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In this report, the authors present findings from their analysis of social studies state standards. The following questions guided their work: (1) To what extent do middle and high school (grades 8-12) history and civics state standards support teaching about political parties? For the states that do include language about political parties, what does an analysis of the standards tell us about what they expect students to learn? and (2) To what extent to do state middle and high school (grades 8-12) history and civics state standards support teaching about political ideology? For the states that do include language about political ideology, what does an analysis of the standards tell us about what they expect students to learn? The report focuses on four criteria: (1) The role that political parties play in the political system; (2) How controversial political issues map onto the political spectrum and party interests; (3) The ideological underpinnings of the two major political parties; and (4) How one's own beliefs fit within the ideological-partisan landscape. Findings indicate that, in general, state standards recognize that young people need to learn about electoral politics, and this includes learning about political parties and issues. At the same time, the standards give teachers little guidance about how deeply to wade into these waters. No state met the four criteria that the authors identified as necessary for informed engagement in electoral politics. North Carolina, Virginia and Vermont are noteworthy, because they include three of the four criteria: role of political parties, platforms, and ideological foundations. [This research was funded in part by the Gibb Democracy Education Fund.]

In May and June of 2013, CIRCLE surveyed a national sample of high school civics and U.S. government teachers. Complete survey responses from 720 teachers provided a wealth of information on more than 1,000 civics and government courses that they taught. The teachers responded to questions about key activities and topics; attitudes towards civic and democratic principles; confidence in teaching civics; knowledge of content; experience with key pedagogical strategies; and their training, preparation, and professional development. Key findings from the survey include: (1) Teachers think citizenship education is important, but there is no consensus on what should be taught and prioritized; (2) Critical thinking skills are taught more than civic engagement skills, with less emphasis on practicing deliberation and collaboration; (3) Service learning and political volunteering are rare, though when they are present they appear to be of high quality; and (4) Teachers work in complex environments, with competing demands that often impact their ability to provide high quality civic education. The survey includes additional data about how teachers approach topics and activities like voting, media literacy, and community service. It also touches on how civics and government teachers incorporated the 2012 election into their courses; an addendum describes some of the creative election-related activities they used in the classroom. The data also suggest ways in which schools, educational associations, and policymakers can further support teachers and improve civic education in the classroom. For example: (1) Provide resources and create knowledge-sharing opportunities that help teachers integrate practical civic engagement skills and activities in the classroom; (2) Support learning exchanges and other mechanisms for teachers to share and grow their teaching repertoires while creating systems of peer support for teaching civics; and (3) Strengthen teacher education as well as professional development to help teachers build both the critical and conceptual skills for teaching civics and the practical skills required for engagement.

Preparing the next generation of Americans to engage in their communities civically and politically is a shared responsibility. Although civic education takes place every day in homes and community centers, our nation's K-12 schools are in a unique position to nurture and reinforce the civic development of all young people. States influence their K-12 schools by enacting and implementing policies that include standards, tests, credit and course requirements, teacher certification rules, and funding streams. This paper describes case studies of three states that have recently examined their civic education policies. The goal of this document is to inform other states' policymakers and advocates as they consider K-12 civic education policies. These three state examples (Florida, Tennessee, and Hawaii) were chosen because they represent strikingly different approaches to state policy: a high-stakes standardized exam, a project-based assessment, and an interactive course without any state assessment at all. The focus of this paper is on the efforts to influence policy: who was involved, how they worked, and what made the difference in the policy being passed or rejected. The paper also describes apparent keys to successful advocacy across the three states. Florida, Tennessee, and Hawaii exemplify three distinct strategies for improving civic education. No firm evidence exists yet about which approach will benefit students the most, but all have promise. This paper has suggested strategies for passing ambitious state policies, whether they involve tests or course mandates. The details vary in important ways, but all three states attribute success to a coalition of educators. In conjunction with the paper, a fact sheet has also been released that summarizes the main elements of each policy. [For the fact sheet, "Recent Civic Education Policy Changes. CIRCLE Fact Sheet,",see ED574358.]

In a recent report entitled "All Together Now: Collaboration and Innovation for Youth Engagement,": the Commission on Youth Voting & Civic Knowledge concluded that civic education is a shared responsibility of schools and other institutions. Data suggests, however, that more work is required to provide all young people with the knowledge, skills and dispositions they need to participate fully in the civic life of their communities. When looking for ways to improve civic education in public K-12 schools state policy makers typically consider two main interventions: new courses or new tests. CIRCLE's analysis of data collected in 2012 suggests that, in general, the testing and course mandates in force at that time did not affect what students had studied or learned. However, tests and courses can be designed in many ways, and three states, Florida, Hawaii, and Tennessee have recently undertaken novel approaches that have promise: (1) High Stakes Standardized Testing; (2) An "Action Civics" Course Mandate without Assessment; and (3) An Alternative Assessment. This study looks at the rationales and perceived advantages and drawbacks of each strategy with special attention to the challenges that confront the agencies and districts charged with implementing them. The goal is to inform other states' policymakers and advocates as they consider alternative strategies for strengthening civics. This report also serves as an introduction to a companion document, which describes how and why the legislation passed in each state based on the perspectives and experiences of individuals involved in passing and implementing these initiatives. This report provides an overview and basic information about each policy. [To access the working paper entitled "Civic Education Policy Change: Case Studies of Florida, Tennessee, and Hawaii. CIRCLE Working Paper #79," see ED574388.]

Teaching students to use news and information media ("information literacy") is an important aspect of civic education, especially now that news sources are rapidly changing and fragmenting along ideological lines. Information literacy is required in several state standards, and it is also frequently defined as an important "21st century skill." Civics and government courses are among the places where information literacy can be taught. Using the data from the National Civics Teacher Survey, this study explores the extent to which information literacy is taught in high school civics classes and how its teaching varies. Overall findings include: (1) Civics teachers believe that information literacy is critical, and that students must to be able to identify, gather, and produce credible information; (2) Less than half of teachers are very confident about teaching information literacy, and a majority are interested in receiving more training and resources; (3) Teachers commonly use news articles as sources, and 80% discuss election-related issues at least weekly; (4) AP and honors courses are more likely to incorporate information literacy than courses that are required for graduation; and (5) Teachers who perceive more support are more likely to teach information literacy. Researchers used a survey that asked teachers to answer questions about the courses they taught in the fall of 2012; most teachers reported on more than one class. The semester was unusual in that teachers reported spending much more time than usual on politics because of the upcoming presidential election in 45% of courses offered that fall.

Each new generation must become active, informed, responsible, and effective citizens. As a teacher who was surveyed for this report said, "civic education is essential if we are to continue as a free democratic society. Not to educate the next generation will ensure the destruction of our American way of life as we know it." Data show that many young Americans are reasonably well informed and active. For instance, 45% of citizens between the ages of 18 and 29 voted in the 2012 election. In a national survey conducted for this Commission, 76% of people under the age of 25 who voted could correctly answer at least one (out of two) factual questions about where the presidential candidates stood on a campaign issue and state their own opinion on that issue. On the other hand, more than half of young people did not vote, and on some topics, most young people were misinformed. This research, like many other studies, finds that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to be informed and to vote. These shortcomings cannot be attributed to the schools alone, since families, friends, political campaigns, election officials, the mass media, social media, and community-based organizations are among the other important influences on young people. In fact, this research shows that while schools matter, civic education must be a shared responsibility. The outcomes are acceptable only when all the relevant institutions invite, support, and educate young people to engage in politics and civic life. Breaking outdated and comfortable patterns will require new ideas and the active support of all sectors of society. This report is intended to engage Americans in a new discussion, leading to experiments, partnerships, and reforms. It provides recommendations that emerged from the Commissioners' deliberations, which were informed by an in-depth analysis of prior research and extensive original research conducted during and after the 2012 election, and a summary of the new research. No single reform listed here is a panacea, but combining several of them would help build a supportive environment for youth civic learning and engagement. The main body of the report explains whether each of these recommendations is based on extensive experience and evaluation data or is a new idea that the Commissioners advocate on a pilot basis.

This fact sheet summarizes state requirements related to civic education, which means learning about citizenship, government, law, current events, and related topics. Civic education is most directly addressed in courses labeled "civics," "government," or "U.S. government." Social studies is a broader category that also includes such disciplines as history, economics, and geography. However, standards and tests in the social studies often include content relevant to civics. Thus the authors examine requirements for the social studies with a special emphasis on provisions that relate explicitly or implicitly to civics and government. What states "should" require is a complex and controversial matter, dependent on what constitutes good citizenship and how states should influence education. This fact sheet, however, is a strictly factual analysis that is meant to inform debates about policy by summarizing the state requirements that are now in place. (Contains 4 figures, 2 tables, 1 footnote, and 11 notes.)

This study tells the story of the transformation of a substantial group of young people. Today they are exemplary civic leaders. A significant number of them hold public office or are church leaders, such as pastors. More than one third are professional educators or youth workers. Almost all are leaders in their families, workplaces, and communities. It is a remarkable outcome because just a few years ago they were on a very different track. Almost all had dropped out of high school or been expelled. Many were victims of violence, and a substantial minority had been members of gangs and/or convicted of crimes. Many had been homeless. Most predicted they would be dead by now. Their life trajectories, and indeed their identities, changed as a result of enrolling in local YouthBuild programs--a combination of education, community service in the form of building homes, job training, personal counseling and mentoring, and leadership development--and joining the national pipeline for young leaders that YouthBuild USA organizes for the alumni of the local programs. For the most part, these young people entered YouthBuild for practical reasons, such as the desire to obtain a GED and job skills. They found YouthBuild a radical alternative to the institutions and communities that they had known so far, characterized by caring and love (explicitly named as such), high expectations for achievement and service to others, opportunities for leadership within and beyond the program, and supportive relationships with adults and peers. Most of the young leaders report that those elements continued from their earliest days in a local program through to their advanced work in the YouthBuild USA leadership system. This study is based on a survey of 344 alumni and detailed intensive interviews with a diverse sample of 54 of those survey respondents. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) conducted this study in cooperation with selected YouthBuild alumni. The graduates helped design the survey and the interview protocol and actually interviewed their peers. CIRCLE has analyzed the survey data and audio tapes of the interviews. This is a highly rigorous and intensive study, using a mixed-methods methodology appropriate to the topic. It has quantitative, qualitative, and observational aspects, and a dimension of community-based participatory research.

This Fact Sheet reports findings from an ongoing study of the representation of 9/11 and terrorism in curricula, textbooks, and state standards documents. The study was conducted in three stages. The first two stages focused on how supplemental curricula and best-selling social studies textbooks published between 2002-2010 present the events of 9/11 and their aftermath to secondary school students. In 2011, a third stage of the study was added. This stage extended the previous ones by including an analysis of whether and how terrorism, 9/11, and related content are included in the 49 standards documents that have been revised since 2001. Here the authors provide a brief overview of the earlier findings. They then focus on the initial findings from the third stage of the study: an analysis of the standards documents. A promising finding from this initial analysis is that it seems many states are including standards that ask students to go beyond the rote memorization of simple content related to 9/11. These states provide opportunities for inquiry into the causes and effects of 9/11 on U.S. domestic and foreign policy and opportunities for students to examine issues related to security and civil liberties. The authors hope that their analysis helps to guide teachers and curriculum specialists in these states to think about how they engage students in the study of the 9/11 attacks and the US response, and to think more explicitly about how they can also teach intellectual and democratic skills through thoughtful lessons surrounding these important issues and events. A supplemental document on state standards for 9/11 is appended. (Contains 1 table and 2 notes.)

Adolescent voluntary associations are particularly well positioned in the life course to encourage voting as youth become full citizens. Extracurriculars socialize students into voting by habituating them to civic engagement and by connecting them to politically engaged cultures. We establish this argument by testing the effects of high school extracurriculars on voting and the formation of political ideology in young adulthood, using two nationally representative longitudinal datasets and propensity score matching. We find that participation in general promotes voting, though some activities (notably, some sports) decrease it. Specific activities that encourage voting often have no political content, and their effects are not explained by the voting rates of peers in these groups. One of the biggest and most robust effects is for the performing arts: participation in high school performing arts is related to a higher rate of voting in early adulthood. Furthermore, some activities affect political ideology and party membership in adulthood, illustrating socialization into distinct political cultures. The overall pattern is that religious attendance and a few sports steer students to the conservative end of the political spectrum and into the Republican party, while academic clubs, drama clubs, and honor society steer students towards the liberal end and/or into the Democratic party. Schools can create environments that encourage extracurricular involvement through funding and policy. But they can also discourage extracurriculars through neglect. These results demonstrate that which activities thrive and which shrink will have an impact on future voting behaviors of young adults. (Contains 7 tables.)

Citizens can improve their communities, the government, and the nation through active civic engagement and collaboration. To do so requires skills. Educational programs and other government-supported initiatives have been shown to enhance Americans' civic skills and their levels of engagement. But these programs and other opportunities are scarce and unequal, often provided to people who are already the most likely to be engaged. A lack of civic learning opportunities not only inhibits Americans' civic participation, but also has harmful consequences for their academic and economic progress. Skill gaps in Organizing Activities by Demographic Groups (Source: ANES 2008-2009) are appended. (Contains 1 table, 5 figures and 9 notes.)

In September 2003, Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts, launched two new civic development efforts--clustering and schoolwide governance--that provide an opportunity to study the influence of schoolwide democratic deliberation on students' civic knowledge and participation. The intervention involved, in part, organizing the school into clusters of 100 to 150 students that meet for one hour each week to discuss governance and other school-related issues, perform community service, and pursue other cluster-related activities. In 2003 we began collecting data to assess the progress of the clustering and schoolwide governance intervention. The findings to date suggest that the programs have been generally implemented as planned but that changes have been made to address specific issues that have arisen. Because the programs are still evolving, they cannot yet be considered mature. Nevertheless, successive classes of twelfth graders have shown improvements on measures of community service and political knowledge, and the improvements have been widespread in the student population. In addition, these positive changes were relatively larger for disenfranchised youth and other groups of students who initially scored lower than their counterpart groups on these civic measures, indicating that the programs are reaching the students they were designed to reach. Finally, examples from the current study support the idea that adult support, via scaffolding, plays an important role in building youth civic engagement. These findings demonstrate that all students--not just a select few--can and will engage in civic activity in their schools when given appropriate opportunity. A questionnaire used in this report's 21 measures of youth civic development is appended. (Contains 3 footnotes, 4 tables and 4 figures.)

The landmark Civic Mission of Schools report of 2003 laid out an argument for the role of schools in promoting youth civic engagement and presented a range of promising ideas and practices to accomplish that. In this study we describe the civic engagement outcomes that Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) in Louisville, KY, has chosen to promote in its students. The outcomes constitute a vision of civic engagement that sees youth as well-rounded citizens capable of engaging in civil, political, and problem-solving activities, both individually and socially. In 2007, JCPS revised its annual survey of students to include the above-mentioned civic outcomes and other new measures as part of a whole-child approach to monitoring educational development. Data collected from high school students by this survey in 2008 and 2009 were used to identify and characterize a number of factors which, theory and empirical research suggest, may be important predictors of youth civic engagement. The results show that most of the factors in our models of civic engagement were positively related to youth civic engagement. Using these findings and theoretical considerations, we sorted factors into three levels of importance. Overall, the most important predictors of youth civic engagement in our models were "community service", "political discussion", and "environmental conservation". At an intermediate level of importance were "nonsport extracurricular activities", "conflict resolution skill", and "positive character", as well as "personal efficacy", "willingness to contact public officials about issues of concern", and "intention to vote". Seven other factors were also found to have positive, but somewhat weaker or less-widespread associations with youth civic engagement. Using a large sample in an urban school district, this study reinforces claims that community service, discussion of politics, and nonsport extracurricular activities boost civic engagement. These are three of the "promising practices" recommended for schools in the Civic Mission of Schools report, and this study reinforces the importance of providing them. The findings also provide intriguing evidence of the potential value of environmental conservation, conflict resolution skill, and character education as pathways to civic engagement. (Contains 11 tables.)

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 same pattern was not found for Republican youth in Democratic counties during the 2006 elections; they were not more politically expressive when exposed to hostile ideological climates. However, Republican identity (like Democratic identity) correlated with knowledge of the political parties. The results suggest that Democratic identity is frequently expressed in deliberative and conflict-seeking activities, while Republican identity is often grounded in knowledge. Overall, the study suggests the value of peer-centered, critical discussion as a strategy for youth political mobilization. A list of state races where party control changed in 2006 is appended. (Contains 4 figures, 9 tables and 8 notes.) [This paper is derived from research made possible with support from CIRCLE and the University of Colorado's Innovative Seed Grant Program.]

More than 1.7 million students attend out-of-state colleges, and most are eligible to vote in either their home state or in their college state. Despite the potential impact of the "away" student vote on close elections, on-campus voter drives that promote absentee voting are rare. Here we report a detailed outcome study of an in-person campus voter drive conducted at Northwestern University in Fall 2008, in which students were offered a choice of college state (Illinois) or home state (absentee) registration and voting. Voting in swing states was actively encouraged for those who had that choice. Students from swing states selected absentee voting over Illinois voting by an 8:1 ratio. Students from other non-swing states showed a 2:1 ratio. Notably, both groups preferred absentee voting despite its greater complexity. We found that for students who successfully registered in Illinois, or who received an absentee ballot from another state, turnout was very high: over 80% of each group cast a ballot. Concerns about low absentee turnout due to the complexity of absentee voting were not justified. We report the rate of failures in absentee voting, and the causes of those failures. We also investigated whether any student abused the privilege of absentee voting by voting twice; we found than none had. (Contains 5 figures, 1 table and 32 footnotes.)

Education beyond high school is generally considered important for access to good jobs. Education is also a route to civic incorporation; people with more years of education tend to be more engaged in community affairs. This working paper looks at the educational progress over four years of a national sample of young adults and the relationship between educational progress and four forms of civic engagement (voting, volunteering, civic media use, and motivation to serve society). Educational progress refers to those young adults who either had achieved a 4-year college degree at the beginning of the study or who achieved any increase in education during the course of the study. Overall, four forms of civic engagement and attitudes were positively linked with educational progress, regardless of whether one's family of origin made more or less than the median income. (Contains 6 figures and 3 footnotes.) [This material is based upon work supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service under Agreement No. 08BIHPA001.]

This paper provides descriptive data on differences in civic engagement between advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Because there is not always consensus on what measure best describes disadvantaged, this paper used multiple indicators (race, ethnicity, citizenship status, family income and educational attainment) across four measures of civic engagement: (1) Percentage of survey respondents who volunteer with a formal non-profit provides measure of formal volunteer rate by group; (2) Percentage of survey respondents who do not volunteer but attend community meetings or work on community problems indicates whether disadvantaged groups exhibit a preference for community-oriented work over what is generally accepted as volunteering with a formal organization; (3) Percentage of individuals who both volunteer and either attend community meetings or work to fix a problem in their neighborhoods to provide better understanding about how volunteers from some groups are also highly engaged community actors; and (4) Percentage of all respondents, volunteer and non-volunteer, who attend community meetings or work on community problems to provide another view of group differences in civic engagement. Using the 2005-2007 Current Population Survey's Annual Volunteer Supplement was used for source data, major findings include: (1) Family income and education predict both likelihood of civic engagement and the rates of attrition; (2) Higher levels of income and education predict higher civic participation and attrition rates; (3) Whites tend to have higher rates of civic engagement and lower attrition rates than blacks, Hispanics or Asians; similarly, native-born citizens have higher rates of civic engagement and lower attrition than immigrants; and (4) Findings for race, ethnicity and citizenship status hold even when family income and educational attainment are considered. A Technical Appendix includes description of the logistic regression used for this analysis. (Contains 4 footnotes, 2 figures and 7 tables.)

This paper was developed in the interest of extending the reach and benefits of national and community service programs to larger numbers of persons from disadvantaged populations. In particular, this paper is intended to increase understanding of both challenges and opportunities that may accompany efforts to increase the participation by disadvantaged groups. The report explores the research on the impact of education, race and gender on civic engagement; generates hypotheses about what that research suggests by way of strategies for increasing participation; and offers proposals for strategies that might enhance the diversity and equity of participation, including: (1) Designing service programs that are opportunities for collective problem-solving; (2) Defining areas of service that will appeal to community needs that reflect the priority concerns of disadvantaged neighborhoods; and (3) Using service programs to support mediating organizations. The authors also advocate that early exposure to an "ethic of service" should be the cornerstone of national service strategies for increasing participation generally but particularly within poor minority neighborhoods. (Contains 36 footnotes.)

The purpose of this project was to gain a better understanding of dimensions of trust and inter-relationships between those dimensions during the adolescent years. Drawing from survey data collected at the beginning and end of a semester in eighty middle- and high-school social studies classes, relationships were assessed between: social trust, trust in elected officials, trust in the responsiveness of government to ordinary people, trust in the American promise, and trustworthiness of the media. The study was designed as a randomized evaluation of a civics curriculum called Student Voices in the Campaign, with data gathered from two waves of surveys with 1,670 students ages 12-19 during the fall of 2004. Students from ethnic minority backgrounds were less likely than their ethnic majority peers to trust elected officials or people in general or to believe that the government was interested in ordinary people. However, ethnic minority students were not less likely to believe in the general tenets of that all people, regardless of background, had an equal opportunity to succeed in America. Controlling for social class, age, and ethnicity, adolescents' trust in the American promise and their civic commitments were found to be significantly predicted by the youths' proximate experiences of social inclusion in their communities and, particularly for ethnic minority students) by their reports that teachers practiced a democratic ethos at school. (Contains 9 tables.)

In a study of high school civic opportunities, the authors found that student race and academic track, and a school's average socioeconomic status (SES) determines the availability of the school-based civic learning opportunities that promote voting and broader forms of civic engagement. High school students attending higher SES schools, those who are college-bound, and white students get more of these opportunities than low-income students, those not heading to college, and students of color. The study is based on surveys of more than 2,500 California juniors and seniors over a two-year period (2005-2007) as well as on analysis of a nationally representative data set of more 2,811 9th graders. Students were surveyed about how their high school civic learning experiences aligned with civic education best practices. This report details those findings and offers three recommendations for policymakers and educators: (1) Professional Development and Curricular Support; (2) New Initiatives Focused on Universal and/or Low SES Populations; and (3) Undertaking Assessment that Inform and Direct Both Policy and Practice. Two sample descriptions are appended. A bibliography is included. (Contains 12 endnotes, 3 figures and 3 tables.)