Voting effects one year after student participation. The research suggests that effects of the Kids Voting program appear to be lasting. A follow questionnaire given a year after the students completed the program, showed Kids Voting curriculum influence in the areas of news media use, discussion, cognition, opinion formation, and civic participation. The program seems to have positive effects on students despite differences in students' family socioeconomic status and parent history of voting.

September 27, 2004: The data from the January 2004 Council for Excellence in Government/CIRCLE survey of American youth are now availabe on CIRCLE's Web site. The survey was of 1,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 and was conducted by Democratic pollsters Lake Snell Perry & Associates and Republican pollsters The Tarrance Group. For research purposes, you are welcome to download the datasets (.tpt, .dta, or .por format), the codebook, and the questionnaire (.pdf's).

September 21, 2004: CIRCLE and MTV release a new survey of 18-29 year-olds showing a strong majority intends to vote, a plurality favor Kerry, and more than twice as many young registered voters are paying “a lot” of attention to the campaign this year compared to 2000. Young voters are paying about as much attention to the campaign as they were in 1992 – when youth turnout spiked.

The poll was conducted by CBS News of 876 18-29 year-olds on behalf of MTV and CIRCLE. The survey focused on young people’s
views of this year’s Presidential election, candidates, and key issues including the economy, terrorism, and the war in Iraq.

Other key findings include:

  • 49% of young people disapprove of Bush’s
    performance as president and 44% approve.
  • 82% of registered 18-29 year olds say they
    will definitely vote on November 2nd.
  • 74% of all young people say that this will
    be one of the most important elections, if not
    the most important election, of their lifetime.

Download the press release, a short fact sheet, or the full report with toplines.

September 13, 2004: CIRCLE and the New Voters Project release a study showing how GOTV groups can make mobilization campaigns more cost effective. The study by Donald P. Green of Yale University found that personally contacting young people on Election Day can significantly increase youth voter turnout, but only if they've already expressed interest in voting. The study is an evaluation of an extensive experiment conducted surrounding last fall's elections in New Jersey. It was designed to see what gains could be made when young voters contacted leading up to the election were urged to vote on Election Day. Click here to read the press release.

September 7, 2004: A new CIRCLE fact sheet provides turnout estimates for 18-24 year olds as well as 18-29 year olds from 1972 to 2000. The fact sheet also offers comparisons to adult turnout and gives an explanation of how CIRCLE estimates turnout.

August 25, 2004: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet showing the impact the youth vote could have nationally and in the 20 key battleground states. With nearly 41 million eligible 18-29 year old voters - one-fifth of the electorate - and divided political preferences, this voting bloc could make a difference in the battleground states. The number of eligible young voters ranges from a high of more than two million in Florida to 172,000 in New Hampshire. Moreover, the greatest growth in the number of new young voters since 1992 has been in Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and New Mexico, each of which have gained more than 100,000 young voters.

August 25, 2004: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet examining time spent in volunteer activity across states, age groups and years using the CIRCLE's Civic and Political Health survey of 2002 and the Current Population Survey (CPS) September Volunteer Supplements for 2002 and 2003. The fact sheet focuses on comparing volunteers aged 16-25 years old to those aged 26 years and older. As with volunteer rates, the median annual hours spent in volunteer activity varies widely across states and age groups. Nearly every state has lower median annual hours for 16-25 year olds than those who are older, suggesting that volunteer activity for the younger group is likely more sporadic in nature than volunteer activity for the older group.

August 17, 2004: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet examining volunteer rates across states, age groups and years using the Current Population Survey (CPS) September Volunteer Supplements for 2002 and 2003. The fact sheet compares younger volunteers, those 16-18 years old and 19-24 years old, to those aged 25 years and older. Participation rates for volunteer activity on a national level rose for all age groups from 2002 to 2003, though individual states displayed widely varying patterns of volunteer activity over the same time period. Generally speaking, volunteer rates are highest for youth aged 16-18, and lowest for those aged 19-24.

August 11, 2004: CIRCLE releases a study by Janelle Wong examining the effectiveness of voter outreach efforts in high-density Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, and Japanese American communities Los Angeles County. The research shows that the effects of phone and mail canvassing vary greatly by ethnicity and geographic area. This type of canvassing was most effective in mobilizing Chinese Americans living in West San Gabriel Valley, an active predominantly Chinese American community. In addition, the study suggests when mobilizing Asian American voters by phone and mail, it is important to address language diversity. Of those successfully contacted through this study the preference for speaking a language other than English ranged from 5% among Indian Americans to over 60% of Korean Americans.

August 10, 2004: CIRCLE releases a new study by W. Lance Bennett and Mike Xenos entitled "Young Voters and the Web of Politics." The study shows that there is much more that both campaigns and youth engagement organizations can do to attract young citizens and assist them in finding meaningful paths to voting.

Bennett and Xenos examined archival web records of candidate and youth engagement sites from the 2002 elections, and updated the analysis of the nonpartisan sites through July 2004. They found that campaigns offer relatively few appeals directly to young voters, compared, for example, to appeals to senior citizens. And there were no links out from campaigns to the sphere of youth engagement sites, missing opportunities to connect voting to surrounding political experiences in society. Additionally, they found that the existing network of youth civic engagement Web sites could be much more easily traveled if the organizations make their organizational links more prominent on their Web site. The authors also created an online tour of their Key Findings & Best Practices. A CIRCLE Working Paper and Executive Summary provide more details about the research and can be downloaded from the online tour.

August 4, 2004: A new CIRCLE working paper shows emphasizing elections in civics classes has a positive impact on political knowledge. The research was conducted by Kenneth S. Stroupe, Jr. and Larry J. Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and compares classes that used the National Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI) curriculum to a control group of similar classes that did not. The study found that YLI programs have substantial, positive effects on students' levels of political knowledge and, to a lesser degree, some positive effects on students' political efficacy, pride in politics, and propensity for future political participation. Findings also suggest that increasing the amount of time students spend participating in YLI mock elections can have a positive impact on students' attitudes and behaviors. To view the complete study click here. To read the press release click here.

August 3, 2004: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet and working paper by Judith Torney-Purta, providing international comparisons of trust levels among 90,000 14 year-olds. The reports suggest that political systems need to establish a threshold level of trustworthiness in order to foster civic and political participation in young people. Trust in government varies more by country than among individuals, and it seems to vary depending on the quality of the actual government in a country. The report also indicates that trusting students who participate in service-learning are more politically involved than those who don't experience that kind of education. However, low-trust students who experience service-learning are not more politically involved.

July 30, 2004: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet offering a glimpse at the state of service-learning in K-12 public schools today, including rates of school and student participation, methods of program integration into schools, types of service projects, and duration of projects. Using a variety of data sources, this fact sheet also charts participation in service-learning over the past several decades.
Although participation over the last five years seems to be slipping from an all-time high in the late nineties, this trend may be due to a change in the way service-learning is defined.

July 21, 2004: CIRCLE releases a new report that examines what news sources are doing to attract young readers. The report describes current youth-oriented newspapers, television news program, Web sites, and radio shows and provides initial recommendations for attracting more young readers.

July 15, 2004: A new report examines the contributions State Students Associations (SSAs)-- networks of college and university student governments--have made to the field of youth civic engagement. In addition, the report identifies characteristics of highly successful associations, and provides recommended ways that SSAs may be used to engage more students in future years.

A companion report, "Guide to State Student Associations" catalogues and describes the SSAs that are currently in orperation as well as provides contact information for key staff. Both reports received funding from CIRCLE and were written by the Student Empowerment Training Project.

July 8, 2004: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet provides information about U.S. student civic knowledge and skills. The Fact Sheet uses data from the IEA Civic Education Study, a survey of 90,000 14-year olds which asked students about the civic-related topics they had studied and about their expectations for political and civic participation. The Fact Sheet offers comparisons of the performance of students in the United States to those in 27 other democratic countries.

June 24, 2004: CIRCLE releases a new Fact Sheet about the various types of state voting laws as well as their estimated impact on youth voter turnout. Laws that make it easier to register and vote seem to have a significant impact on youth voter turnout. For example, on average youth voter turnout was 14 percentage points higher in presidential years in states with Election-Day registration.

The Fact Sheet is based in part on "CIRCLE Working Paper 01:Easier Voting Methods Boost Youth Turnout," published last year by James Madison University Professor Mary Fitzgerald, and a new study released today "CIRCLE Working Paper 15: How Postregistration Laws Affect the Turnout of Registrants," by Raymond E. Wolfinger, Benjamin Highton, and Megan Mullin of the University of California Berkeley.

June 11, 2004: CIRCLE releases a Web based Youth Voting State by State Map. The map allows users to compare youth voting statistics from 1998, 2000, and 2002 for all 50 states. The Youth Voting State Map also includes state-by-state information on youth demographics, youth registration rates, and registration and voting laws. In addition, CIRCLE releases a Fact Sheet comparing youth voter turnout between the states during the 2002 and 2000 elections.

May 10: A new study by John Phillips found the effects of local service learning to be small and elusive. In one experiment, he measures whether students who engage in clubs have different levels of civic knowledge and attitudes. Participation had little impact on civic knowledge and attitudes. Results suggest that 5 more attendances in school clubs result in one more question answered correctly on a 9-item civics exam and a half-point increase in political understanding (measure on a 4-point scale).

In another experiment, he found that students who participate in a 1-hour seminar on voting procedures and neighborhood activism showed no statistically significant relationship between the lessons from the seminar and subsequent changes in civic knowledge, attitudes, or behavior.

April 5, 2004: A new report shows that local political parties are doing very little to attract young voters. Roughly nine-in-ten (88 percent) party leaders say youth political engagement is a serious problem. A similar portion (93 percent) feel local parties can make a big difference in getting young people involved in politics. However, among the 41 percent of party leaders that claim to have developed specific get-out-the-vote programs for young voters, a vast majority of programs they cited as examples might be dubbed "modest" and "traditional". The study was conducted by the Allegheny College Center for Political Participation and the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. Click here to read the press release.

March 30, 2004: CIRCLE and the Brookings Institution sponsor a panel discussion for the release Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout, a new book by Donald Green and Alan Gerber. Panel discussants include: William Galston of CIRCLE, Donald Green of Yale University, Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group, James Gimpel of the University of Maryland, and Zephyr Teachout the former Director for Internet Organizing and Outreach with the Dean campaign. The event was moderated by E.J.Dionne. Read the transcript here.

March 23, 2004: A new study maps the online political and civic activities of Generation Y and documents youth involvement on the Web. An online youth civic culture, largely unnoticed by the general public, has taken root on the Internet and is fostering Generation Y's participation in U.S. politics and community affairs, according to a report released today by American University's Center for Social Media.

The 155-page report, Youth as E-Citizens, identifies and analyzes almost 400 websites, created for and in some cases by young people, that engage youth in civic activities. There is also an executive summary. An "online tour" of this new online youth civic sector provides links to seventy-five websites that vividly embody this new digital civic landscape.

Youth as E-Citizens received major funding from CIRCLE. The study is part of the Center for Social Media's new Youth, Media, and Democracy Project, which is supported by the Surdna Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

March 10, 2004: The Council for Excellence in Government and CIRCLE release new poll results showing that US government and history classes emphasize fundamentals, heroes, and virtues; students say that the classroom focus is very traditional.

Three-quarters of 15-25 year olds said the themes emphasized the most in government, civics, and American history classes are the Constitution and how the US system of government works or “great American heroes and the virtues” of the US system. The third most-chosen theme is “wars and military battles.” Lagging far behind were studies of current problems and “racism and other forms of injustice.” Although critics often cite these two areas as the most common, each was identified as the main classroom theme by only one-in-ten young people.

The survey is the first national poll to ask current and recent students what happens in classrooms. It was conducted by Democratic pollsters Lake Snell Perry & Associates and Republican pollsters The Tarrance Group.

March 3, 2004: According to a new CIRCLE Fact Sheet, "Youth Voting in the 2004 Primaries" the overall voter turnout in the 2004 primaries and caucuses declined and the percentage of voters who were young remained about the same as it was in 2000, just under 10 percent. But there were wide variations in youth voter turnout between different states. See also this CIRCLE press release on the Super Tuesday primary results.

February 18, 2004: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet, "Attention to Media and Trust in Media Sources," examines the role of mass media in the development of young people's civic knowledge and engagement in three countries-Chile, Portugal, and the United States. The Fact Sheet shows that television news programs are the primary source of political information for students in all three countries. Newspapers are also used by a fair number of young people, especially by students in the United States. Also, in all three countries students who frequently read newspaper stories about their country had higher average levels of civic knowledge.

February 5, 2004: CIRCLE and the Council for Excellence in Government release poll data on youth attitudes toward gay rights. The survey finds that young Americans support civil unions, marriage, and protections for gays and lesbians. By six-to-one margins, American youth support gay rights and protections related to housing, employment, and hate crimes and those sentiments are held by all ideological, partisan, racial, geographic, and religious groups. One out of two respondents said they know someone who is gay; knowing a gay person has a significant impact on attitudes.

  • Toplines (survey questions and answers) on the gay rights questions

January 28, 2004: CIRCLE issues press release on youth voting in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary.

January 20, 2004: CIRCLE releases a press release "Young Voter Turnout Quadrupled in Iowa Caucuses." In the January 19 Iowa Democratic Caucus, approximately 20,000 people under the age of 30 participated. These under-30s represented 17 percent of the 122,000 Caucus participants. In the 2000, under-30s represented just 9 percent of Iowa Democratic Caucus participants, according to entrance polls, and total turnout was only half of the 2004 level. The increase in youth turnout was a major factor in the overall turnout increase between 2000 and 2004.

January 15, 2004: CIRCLE and the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at The Council for Excellence in Government release a survey of 1,000 young Americans (ages 15-25). The survey provides the latest information on youth attitudes and issue priorities; levels of civic and political participation; and opinions of online campaigning. The survey was conducted by Democratic pollsters Lake Snell Perry & Associates and Republican pollsters The Tarrance Group. The following documents are available:

  • Press Release: "Internet Has Limited Appeal – and Some Real Traps – As Tool For Bringing Young People Into Politics. Survey Reveals Top Issue Priorities for Youth and Decline in Trust"

December 11, 2003: A new Fact Sheet "Civics Curriculum and Civic Skills: Recent Evidence" explores whether civics education classes in schools acutally increase students' civic skills and civic knowledge. In general, young people who report having taken civics or government courses in school also report that they possess more civic skills than students who have not studied civics. This relationship does not prove that classes affect skills. However, it is suggestive evidence, especially in connection with other studies and data sources that indicate positive effects from civics classes.

November 19, 2003: A new searchable database of state policies on citizenship education is now available on the Education Commission of the States (ECS) Web site. Analysis reveals that state policies on citizenship education vary widely from state to state.

November 17, 2003: CIRCLE announces a new grant competition for research on civic engagement that is conducted by youth. Research teams that include youth and adults working together, or research teams of youth and adult mentors are welcome to apply. The RFP can be found here.

October 6, 2003: A new CIRCLE Working Paper by Melissa Bass traces the development of three civilian national service programs — AmeriCorps, VISTA, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. The paper gives reasons why to-date no permanent policy exists supporting national service in the United States.

August 11, 2003: A new CIRCLE fact sheet is now available. "How Young People Express Their Political Views," by Michael Olander, draws from the Civic and Political Health of the Nation report to provide detailed statistics about how young people contact elected officials, boycott products, raise money for causes, and otherwise express their views.

August 4, 2003: A new CIRCLE Working Paper by Melissa Michelson presents evidence that Latino youth (ages 18-25) are more likely to vote if asked to do so face-to-face. In addition, the research indicates that Latinos are more likely to vote if contacted by another Latino than if contacted by someone of another ethnicity.

July 29, 2003: CIRCLE issues three new Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for research. The three RFPs and application guidelines can be found here.

July 24, 2003: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet, Characteristics of Group Membership Among Young People, shows that on the whole, politically liberal 18-30 year-olds belong to more groups than politically conservative or politically middle-of-the-road 18-30 year-olds. The Fact Sheet presents a comprehensive picture of group memberships among young people. In particular, differences in political ideology, race and ethnicity, gender and educational attainment among young group members are examined.

July 16, 2003: A new CIRCLE Fact Sheet shows that on average, young people join fewer groups than adults and are more likely to be members of sports clubs, literary or arts organizations, and Internet groups than adults ages 31 and up. The Fact Sheet, entitled Group Membership and Group Involvement Among Young People, presents a comprehensive overview of group membership among different generations.

July 16, 2003: Two new CIRCLE Working Papers by Thomas Dee take an in-depth look at the correlation between education and civic engagement. Dee's research considers factors previous research has ignored and provides new evidence that increasesd educational attainment may indeed lead to increased civic engagement.

July 10, 2003: New CIRCLE funded research indicates that Kids Voting USA, an interactive civics curriculum, has positive effects on the civic and political growth of both students and their parents. CIRCLE Working Paper 07: The Civic Bonding of School and Family contains a comprehensive explanation of the findings.

July 8, 2003: CIRCLE releases a new Fact Sheet, Media Use Among Young People, illustrating the many ways in which young Americans gather news and information about politics. The Fact Sheet shows that around one quarter of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 use television, radio, or newspapers to obtain news on a daily basis. In contrast, fewer then one in ten young people use the internet for news seven days a week.

June 19, 2003: The data from YouthVote's June 2002 survey of young Americans are available in several formats, along with codebook and toplines, on our data page. The survey oversampled African Americans and Latinos. There are questions on issue priorities, interest in politics, media use, and frequency of discussing politics.

June 17, 2003: CIRCLE releases a new Working Paper by Mary Kirlin summarizing the existing literature on civic skills. The paper examines the definition of civic skills as well as how these skills may help young people become active in civic life.

June 10, 2003: CIRCLE sponsors a workshop entitled "Do You Measure Up? Tools for Tracking Civic Outcomes" at the 2003 National Conference on Community Volunteering and National Service in Baltimore, MD. Findings from the report "The Civic and Political Health of the Nation" were presented by co-author Krista Jenkins and Nick Longo of Campus Compact. The team discussed different ways programs can use the findings and introduced "A Guide to the Index of Civic and Political Engagement" as a road map to tracking civic outcomes.

June 7, 2003: CIRCLE releases a new Fact Sheet entitled Volunteering Among Young People which presents information on the frequency of volunteering, trends in volunteering, and the organizations for which young people volunteer utilizing data from many sources.

March 30, 2003: Carnegie Corporation of New York invites youth (ages 15-24) to participate in a short "quiz" on participating in democracy.

March 26, 2003: CIRCLE Research Director, Mark Lopez, presented new information on Latino youth voting at roundtable discussion sponsored by the National Council of La Raza and Youth Vote Coalition. Click here to view the presentation (in power point).

March 26, 2003: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet entitled Electoral Engagement Among Latino Youth. The fact sheet is a quick reference for facts on Latino youth voting and registration rates. In addition, it contains information on Latino attitudes towards the political process.

March 12, 2003: CIRCLE releases three new Working Papers that investigate different strategies for creating programs and policies to promote youth civic and political engagement.

March 10, 2003: CIRCLE releases Working Paper 02: The Role of Adolescent Extracurricular Activities in Adult Political Engagement. The review addresses the relationship between youth extracurricular activities (such as student government, sports teams, school newspapers) and adult political engagement. It contains a user-friendly table summarizing approximately thirty relevant studies.

March 5, 2003: CIRCLE releases Working Paper 01: Easier Voting Methods Boost Youth Turnout. The paper finds that states implementing new more convenient voting laws witnessed increases in youth voter turnout. Most notably, young people are considerably more likely to vote if they are able to register to vote on Election Day.

February 27, 2003: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet entitled "Civic Engagement Among Non-College Attending 18-25 Year Olds" with data on voting, registration, efficacy, volunteering, and civic attitudes for this often overlooked group of young people.

February 13, 2003: Carnegie Corporation of New York and CIRCLE release a major new report on civic education entitled The Civic Mission of Schools. The report summarizes the evidence in favor of civic education in k-12 schools; analyzes trends in political and civic engagement; identifies promising approaches to civic education; and offers recommendations to educators, policymakers, funders, researchers, and others. It was written by 57 authors/endorsers, including individual scholars and practitioners and representatives of such organizations as the American Federation of Teachers, American Political Science Association, American Bar Association, Center for Civic Education, National Conference of the Social Studies, and Education Commission of the States. The report was formally received at a Washington, DC press conference by John Bridgeland, Assistant to the President of the United States and Director of the USA Freedom Corps. Free copies of the report are available; please visit www.civicmissionofschools.org.

February 5, 2003: CIRCLE has made $1,757,240 in grants (with an average award of $50,206). A complete list is available on our main grants page.

January 17, 2003: CIRCLE releases a new fact sheet on Voter Turnout Among Young Women and Men.

January 15, 2003: Co-funding update: CIRCLE has approved appoximately $1.3 million of grants in our first 18 months of operations. Other foundations have contributed approximately $1.6 million to the same projects. These co-funders include: the Knight Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Bureau of the Census, the Spencer Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the University of Minnesota, the Hewlett Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Ford Foundation, and the Ahmanson Foundation.

November 8, 2002: CIRCLE launches two new services on this Website:

  • An online, searchable Practitioner Database, consisting of hundreds of organizations in the youth civic engagement field. This is a useful tool for practitioners and citizens who want to find organizations by location, focus, or type. It is also a research tool for people who want to study a sample of youth civic engagement organizations.
  • Abstracts of numerous recent, research articles on topics relevant to youth civic knowledge and engagement.

November 7, 2002: CIRCLE presents a new fact sheet on the demographics of American youth.

November, 2002: CIRCLE Director Bill Galston has been making this presentation on youth civic engagement at various venues around the United States. (This is a Powerpoint document.)

October, 2002: CIRCLE hires two new staff members. Carrie Donovan, our new Youth Director, is responsible for liaison with practitioners. Emily Kirby, our new Research Associate, works on in-house research (including the article abstract bank) and will produce a newsletter.

October 31, 2002: CIRCLE presents a fact sheet on Youth Voter Turnout in the States During the 1998 Midterm and 2000 Presidential Elections.

October 17, 2002: CIRCLE presents a fact sheet on civic and political participation by young people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

September 19, 2002: A ground-breaking new study of the nation's civic life was released at the National Press Club. The report analyzes a comprehensive survey of Americans' civic and political behavior from voting to volunteering, chronicles the differences between the generations, and takes the most in-depth look to date at the civic perspective and behavior of "Generation DotNet" (ages 15-25).

The research was funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, and is being presented in collaboration with the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) at a briefing for leading practitioners in the youth civic engagement field.

Some highlights of the study:

  • Young people are much more likely to support government action and are just as engaged in apolitical civic activities as are older generations, but are less likely to trust others and participate in electoral politics.
  • "Generation DotNet" (15-25 year-olds) has a strong and distinct generational identity, while joining older citizens in using consumer activism as a vehicle for expressing their political and policy views.
  • Younger Americans don't share older generations' views about the responsibilities of citizenship, but they do say that civic education makes a big difference in fueling their interest in public affairs.
  • The report also identifies what is working to increase the civic engagement of young people.

For more information about the study—including detailed results, methods, and personnel—please see http://www.civicyouth.org/research/products/youth_index.htm.

June 18, 2002: CIRCLE releases a fact sheet on youth voting, showing that the turnout of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 has fallen by at least 13 percentage points since 1972—a much steeper drop than the decline among older Americans. Partly as a result, the under-25 age group now constitutes as little as 5.1% of the electorate in some years. This fact sheet also contains graphs on trends for specific subgroups of young voters.

June 18, 2002: CIRCLE, in conjunction with the YouthVote Coalition, releases "Getting Out the Youth Vote in Local Elections: Results from Six Door-to-Door Canvassing Experiments," a report by
Donald P. Green, Alan S. Gerber, David W. Nickerson. This document summarizes the results of experiments conducted by Yale University's Institution for Social and Policy Studies, funded by CIRCLE. The experiments show that directly asking young people to vote raises their turnout in local elections. The new report builds on similar experiments conducted in 1998 and 2000, which also demonstrated the effectiveness of door-to-door and telephone canvassing in raising youth voter turnout.

March 4, 2002: CIRCLE, in collaboration with the Center for Democracy and Citizenship and the Partnership for Trust in Government at the Council for Excellence in Government, releases a survey of 1,500 Americans between the ages of 15 and 25. The polling firms of Lake Snell Perry and Associates and The Tarrance Group conducted the survey in January, 2002. It reveals that young adults are feeling better about politics and government post-Sept. 11, but their positive attitudes have yet to translate into action. It provides a very rich data set of information about young people's civic attitudes, plans, and behavior.

Please click here for highlights of the surveyand access to detailed information.

The data from this survey will generate many important findings. CIRCLE's first report shows a powerful relationship between "efficacy" (the belief that one can make a difference) and decisions to vote and volunteer.

January 9, 2002: CIRCLE releases a survey, conducted jointly with The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which assesses the impact of Sept. 11 on youth civic behavior and attitudes. (Download in .pdf. format or look at the press release in html. Or read the Pew Research Center's report.)

Highlights:

  • In June 2000, 57 percent of young Americans said they were generally bored with Washington, while in November 2001 an equal share said they were not bored. Yet, despite the attention paid to police, firefighters, and mayors following September 11, only 45 percent said they were even moderately interested in local politics, lower than any other age group.
  • The terrorist attacks have significantly increased public trust in government, but they have had only a modest impact on attitudes toward trusting other citizens. Young people remain less trusting than older Americans; only a third of those under age 25 say most people can be trusted, compared to 42 percent of all adults.
  • There is also a significant gender gap in how younger Americans are following the terrorism story. Young women are far more interested than young men in domestic terrorist attacks - with seven in ten women following that story closely, compared to only half of men - while young men than women are paying far more attention to news about military action in Afghanistan.
  • Three in five 18 to 25 year olds followed news about the terrorism attacks "very closely," compared to two-thirds of all adults.
  • While the percent of young people who report following news about the economy nearly tripled between June and November 2001 (rising from 10 to 29 percent), their attentiveness lags far behind the 41 percent of all adults who are following economic news.
  • Young people have more positive views of government than older Americans. Two-thirds of 18-25 year olds disagree with the statement that government programs are "inefficient and wasteful," while only 43 percent of all adults do.

January 9, 2002: CIRCLE releases charts showing trends in youth civic engagement since the late 1970s. (Download in .pdf format)

January 9, 2002: CIRCLE's analysis of Census data reveals that 2000 set the record low for youth voter turnout in presidential elections. Only 32.3 percent of 18-24 year olds voted in the 2000 elections, down from 32.4 percent in 1996, compared to the overall turnout rate of 54.7 percent, up from 54.2 percent in 1996.