Community Participation
This series of research products addresses: community participation and volunteering trends, where and why young people participate in community, how to encourage volunteering, what young people think about new volunteer programs and policies, and the benefits of community participation.
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The Benefits of Volunteering – What We Know
Our goal is to study how and why young people are engaging in a range of civic acts, including volunteering, belonging to groups, and voting, and what the benefits are of being engaged in those ways. We at CIRCLE care about this, because we know that being civically engaged can be positive for young people. Read More >
State Civic Health Reports are Uncovering Inequality and Pushing Conversations about Community Involvement
This past fall, 17 states each released their own versions of a Civic Health Index (CHI) with the assistance and support of the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) and CIRCLE. For the majority of these states, theirs was the first report of its kind, assessing levels of civic involvement among all residents and various demographic Read More >
Do Interactions with the Criminal Justice System have Civic Effects?
CIRCLE focuses on the half of the youth population without college experience. For many youth in low-income communities, the criminal justice system has significant effects on everyday life. Because of a lack of data, it is difficult to understand the civic effects of interactions with the criminal justice system. The following article highlights what research Read More >
New Reports on the Civic Health of PA, MD, NY, OK, IL and Chicago Show Age Gaps in Civic Engagement
The last issue of Around the CIRCLE summarized reports on the civic health of Missouri, Arizona, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, California and the Greater Seattle metropolitan area. Since then, reports on the civic health of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, Illinois, and the Chicagoland region have been released.1 These reports, produced by the National Conference Read More >
The Internet’s Role in Making Engaged Citizens
This first-of-its-kind study, which was partially funded by CIRCLE, examined three types of behavior: politically-driven online participation, online exposure to diverse perspectives, and interest-driven online participation. Youth who pursue their interest on the Internet are more likely to be engaged in civic and political issues, according to the study of student Internet usage authored by Read More >



