• Do Students and Their Parents Differ on Key Dimensions of Civic Development?
• Are Grade Level or Other Student Characteristics Related to Civic Development?
• Does Attention to Politics Translate Into Higher Levels of Civic Development?
• What Types of Student Activities Are Associated With Higher Levels of Civic Development?
• What Role Does the Family Play in Student Civic Development?
• Do Students at Public and Private Schools Have Similar Levels of Civic Development?
• Summary

Civic development, as defined in this report, consists of five dimensions: political knowledge, attention to politics, political participation skills, political efficacy, and tolerance of diversity. Information about civic development was collected from a nationally representative sample of 4,212 9th- through 12th-grade students and their parents and is based on responses to more than a dozen questions. Both the students and their parents were given a short political knowledge quiz. They were also asked how often they paid attention to politics through various news media and how often they interacted with one another on political issues garnered from news media. Political participation skills were tapped through questions asking how confident respondents felt about writing letters to officials or speaking at public meetings. Responses to questions about how well respondents understood politics and how much say their families had in government were used to tap political efficacy. Tolerance of diversity was studied based on answers to questions about tolerating controversial books in public libraries and allowing speech against religion. The data were collected from January through April 1996 as part of the National Household Education Survey.

Some of the more important questions and relevant results presented in the report are summarized below.

The answer to this question is yes for two of the dimensions of civic development under study. Parents tend to know more about politics than do students. For instance, 17 percent of parents were able to answer all five of the political knowledge questions correctly while only 8 percent of the students could do so. The knowledge disparity may be due in part to the fact that parents are more likely than students to pay attention to politics. More than one-third of parents, compared with only 1 in 10 students, read about the news almost every day; and parents are also more likely than students to watch or listen to the news.

The disparity in political knowledge scores is reflected in one of the political efficacy questions. Approximately 61 percent of parents believe they understand politics, compared with 55 percent of students. However, students are more likely to believe that their families have a say in government than are parents. There are no notable differences between parents and youth in terms of political participation skills or tolerance of diversity; 57 percent of both groups would allow a controversial book to be included in a public library.

As students progress through the education system, they tend to have better civic development scores. A student's grade in school--controlling for other factors such as the student's race-ethnicity, activities, and family and school characteristics--is positively related to all dimensions of civic development. Students in higher grades are more likely to be knowledgeable about politics, pay attention to politics, trust their participatory skills, be politically efficacious, and be tolerant of diversity than are students in lower grades.

Other student characteristics tend to present a less consistent picture. For instance, when controlling for other factors, white students are generally more knowledgeable about politics than are minority students and are more tolerant of diversity in terms of allowing controversial books in a public library. Minority students are about as likely to trust in their participation skills as are white students and are more efficacious in terms of believing that their families have a say in what government does.

For the most part, the answer is yes. Those students who pay more attention to politics through the print media or television and radio tend to be more knowledgeable about politics. They also tend to have greater trust in their political participation skills and tend to be more efficacious, at least in terms of feeling as though they understand politics. One dimension of civic development not associated with attention to politics, however, is tolerance of diversity.

The relationships between attention to politics and civic development hold even after controlling for a large number of student characteristics, other student activities, and various family and school traits. Apart from suggesting that students should be encouraged to pay attention to politics, these results also suggest that the media may have a positive role to play in civic development.

Both participation in student government and regular participation in community service activities are related to a number of dimensions of civic development. Those students who participate in student government tend to be more knowledgeable about politics, more confident in their participation skills, more confident that they understand politics, and more tolerant of public libraries carrying controversial books than students who do not participate in student government. These results hold even after controlling for student characteristics, other kinds of student activities, and family and school characteristics.

Many of the same relationships are found between civic development and regular participation in community service (35 hours or more during the school year). Generally, regular participants have higher levels of civic development than do students who participate less often or not at all. The only exceptions are that regular participants, while more likely than other students to have confidence in their ability to make statements at public meetings, are not more likely to have confidence in their ability to write the government nor more likely to tolerate controversial books in public libraries.

Much of the research of the 1960s and 1970s suggested that the family, or at least parents, had only limited influence on the civic development of students. Findings in this report provide a somewhat different picture. After controlling for a large number of other potential factors, parents' responses to given questions about civic development are positively related to students' responses to the same questions in almost every instance. Students of parents with high political knowledge scores tend to have high political knowledge scores, students of parents who regularly read the news also tend to read the news on a regular basis, and so forth. The only exception is for the question about writing to a government official.

Of the 11 indicators of civic development used in the report, private school students score notably better on 4 indicators. After controlling for a host of other factors described above, private school students tend to have higher political knowledge scores, are more likely to have confidence in their ability to speak at public meetings, are more likely to feel as though they understand politics, and are more likely to accept the presence of controversial books in public libraries than are public school students. On the other indicators of civic development, no notable differences emerged between public and private school students.

This report fills a number of voids in research focusing on younger Americans and their civic development. Perhaps the biggest is simply the time lag between a series of studies conducted in the 1960s and early 1970s and the present. There have been few extensive studies of youth civic development since that time. Findings in this report suggest that the current generation of American youth may have different correlates of civic development than the youth of the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, earlier research suggests that parents play only a very limited role in youth civic development, but this report indicates that parents may now have a stronger influence on the civic development of youth.

Some of the differences that appear to exist between earlier research and this report on such issues as the relationship between parents and youth civic development may in part be due to the fact that this report focuses on students in grades 9 through 12. Much of the earlier research focused solely on 12th-grade or college students. However, results presented here indicate that there are important differences between students in higher and lower grades that deserve more attention.

The report also looks at the possible relationships between community service activity and civic development. While there have been many benefits accredited to community service, including higher levels of civic development, little research has been done to study the relationship between the two. Community service activity does appear to be associated with some components of civic development, such as increased political knowledge, increased confidence in the ability to speak at public meetings, and a stronger sense of understanding politics. It should be kept in mind, however, that community service in general does not seem to promote several factors associated with good citizenship.

For instance, there does not appear to be a correlation between community service per se and tolerance of diversity. It is important to explore the relationship between community service and civic development further, since data collected for this report do not allow for an analysis of different types of community service. If such factors as the type of activity the service entailed, who was assisted, who sponsored the service, and so on, are taken into account, community service might be more closely related to other dimensions of civic development.

Research on the topic of youth civic development has pointed to a number of agents that are typically related to civic development. These agents include the family, schools, and the media. Apart from these agents, student characteristics and activities have also been studied. Seldom have all of these agents, characteristics, and activities been studied at the same time. By simultaneously analyzing these factors, this report helps sort out their relative roles in the civic development of American youth.