Civic engagement encompasses a wide range of activities undertaken to address issues of public concern. These actions can be overtly political, like voting and volunteering, or they can be subtler, like exchanging favors with a neighbor. In this section, we examine the components of civic engagement having to do with Californians' social interactions with each other and with their community.

The social capital produced by acts of social civic engagement helps create “networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benet.” 21 These societal attributes are highly correlated with community ability to constructively and effectively tackle public problems. The idea of social capital includes both participation in public groups (like churches) and private sociability and connectedness with immediate family. These activities build trust among citizens and function as a training ground for collaborative problem solving.

In this period of financial hardship for both governments and individuals, it is perhaps more important than ever for communities to develop the skills needed to work together to solve problems.

MEASURING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Because quantitative measures of “social capital” can be elusive, this study uses data on a combination of civic–engagement activities that correlate with creating trust. For the purposes of this report, Californians were asked to report how often they volunteer, their participation in groups and as leaders of groups, and the frequency and means by which they connect with others.

SERVICE AND VOLUNTEERING
Volunteers provide essential human capital needed to run many non–prot and government service organizations. Between 2007 and 2009, an estimated 6.8 million Californians contributed their time to helping such organizations provide service to the larger community. In 2009, 24.6% of Californians reported volunteering at least once in the last 12 months, slightly lower than the national average of 26.8%. California ranks 39th among the states in percentage of residents who volunteer.

Although it does not boast the highest volunteer rate, California is investing in an educational infrastructure to institutionalize and expand its service–learning programs throughout the state. Currently more than 160,000 students are providing more than 1.8 million volunteer service hours. Additionally, federal programs like Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America engaged more than 230,000 Californian volunteers of all ages and brought in more than $73 million in federal grants to improve the state.

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
In the early 19th Century, Alexis deToqueville commented on the value of formal and informal associations in America. He recognized that the power of group associations to generate ideas and motivate actions was the building block of this new society and a necessary balance to the individualizing tendency of democracy. Tocqueville saw the two aspects of civic engagement closely linked. He explained that, on the one hand, social associations “facilitate political associations,” while “on the other hand, political association singularly develops and perfects civil association.” 22

As technology rapidly changes the landscape of social networks and norms, this report looks at the kinds of connectivity Californians have to their families, neighbors, and communities. In a recent essay that questioned the impact of internet–based social networks on social movements, Malcolm Gladwell speculates that although online connectivity makes it easy to proliferate ideas , the kind of collectivist action that was a hallmark of our Civil Rights Movement and other important social revolutions depends more on strong leadership and close, in–person relationships between movement participants. 23 Whether or not Gladwell is correct, it is certainly true that our community relationships, news consumption, and methods of conceptualizing solutions are rapidly changing with the advent of new forms of communication. As Californians work to effect change in their communities, proliferation of information and forms of social interactions both will play a large role.

Over the last few years, the rate at which Americans report working with neighbors to improve the community has increased: 8.3% of Californians say they work with neighbors to improve the community, slightly below a national average of 8.8%.

In this measure of engagement, California ranks 33rd in the nation. On a less formal level, 13.8% of Californians exchange favors with neighbors a few times a week, while the average for the entire country is 15.9%. These informal actions are greatly affected by geography: Californians who live in rural communities are far more likely to regularly exchange favors (21.9%) than those in urban areas (11.9%). Another informal method of social engagement is family connectivity. Nationally, 89.1% of Americans eat dinner with their families a few times a week. California ranks 41st in the nation, with 87.8% of residents reporting that they eat with their families a few times a week.

Membership in community groups ranging from sports leagues to community service clubs to Bible studies has fallen steadily over the last 40 years, but 31.5% of Californians still report belonging to some kind of group. Of these, about 7% report serving in some kind of leadership role. California ranks 44th in the nation on this measure of civic engagement. Nationally, 35.1% of Americans are members of groups and 10.1% say they have served in a leadership capacity.

Leadership and group membership are both strong predictors of other forms of civic engagement. Those who report group afliation and leadership have higher rates volunteering and working with neighbors to improve the community. In California, the percentage of group members who volunteer is 43.2%, while 83.1% of group leaders volunteer. More than a quarter of leaders have worked with neighbors to improve the community.

CALIFORNIA, NEW YORK, AND TEXAS
For the 2010 Civic Health Index , thirteen states and four cities elected to do location–specic reporting. These reports allow us to examine specic differences between states. For example, while California outranks New York and Texas in volunteering rate, the difference in most measures is fairly minor. Where we nd the greatest variety between these states is in centralized policy stances on the issues of mandatory service–learning for K–12 students and how the states teach “civic engagement.”

In the last three years, the California legislature has passed a handful of bills aimed at improving civic engagement among young people. The Governor has vetoed at least three of these initiatives (related to young voter registration, credit for service learning, and excusing school absence due to civic engagement reasons). Despite these vetoes, California high school seniors are required to take a half year civics class designed to help them “pursue a deeper understanding of the intuitions of American government.”

Like California, Texas and New York have passed bills that call for improved and mandatory civic education curriculums. However, neither state has required or developed centralized service–learning programming like California's “CalServe Initiative” run by the state Department of Education. In Texas, where individual school districts decide on service–learning requirements, only 5% of districts have elected to mandate service learning. The cities of Austin and Houston in Texas have been awarded grants from the Rockefeller Foundation to help set up networks that connect residents with volunteer opportunities. New York may be following in California's footsteps, however, the legislature is soon to vote on a bill that would make service learning a graduation requirement for high school seniors.

NATIONAL TRENDS
In general, California is representative of the national trends in civic engagement we examine here with some notable exceptions. California data conrm that certain civic–engagement activities are more likely to predict whether a person will participate in other forms of engagement. One of the strongest predictors is whether a person reports serving in a leadership role. Leaders are more likely to volunteer (nationally, 75% of leaders volunteer compared with the 26.8% national volunteering average) and more likely to have worked with neighbors to improve their communities. Factors that appear to inuence leadership are college experience and employment. People who are employed and have college experience are much more likely to serve as leaders. In particular, college experience has a very strong relationship with leadership—83% of leaders have been to college.

In his most recent research on social capital and civic engagement, Robert Putman highlights that while civic participation and interest in public policy have increased in the Millennial Generation since the 9/11 attacks, the spike in participation appears to be limited to young people from more privileged backgrounds. Lower class youth report less engagement in their communities and politics. 24 This apparent relationship between leadership, civic engagement, and social class may be echoed in these statistics as well.

Although these political forms of engagement are stronger among a privileged population, leadership, employment, and college experience do not appear to favorably affect connectivity with family and friends. The unemployed are more likely to trade favors with neighbors than those who are employed, and college experience seems to have no bearing on whether a person is connected with friends and family. Those who do report high levels of connectedness are some of the least likely to volunteer.

Nationally from 2007 to 2010, civic engagement numbers have increased. The percentage of Americans volunteering has grown by two percentage points and in California the rate has increased by nine percentage points. Since its nadir in 2007, the country has shown impressive growth in the percentage of Americans who report “working with neighbors.” Mirroring national results since 2007, the percentage of Californians who are assisting neighbors has improved by more than 40%. In part, this appears to be a positive civic response to the economic crisis. It is worth noting that these California trends, while similar to the national results, are signicantly greater than Texas and New York. Californian's steady increase in civic engagement and willingness to reach out is a positive sign. With unemployment at 12.4%, an increasingly bi–partisan legislature, and plenty of difcult decisions to make regarding our scal and natural resources, the 2010 Civic Health Index for California shows that there is still room for optimism in these difcult times.