The Development of Active Citizenship in Youth

Hugh McIntosh, Ph.D.

Director: James Youniss, Ph.D.

 

The years since the mid 1990s have witnessed sharply increased efforts aimed at better preparing young people in the United State for active citizenship in adulthood. The current study was undertaken to develop information and insight that might help guide such efforts. Using the "Civic Voluntarism Model" developed by Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (1995) as a start, the study extended their model to include community behaviors and attitudes, as well as those in the political domain. A framework of citizenship was then developed and evaluated using civic involvement information collected at two different times by the National Household Education Survey (NHES). The NHES samples included 3,608 youth in grades 9 through 12, their parents, and 2,250 other adults who were interviewed in 1996, and 3,717 youth in grades 9 through 12 and their parents who were interviewed three year later.

            The study found that (a) two broad factors underlie citizenship. From a developmental perspective, it appears that one factor is related to citizenship characteristics that develop individually and the other related to those that develop through collective action. (b) The two strongest and broadest predictors of youth civic development were youth-parent discussions of politics and participation in organized youth activities. The common element in these activities is youth-adult interaction, a finding which supports the idea that adults play pivotal roles in youth civic development. (c) Involvement in these activities (political discussions at home and organized youth activities) had stronger effects in males than in females on some measures of citizenship, suggesting that adult-led activities are more important for civic development in males than in females. (d) Discussion of politics or other current events appears to be particularly important to youth civic development in that it involves both individual and collective aspects of citizenship.

            Over all, the findings from the study indicate that active citizenship in youth develops through individual and collective activity and that adults are an important catalyst in both domains, especially when they interact with youth through discussion of politics and other current events.