December 2008

CIRCLE releases two new working papers on underrepresented groups in volunteer service. The papers were commissioned by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Click on the paper titles below to download. A summary of the research follows.

* CIRCLE Working Paper 62 “Do Race, Ethnicity, Citizenship and Socio-economic Status Determine Civic-Engagement?”
* CIRCLE Working Paper 63 “Civic Engagement and the Disadvantaged: Challenges, Opportunities and Recommendations”
* Engaging the Poor and People of Color in Organized Service: Challenges and Opportunities: A Report of Proceedings from an Immersion Learning Session of the NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON VOLUNTEERING AND SERVICE

Working Paper Summaries: In order to support efforts to reach groups that are underrepresented in its volunteer and service programs, we present two background papers that examine rates of voluntary service and other forms of civic engagement among various subgroups of Americans. These papers were commissioned by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Medford, MA: Despite public belief to the contrary, schools are not shifting away from teaching social studies, liberal arts, and sciences directly because of the pressures of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), according to a new study released by Tisch College’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University. In fact, at the middle and high school levels, curricula have remained constant and in some cases expanded since the federal law was passed in 2001.

CIRCLE analyzed five major federal datasets looking at the how curricula and relevant extracurricular activities have changed at the elementary, middle and high school levels from 1987 to 2005. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the full report is entitled Narrower at the Base: The American Curriculum After NCLB. Click to read the full study in PDF format.

In grades one through five, the curriculum has narrowed over the last ten years, with more time devoted to reading and math and less to science, arts, and social studies. These declines, however, began in the 1990s before the passage of NCLB. The trends are the same in private and public schools and in schools with majorities of white and minority students.

It would also be expected that new teachers would be influenced by current expectations and pressures to emphasize English and math, whereas veteran teachers would more likely maintain teaching priorities from their early days in education. The study found the reverse is true, with newer teachers providing a broader curriculum.

Even though the k-12 curriculum has not narrowed consistently, and even though NCLB is not mainly responsible for the narrowing that has occurred, the curricula may still be too narrow to prepare young people for citizenship. Extracurricular activities such as music, drama, student journalism, and student government, are also too rare.

Download the press release.

Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Medford, MA – Now that the dust has settled from a record turnout of young voters, new research reveals young Americans voted for Obama across party and racial lines, but youth with no college experience were underrepresented at the polls, according to Tisch College’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University.

All the data are included in a new CIRCLE Fact Sheet.

Summary

An estimated 23 million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in the 2008 presidential election, 3.4 million more voters as compared to the 2004. CIRCLE estimated youth voter turnout rose to between 52 percent and 53 percent, an increase of four to five percentage points. Compared to 2000, the increase in youth turnout is at least 11 percentage points. 

The 18-29 age voting bloc is more diverse than older voters—youth voters classified themselves as Hispanic/Latino, black, and gay, lesbian, or bisexual in much larger proportions than the electorate as a whole.

Unfortunately, young voter turnout remains skewed towards those with more formal education.  For instance, while just 57 percent of U.S. citizens under 30 have ever attended college, 70 percent of all young voters had gone to college. The same disproportion can be seen when looking at those without a high school diploma. While youth with no high school diploma make up 14 percent of the general youth population, only six percent of young voters in 2008 had no high school diploma.

One of the most striking characteristics of this election was young people’s united support for Barack Obama, regardless of their political affiliations. Thirty-three percent of young white voters self-identified as “Democrat,” and yet, 54 percent voted for the Democratic candidate.  Similar trends were seen with African Americans and Latinos, where a large number of youth self-identified as Republicans yet voted for Barack Obama, signifying youth support for Obama seemed to cross racial and partisan lines.

Young women voters also came out to the polls in larger numbers—55 percent of young voters were women, which was consistent with the overall trend (53 percent of all votes were cast by women). This trend, however, was especially strong for young Black voters, 61 percent of whom were women.

The economy was a top issue for young people, as it was for adults. Youth were more likely to oppose U.S. offshore oil drilling (39 percent versus 28 percent of all voters). More young people said a candidate’s race was a factor than the general voting population (24 percent versus 19 percent).  Almost half of young voters said they would be “excited” if Obama won, as compared to 30 percent of the overall electorate, and just 20 percent of voters over the age of 60.

Youth Turnout Rate Rises to at Least 52% with 23 Million Voters Under 30

3.4 Million More Young People Vote than in 2004
Young Voters Account for at Least 60% of Overall Increase

18% of All Voters Were Young

Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, Medford, MA – An estimated 23 million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in Tuesday’s presidential election, an increase of 3.4 million compared with 2004, CIRCLE reports, using overall vote count projections by Curtis Gans, director of American University’s Center for the Study of the American Electorate, latest exit polls, and Census Current Population Survey. This is an update of data released on November 5th by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which is the nation’s premier research organization on the civic and political engagement of young Americans.

CIRCLE estimates that youth voter turnout rose to between 52 percent and 53 percent, an increase of 4 to 5 percentage points over CIRCLE’s estimate based on the 2004 exit polls. The 2004 election was a strong one for youth turnout, reversing a long history of decline. If we compare 2008 with 2000, the increase in youth turnout is at least 11 percentage points. This year’s youth turnout rivals or exceeds the youth turnout rate of 52% in 1992, which is the highest turnout rate since 1972 (55.4%).

Read the rest of this entry »

About 22-24 Million Young Americans Go to the Polls:
Up by at Least 2.2 Million from 2004

Young voters favor Obama over McCain 66% to 32%; 18% of all voters were young

Read the rest of this entry »

Young voters favor Obama over McCain by 66% to 32%

Read the rest of this entry »

For Immediate Release
November 3, 2008

Contact: David Roscow, 703-276-2772 x21 or Sarah Shugars, 617-627-2029

Media Alert/2008 Youth Voter Data
Exit Polls to Show Only Youth Share of Voters
CIRCLE to estimate Youth Turnout Early Wednesday, Nov. 5

Conference Call-in Press Briefing to Discuss 2008 Youth Vote, 2 PM ET, Nov. 5
To RSVP please call David Roscow at 703-276-2772 x21 or email dave@tricomassociates.com

Read the rest of this entry »

As explained in this press release, CIRCLE expects to have estimates of the 2008 youth voter turnout available early on Nov. 5. Meanwhile, with the election two weeks away, CIRCLE releases data and analysis on youth voting:

Our interactive map presents basic data on all 50 states. Our Quick Facts Sheet provides basic information on youth voting in the 2000 and 2004 general elections and the 2008 primaries and caucuses, along with demographic data on young citizens.

Our new fact sheet on State Voting Laws shows which provisions (such as early voting or same-day registration) are in effect in each state and which of these rules is most likely to raise youth turnout.

We also present detailed data on youth voting in the following selected states:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Corporation for National and Community Service announced a $570,000 grant to CIRCLE at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Public Service at Tufts University. The grant will support CIRCLE in building an online community that college students throughout the greater Boston area will use to pool information, deliberate, and coordinate their service and activism. The software is built on a platform called YouthMap, produced by Community Knowledge Base of Wisconsin, which is a sophisticated tool for analyzing networks online and in the real world. For the use of college students, YouthMap will plug into popular social networks. CIRCLE will collaborate with Community Knowledge Base, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Massachusetts Campus Compact, and the Boston Foundation to build, refine, and promote the online community.

According to the Corporation’s press release, “Today’s college students have a strong altruistic bent, and are working in extraordinary ways to tackle some of our most pressing problems,” said Corporation CEO David Eisner. “We want to further ignite this idealism by investing in strong organizations that will use the power of social networking to bring lasting change.” Eisner announced the grants before hundreds of civic, government, and education leaders gathered at the National Conference on Citizenship annual meeting at the National Archives.

The Corporation also made a grant to CIRCLE in partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship to conduct research on volunteering and civic engagement and disseminate research findings. CIRCLE was one of five leading university centers chosen in this competition, according to the Corporation.

Read the CIRCLE press release here.

CIRCLE designed and analyzed the 2008 Civic Health Index Poll for the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), with input from the NCoC and its Civic Indicators Working Group. The survey was conducted in July by Peter D. Hart Research Associates with national samples of 1,000 respondents interviewed by telephone and 1000 surveyed online, plus large samples in Ohio, Florida, and California. It was released today at the National Archives. Read the CIRCLE press release or the whole report as a PDF.

The survey provides a wealth of information about Americans’ civic participation. Citizens are heavily engaged in political activities during the 2008 campaign, but many do not anticipate taking action on issues raised during the campaign after the election is over. The survey did, however, find strong and bipartisan support for policies that would institutionalize civic engagement between elections:

• 87% favored expanding national and community service programs so that every young American would have a chance to serve full-time for a year
• 80% favored holding a national deliberation on a major policy issue and requiring Congress to hold hearings on the results
• 76% would like service-learning to be required of all high school students
• 67% would strengthen civic education by requiring new tests

Finally, the survey collected Americans’ reactions to key words used to promote civic engagement, such as “citizenship,” “service,” “democracy,” and “community organizing.” The results demonstrate that all these words and phrases are problematic if our goal is to promote active involvement in democracy. For example, although “community organizing” has been discussed as a controversial phrase since the Republican convention, we find that most Americans either do not know what it means or associate it with benign, helping behavior.