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.

Will Young Voters Have A Potent Voice in Upcoming Gubernatorial Elections?
Youth Voter Turnout Increased Sharply in 2004 & 2008 in New Jersey, Virginia and Nationally
2009 Voter Turnout Numbers Expected,  Depending on Availability of Exit Poll Data

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

Medford/Somerville, Mass.- Young voters played a major role in the 2008 presidential election. Now experts are looking to project the impact of the youth vote in the New Jersey and Virginia off-year elections.

Recent trends show increases in youth turnout. However, there are no youth turnout data available from 2005, the last year of gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, so it will be impossible to tell whether youth turnout rises in 2009 compared to the last cycle.  The last time exit polls were conducted in an off-year election in VA and NJ was 1997.  In 1997, youth turnout was 18% in VA and 26% in NJ.*

Data from 2000, 2004 and 2008 shows that the youth turnout in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as nationally, has been steadily increasing:

If exit poll data are available after the 2009 elections, CIRCLE will estimate youth turnout rates for both New Jersey and Virginia.  The exit polls will also show which candidates the 18-29 demographic preferred.

“Turnout is always much lower in odd-year elections than in presidential races,” said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. “Therefore, we would expect much lower turnout in 2009 than in November, 2008, when more than half of eligible young people voted. That difference should not be interpreted as a ‘decline’.”

* 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 curriculum report, “Narrowing at the Base,” was funded by the Ford Foundation.

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”

September 2009

Young people who have immigrated to the United States or whose parents were born outside the U.S. are far less likely to volunteer than youth of U.S.-born parents, according to a new CIRCLE Fact Sheet. This cohort represents the fastest growing portion of the youth population.  22 percent of youth with U.S.-born parents and 21 percent of U.S.-born youth with one foreign-born parent volunteer. Only 9 percent of young people born outside of the U.S. and 14 percent of youth with both parents born outside of the U.S. volunteer.

•    Download the press release
•    Download the fact sheet

Read the rest of this entry »

The National Conference on Citizenship has released its annual Civic Health Index report for 2009, entitled Civic Health in Hard Times (pdf). As in past years, CIRCLE contributed to the design and analysis of the national survey that was the basis of the study and helped with the writing of the report. In addition to the 40 measures of civic participation that compose the Civic Health Index, the survey included timely questions about such topics as the perceived impact of the recession on civic life.

The NCoC summarizes the main findings as follows: “As economic distress continues through the summer and into the fall, Americans are suffering from a ‘civic foreclosure’ that is limiting the range and depth of their civic engagement. The survey’s results reflect the hard choices Americans have made during the downturn, with 72 percent of respondents saying they have cut back on time engaged in civic participation, which includes time spent volunteering, participating in groups or performing other civic activities in their communities. Public perception supports this finding, as 66 percent of Americans say they feel other people are responding to the current economic downturn by looking out for themselves, with only 19 percent saying people around them are responding to the recession by helping each other more.”

Suggested citation: National Conference on Citizenship, Civic Enterprises, Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement & Saguaro Seminar (2009), America’s Civic Health Index: Civic Health in Hard Times. Washington, D.C.: National Conference on Citizenship.

by Myiah J. Hutchens & William P. Eveland, Jr.

 August 2009

In CIRCLE Working Paper #65, the authors examine the effects of exposure to various elements of a civics curriculum on civic participation, two forms of political knowledge, internal political efficacy, political cynicism, news elaboration, discussion elaboration and various forms of interpersonal and mediated political communication behaviors. The data are based on a longitudinal study of high school students in a challenged large urban school district in Ohio. Two approaches to instruction are contrasted: stimulating political communication by discussing media sources and engaging in political debate; and rote learning of traditional civics content. Both approaches correlated negatively with civic outcomes, but there could be several interpretations of that correlation.
Click below to download the full report:
* Download CIRCLE Working Paper #65 “The Long-Term Impact of High School Civics Curricula on Political Knowledge, Democratic Attitudes and Civic Behaviors: A Multi-Level Model of Direct and Mediated Effects Through Communication”