Political Participation | Youth Civic Engagement | Civic Education

Political Participation Resources

American Political Science Association:
Offers resources for teaching civic engagement and responsive government. Includes links to online political science textbooks, core history documents, and teaching resources including college-level service learning syllabuses at www.apsanet.org/CENnet/

The Arsalyn Program of Ludwick Family Foundation:
A non-partisan, non-issue based organization that encourages young Americans to become informed and active participants in the electoral process.

The Campaign for Young Voters:
A program of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Council for Excellence in Government. The Campaign has produced a free online toolkit to guide candidates on reaching out to young voters.

The Center for Democracy and Citizenship:
Based at the Council for Excellence in Government, the Center identifies and implements ways to improve the performance of America's representative democracy.

Declare Yourself:
A one-year nonpartisan campaign committed to registering & empowering young voters.

The Eagleton Institute's Civic Engagement and Political Participation Program:
Oversees several projects aimed at increasing voter turnout, political participation, and Americans' involvement in civic life.

Freedom's Answer:
A movement led by high school students to encourage voting.

Hip-Hop Summit Action Network:
Dedicated to engaging the Hip-Hop community in community development. Sponsors Hip-Hop Summits around the country.

Moving Ideas Network:
A project of The American Prospect dedicated to explaining and popularizing complex policy ideas to a broader audience. This link is to the magazine's Special Report on Youth and Politics.

MTV's Choose or Lose Campaign:
Provides online voter registration, information on candidates, and youth issues polls.

National Coalition on Black Civic Participation:
Fights to eliminate remaining barriers to civic participation.
Black Youth Vote!, their youth program, represents the combined efforts of coalition members to reach out to all segments of the youth population including high school, college, street, and incarcerated youth.

New Millennium Young Voters Project:
A national youth voter campaign by The National Association of Secretaries of State designed to encourage political and civic participation in young people ages 18-24.

New Voters Project:
The largest grassroots youth voter mobilization campaign in history combining non-partisan voter registration, list building, and grassroots Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) strategies in 6 selected states: CO, IA, OR, WI, NM, NV.

Partnership for Trust in Government:
A project of the Council for Excellence in Government and the Ford Foundation, the Partnership is a diverse alliance of nongovernment organizations working to improve and sustain government’s place in the understanding and esteem of the American people.

Project Vote Smart:
PVS is a citizen's organization dedicated to serving all Americans with accurate and unbiased information for electoral decision-making. Their website includes free classroom and teacher resources.

Rock the Vote:
Rock the Vote engages youth in the political process by incorporating the entertainment community and youth culture into its activities.

Smackdown Your Vote:
World Wrestling Entertainment's campaign, in conjunction with the League of Women Voters, Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Youth Vote and others, to increase youth voter participation.

State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs):
State PIRGs are an alliance of state-based, citizen-funded organizations that advocate for the public interest.

Take Your Kids to Vote:
A campaign of the Council for Excellence in Government that encourages families to make voting a tradition.

What Kids Can Do:
Offers a feature "Kids on the Trail" with writings and essays by youth active in politics, along with resources on voting and activism for youth.

World Wrestling Federation's Smackdown Your Vote:
Founded in July 2000, Smackdown Your Vote! is a partnership of organizations taking a non-partisan approach to getting young people involved in the political process and registered to vote.

Youth Vote:
The nation's largest non-partisan coalition working to increase the political involvement of 50 million Americans, 18-30 years old.

Youth Civic Engagement Resources

Campus Compact:
Provides information and resources on civic engagement and service learning in higher education. Also offers activism resources for students.

Center for Civic Education:
Offers civic education curriculum at both the high school and middle school levels. Visit their We the People program site for more information.

The Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota:
Sponsors a number of public work initiatives including the Jane Addams School for Democracy, Public Achievement, and the Community Informations Corps.

The Center for Youth as Resources:
The umbrella organization for Youth as Resources (YAR) programs. YARs are governed by boards composed of youth and adults, and provide grants for youth-initiated, youth-led community projects.

Civic Practices Network:
CPN is a collaborative and nonpartisan project bringing together a diverse array of organizations to bring practical methods for public problem solving into every community.

Changemakers:
An initiative of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public that provides inspiration, resources, and opportunities for those interested in social change throughout the world.

Do Something:
Helps youth get involved in their communities, and has a special Educator Website.

Forum for Youth Investment:
Works to increase the quality and quantity of youth investment and youth involvement by building connections, increasing capacity, and tackling persistent challenges across the allied youth fields.

Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development:
Offers articles, workshops, trainings, and consultations to help organizations and communities involve youth in meaningful decision making roles.

LISTEN:
Identifies, convenes, trains and supports urban youth ages 14-29 to serve as assets in transforming their communities and solving urban programs.

Movement Strategy Center:
Supports joint vision and collective action among youth and adults in order to bring about strategic community change.

National 4-H Council:
Provides grants, establishes programs/initiatives, designs and publishes curriculum and reference materials, and creates linkages fostering innovation and shared learning to advance the 4-H youth development movement, building a world in which youth and adults learn, grow, and work together as catalysts for positive change.

National Council of La Raza-Center for Emerging Latino Leadership:
The Center is designed to increase the number, skills, and influence of young Latino leaders in the U.S. by building a national network that supports and strengthens programs and organizations that develop Latino youth.

Search Institute:
Provides leadership, knowledge, and resources to promote healthy children, youth, and communities.

Study Circles Resource Center:
Helps communities organize small-group, democratic, peer-led discussions that bring together diverse people to address critical issues; has resources to help communities involve young people in study circle programs.

What Kids Can Do:
Find examples of how young people have worked with adults on projects that combine powerful learning with public purpose.

YMCA Civic Engagement Initiative:
Promotes the development of civic engagement attitudes, skills, and behaviors in young people.

Youth in Focus:
Supports youth-led research, evaluation, and planning to create organizational & community change.

Youth On Board:
Strives to revolutionize the role of young people in society by preparing youth to be leaders and decision makers in all aspects of their lives, and ensuring that policies, practices, and laws reflect young people's role as full and valued members of their communities.

Youth Noise:
A website that links young people around the country with news and nonprofit partners to spark youth action and youth voice.

Youth Service America:
A resource center that partners with thousands of organizations committed to increasing the quality and quantity of volunteer opportunities for young people in America. Also sponsors a database of volunteer opportunities at www.servenet.org.

Civic Education Resources

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:
The Foundation is a major center for research and policy studies about teaching.

Center on Congress - Civic Participation e-learning Module:
The Center has produced a series of interactive e-learning activities designed to a enhance high school and college civics curricula, as well as to be of interest to the general public.

CHOICES Program at Brown University:
Engages students at the secondary level in international issues and contributes to a renewal of civic engagement among young people in the U.S. Offers "Teaching with the News" curriculum materials.

Constitutional Rights Foundation:
Seeks to instill in our nation's youth a deeper understanding of citizenship through values expressed in our Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and educate them to become active and responsible participants in our society. Their website includes online lesson plans, teaching resources, and a service learning mini-grant competition.

International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy:
Has a page of online resources for civic education.

KidsVotingUSA:
Works with schools and communities to enhance civics education and provide youth an authentic voting experience. Participating students visit official polling sites on election day, and cast a ballot similar in content to the official ballot.

The National Center for Learning and Citizenship:
Works on several interrelated fronts: leadership and service-learning, citizenship and civic education, and policy. It provides resources to help teachers, administrators, policymakers and leaders use and promote service-learning and citizenship education.

National Alliance for Civic Education (NACE):
A network of about 150 people and organizations dedicated to promoting civic education.

National Student/Parent Mock Election:
makes students and parents aware of the power of their ballot by actively involving them in a full-fledged campaign and national election; also, sponsors corresponding educational curriculum for schools.

PBS Democracy Project:
Includes online lessons on voting and government for kids.

Project 540:
Based at Providence College, Project 540 gives 100,000 students nationwide the opportunity to talk about issues that matter to them and to turn these conversations into real school and community change. In face-to-face and online dialogues, students explore what concerns them most and make specific recommendations to transform high schools and communities into places of genuine engagement.

Public Achievement:
An international youth initiative focused on the most basic concepts of citizenship, democracy and public work. Public Achievement draws on the talents and desires of ordinary people to build a better world and to create a different kind of politics.

The Youth Leadership Initiative:
Provides free civic education classroom resources to teachers. Each fall, YLI conducts the largest on-line mock election in the nation using individualized e-ballots.