1 Center for the Study of the American Electorate, “2008 Primary Turnout Nearly a Record, Study Finds,” press release, June 10, 2008

2 The online sample confirmed these findings by generating very similar results for all these campaign-related activities—including watching online speeches and videos—with one exception: talking to other people about candidates, which was 14 points more common in the phone sample. Further research should investigate whether telephone samples are biased in favor of people who talk more.

3 For example, the proportion of people who said they had given money to a candidate was higher than in any American National Election Study (ANES) poll since 1976, and the 12% who said they had attended a political meeting or rally was up from 7% in the November 2004 ANES.

4 For example, National Conference on Citizenship, Broken Engagement: America’s Civic Health Index, 2006, p. 15

5 The online sample produced quite similar responses to these questions.

6 These results are based on a regression model with controls for demographics.

7 These results are based on scales composed of several separate questions, identified through factor analysis. The scales were “netizenship” (using several online forms of engagement) “community involvement,” “political activism,” and “political discussion.”

8 U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey (CPS) volunteering supplement.

9 The online survey found fewer people who expect to talk to friends and work to change local policies, which again suggests that telephone survey respondents may be more likely to want to talk and more connected locally.

10 Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Mixed Signals on Energy Policy,” March 6, 2008.

11 AARP and Civic Enterprises, More to Give: Tapping the Talents of the Baby Boomer, Silent and Greatest Generations (September 2008).

12 Joe Goldman et al, “Millions of Voices: A Blueprint for Engaging the American Public in National Policy-Making,” Washington, DC: AmericaSPEAKS, 2004. See also proposals by Bruce Ackerman and James S. Fishkin and others.

13 Rebecca Skinner and Chris Chapman, “Service-learning and community service in K-12 public schools,” National Center for Education Statistics: Statistics in Brief (NCES 1999-043).

14 John M. Bridgeland, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and Stuart C. Wulsin, “Engaged for Success Service-Learning as a Tool for High School Dropout Prevention,” a report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the National Conference on Citizenship (April 2008).

15 U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2006 Civics Assessment.

16 Each respondent was prompted for responses to two words/ phrases.

17 Norman H. Nie, Jane Junn, and Kenneth Stehlik-Barry, Education and Democratic Citizenship in America (Chicago, 1996), p. 31.

18 Young adults with no college experience means people between the ages of 20-24 with no college experience and no recent enrollment in high school, plus people between the ages of 25-29 with no college experience. Young adults with college experience means people between the ages of 20 and 29 who have attended college. In the phone sample, there are 59 non-college youth and 114 college youth.

19 We also looked at the population between the ages of 16-22, but the sample size is small and classifications are difficult since most people are still in the midst of their educations. Gaps in online participation by education were smaller in this subsample.

20 Mark Hugo Lopez, Peter Levine, and others, “The 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation” (CIRCLE, 2006). These are simple comparisons without any controls for education or income, which would increase the gap.

21 See Emily Hoban Kirby, Karlo Barrios Marcelo, Joshua Gillerman, and Samantha Linkins, “The Youth Vote in the 2008 Primaries and Caucuses,” CIRCLE Fact Sheet, June 2008 (via www.civicyouth.org).

22 These comparisons are based on comparable survey data from DDB Needham and the General Social Survey. For details, see National Conference on Citizenship, Broken Engagement: America’s Civic Health Index, 2006.

23 Mark Hugo Lopez and Emily Kirby, “Electoral Engagement Among Minority Youth,” CIRCLE Fact Sheet, July 2005.

24 National Exit Poll data collected by Edison/Mitofsky

25 Steven J. Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America (Longman Classics, 2002) and other studies find that surveys of civic engagement yield different responses depending on what time of year they are asked and how the questions are introduced and presented. These differences can be larger than actual changes in civic engagement from one year to the next. Our 2008 Civic Health Index represents a new methodology and survey instrument and was asked at a different point in the political cycle than any historical survey.

26 Cynthia Gibson, Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement (Washington, DC: Case Foundation, 2006).

27 Corporation for National and Community Service, Volunteering in America (Washington, DC, 2008).

28 Giving USA 2008, a publication of the Giving USA Foundation that is researched and written at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

29 Our two-part question on volunteering was identical to that used in the Census Current Population survey, yet our result is much higher. The same pattern has been observed in other surveys. We believe that whether one volunteers is more a matter of degree than a “yes” or “no” question. When respondents are primed to think of many varieties of engagement in a survey like this one on civic health, they are much more likely to answer a question about their own volunteering affirmatively. Endnotes