Making Educational Progress: Links to Civic Engagement during the Transition to Adulthood. CIRCLE Working Paper #67

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.]