participation

For a number of reasons, I'd like to revisit the data on college turnout vs. non-college turnout that I blurbed on Thursday. First, to note that I've spoken with some people and cleared up the confusion of the precise definition of "non-college" youth. The term non-college applies to anyone who has not attended or received a degree from an institution of higher education. It does not, as the NPR story seemed to suggest, apply to graduates not longer in school.

Looking at the data once again in that light, I have to agree with Karlo that the disparities are shocking. 79 percent of young voters this cycle are college youth and just 21 percent are classified as non-college. When you consider that In 2007, only 18 percent of 18-29 year olds had a B.A. or more, it does not seem outlandish to suggest that we're seeing some version of the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) playing out in the youth vote surge.

CIRCLE notes that one cause for these disparities is inequality in high school education, particularly opportunities to learn about politics:

Instead of making things more equal, school systems exacerbate this political inequality by providing more opportunities to learn about politics to higher income students, white students, and academically successful students, according to a new CIRCLE study written by Joseph Kahne and Ellen Middaugh of the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at Mills College. Students in higher-income school districts are up to twice as likely as those from average-income districts to learn how laws are made and how Congress works, for example. They are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to report having political debates and panel discussions.

Over at WireTap, Karlo Marcelo of CIRCLE has some good suggestions on how we can alleviate these disparities:

We need to address this gap now -- during this election -- and while the emphasis on the internet and online organizing is effective this year in delivering information about the voting process to college youth, it leaves out non-college youth, whose voices need the most amplification. Complicating outreach tactics even more, places that were once venues for mobilizing non-college youth, such as unions, and community organizations, are less effective today because of declining membership rates.

One way to engage non-college youth, in the long term, is to improve access to and affordability of college; but not everyone wants to attend. For those young people that do not want to attend college -- or can't afford or access it -- the focus needs to turn to high school civic education. A new CIRCLE working paper found that students in higher-income school districts are twice as likely as those from average-income districts to learn how laws are made and how Congress works. More than that, they are more than one-and-a-half times as likely to report having political debates and panel discussions.

The implication being that there is a direct correlation between this kind of early civics education and voting habits. I'm in full agreement with Karlo that all youth should receive the same quality of civics education in high school, but I would go further. We also need to create new institutions that can fill in the role previously played by those unions and community organizations.

As David Sirota wrote in his recent columen, The New Permanent Campaign, political involvement can't just spool up at the height of an election cycle and then disappear for the next four years. That doesn't build anything and offers little in the way of real, substantial involvement. Progressives need to put serious thought into creating institutions that involve progressives 24/7/365. Progressive donors should invest in nontraditional outreach like that provided by Drinking Liberally and Democrats Work, and the creation of healthy, state-based youth organizations with a focus on reaching non-college youth.

Typically these types of organizations are the least funded institutions in the progressive movement. Real investment in these types of organizations - combined with research into best practices for such groups - would also go a long way towards brining non-college youth to the voting booth and into the progressive movement.

I just finished watching 18 in '08, a documentary about young people and the political process created by David Burstein, himself only 19 years old, and 18 at the time of filming. Long and short - it's great. The documentary captures the many doubts that many people - old and young - have about the process, but is careful to note that things are rapidly changing. Just when I thought Burstein would violate one of the 11 Rules of covering the youth vote, he'd offer counterexamples that note rising participation and action by Millennials.

With a decent soundtrack and a run time of about 30 minutes, it's the perfect primer for why young people should participate and how they have been in recent years.

I spoke with Burstein a few weeks ago about his plans for promoting and using the movie as a GOTV and motivational tool in 2008. Burstein and his coproducers are working with a variety of partners to screen the film across the country: College Democrats, Young Democrats, College Republicans, Mobilize.org, Declare Yourself, Unity 08, Why Tuesday, Vote Smart, Generation Engage - basically all the major non-partisan players as well as the youth arms of both the parties.

Beginning in January, the producers will work to get at least 500 DVDs into the hands of teachers, CDA or CRA leaders, and others who will screen the film, register viewers to vote, and ask others to became evangelists, hosting their own screenings. This work will also include a 50-campus tour, and complementary outreach strategy online via YouTube, MySpace, and FaceBook. If you want to host a screening, you can order a copy of the DVD via their website, and they are getting ready to launch a DIY toolkit for would-be promoters.

Creating fun, effective tools for basic civic education in schools is a great goal - and surely necessary at a time when most high schools and college have foregone civics education altogether. However, most interesting to me is their plan to open-source their material and make 100+ hours of interview footage - with elected officials, celebrities, and regular youth - available online for anyone to remix into their own PSAs. Judging by the video, there's some good footage available. I can't wait to see what the remix culture - or even partner organizations - can make of that.

The National Conference on Citizenship has released their 2007 Civic Health Index. The main finding, reported here by Peter Levine, one of the co-authors, and covered on Yahoo News by Ron Fournier, is that there is a "civic core" of 36 million Americans who do the majority of volunteering and participating in civic activities (in addition to voting). The report also finds that volunteering and civic engagement have dropped recently, finally returning to their pre-9/11 levels.

When it comes to Millennials, the report is encouraging. It notes that participation at the ballot box by Millennials continues to rise, and suggests that Millennials are mimicking the civic-mindedness of the Greatest Generation (the report actually tags Gen X and the Boomers with responsibility for the overall decline in civic participation in the last 30 years). When it comes to overall trust, the report finds that Millennials are less trusting of individual actors, but more trusting of government and institutions, and three quarters of Millennials express distrust of the mainstream media as a reliable reporter of information.

What I found very interesting was that of all age groups, Millennials are the most likely to feel that they have little power and few avenues for civic engagement that could result in positive change. More than any other groups, they are looking for those opportunities to further increase their level of participation. Yet at the same time, they are one of the least likely of groups to use the internet to express opinions about politics and take civic actions. This is due primarily to the fact that older generations use email as a political tool at a FAR higher rate than Millennials.

I'm not sure exactly what questions the researchers asked to come to these conclusions and produce the two charts below. It may in fact be that pairing these next two charts is like comparing apples and oranges, but I wonder what this means about Millennial participation in something like MoveOn, the most obvious organization to allow its members to participate and express themselves politically using email. At the very least it is indicative of a disconnect between what Millennials are doing online (IMing, blogging, social networking) and what they regard as effective political action for their community. It seems we still have a long way to go in making those into effective vehicles for political participation.

According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll you are.

Still, attention among younger Americans is up considerably: 36 percent of those under age 30 were paying attention to the election at this point four years ago; 65 percent of them are now.

Attention among Democrats increased more than it did among Republicans (polls have shown that Democrats are much more satisfied with their party’s presidential candidates than Republicans are).

Pretty interesting chart from Business Week marking out who's doing what online. Regular readers will know that I take issue with how they break down the generations, and it seems a little arbitrary to draw such distinctions between "creators" and "joiners." There's a middle ground in there which Fred Stutzman has identified as the "in-between spaces" - twitter, ma.gnolia, del.icio.us,Tumblr - activities that are not quite blogging, but are more participatory and creative than simply joining a social network and browsing your friends' profiles.

In relation to politics, the breakdowns in the "creators" category is interesting. BlogAds surveys show the political blogosphere to be much older. The majority of young "creators" in this graphic are engaging in non-political content creation - gossip blogs, music blogs, etc. Yet we also know that they are volunteering and participating in politics more and more through other venues - voting, on the ground engagement, social networks. I've already written about how I think progressive youth organizing could stand to benefit from greater integration with the local and national blogospheres. I wonder when and if we'll start to see more crossover there.

Sorry for the lite posting schedule lately. My class and some social obligation are eating up my time this week and next. Regularly scheduled programing will return on Wednesday. Items on the horizon include: Metrics and Memes (and how they are related), the Gamer Constituency, and more website reviews. In the meantime, here are a few things that have been sitting in my inbox that I don't have time to fully get into:

The New York Times has a very interesting (if somewhat dubious) article noting that evangelical teens are disappearing like it was The Rapture.

Their alarm has been stoked by a highly suspect claim that if current trends continue, only 4 percent of teenagers will be “Bible-believing Christians” as adults. That would be a sharp decline compared with 35 percent of the current generation of baby boomers, and before that, 65 percent of the World War II generation.

Buried at the bottom of the article are claims that may actually debunk this data. But if its true, it bodes well for a future progressive majority (or at least a greatly reduced evangelical conservative minority). At the very least, its a fascinating and sometimes creepy article about evangelical youth culture that anyone interested in appealing to young voters should look at.

CIRCLE released a new study tracking youth civic participation and it paints a mixed picture - more young people are involved, but 20% are completely disengaged. The survey is getting a lot of press, and Peter Levine comments on the commentary, noting that news organizations are either pumping up the greater involvement angle, or focusing negatively on the 20% who aren't engaged. He's got a great quote in this FOX story that all communications folks at campaigns and youth groups should take to heart:

"The public, the political parties and the media all need to be reminded that saying that young people just don't participate reinforces the myth," said Peter Levine director of CIRCLE. "Youth turnout was sharply up in 2004, and the survey shows that when young people are asked to vote and volunteer, they are much more likely to do so."

Other noteworthy findings in the survey include:

• Increase in Anti-Immigrant Sentiment and Drop in Acceptance of Homosexuals. 6% and 7% respectively.
• Immigration Protests Drew Mass Youth Support: 23% of immigrant youth, and 18% second generation youth attended demonstrations.
• Shift in identification: 28% self identify as Republicans, down from 31%. Dem identification stayed the same at 47%
• Majority tuned in to politics: 72% say they stay informed of current events and politics

Finally, a new study from Indiana University says that The Daily Show is just as substantive as network and cable news programs when it comes to covering current events and politics.