Only 45% of young people age 18 to 29 voted in 2012, down from 51% in 2008, according to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University. Voting is not the only means of civic engagement, but it is a significant indicator of people’s concern for making democracy work. Data show that young Americans have less positive and more negative feelings when thinking about the country than older Americans, attach less value to their American citizenship, and are less willing to engage in the range of activities, including voting, that are essential to make our democracy function.

Most students today prefer non-profit work to political engagement. In doing research for our recent book, we interviewed scores of young people who are engaged in civic work. They had started or were promoting non-profit organizations that gave help to those in need, with a focus on housing, education, health, and other basic human needs. These young people, many of whose stories we tell in our book, are doing incredible civic work. But virtually all of them are involved in civic work of an apolitical sort, not in public policy or politics.

When we asked them about why they did not engage in civic work that was political, they often said they wanted to have a direct impact on individuals and they saw politics as dominated by money, sometimes even corruption. They suggested political gridlock also meant that little could be done by engaging in politics.

In Educating for Democracy: Preparing Undergraduates for Responsible Political Engagement (2007), an earlier book that Tom Ehrlich wrote with colleagues at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, a dominant point came up repeatedly. Like the students with whom we talked in the research for our new book, those interviewed made clear, as did faculty and staff at their campuses, that there were a plethora of opportunities to engage in community service. Few opportunities involved political engagement.

Many students are required to engage in community service in high school, and if they are not required, community service is strongly encouraged. Students may feel that a record of community service on their college application strengthens their chances of admission. But the community service rarely relates to politics.

One might assume that young people are motivated to engage in community service and then act on that motivation. And that the motivation is usually mixed—partly to assist those in need and partly to help reach a personal goal such as admission to college. But the psychologist James Youniss and his colleagues have suggested that motivation is largely the result of engagement rather than the cause. Young people engage in civic work for various reasons and then over time, they develop a sense that the civic work gives them the satisfaction of being part of something larger than themselves. This process, over time, makes helping others part of their identity.

As proposed in an essay that Anne Colby wrote for Carnegie Perspectives, the absence of opportunities for political engagement, in contrast to the wide range of opportunities for non-political civic work, is a prime reason why more students are not engaged in civic work that involves public policy and government. Almost all colleges and universities now have organizations in place that help students connect with civic work unrelated to politics. Those campuses also offer community-service learning courses that are similarly nonpolitical. This insight into engagement leading to motivation, rather than the reverse suggests that colleges need to provide structured opportunities for students to be politically engaged.

In some college courses, students learn about public affairs, but too rarely do they learn how to engage in promoting sound public policies. Educating for Democracy describes twenty-one courses and programs throughout the country that do just that. Participation in them results in greater political understanding, skills, motivation, and expectations for future political involvement. No less important, involvement in these courses and programs does not change the party affiliation or political ideology of the students. College campuses are places where rational inquiry is the coin of the realm, as opposed to appeals to emotion that so often dominate political debates.  As a result, campuses are ideal for learning to be engaged in politics without becoming politically indoctrinated.

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                                                                                                    Jessica Mo

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