As the 21st century unfolds, the United States faces historic challenges, including a struggling economy, an aging infrastructure and global terrorism. Solutions will have to come from educated, skilled citizens who understand and believe in our democratic system and are civically engaged. This incisive new report examines these fault lines and…

The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) provides a unique source of information to help in developing an understanding of the experiences of secondary school students with disabilities nationally as they go through their early adult years. NLTS2 addresses questions about youth with disabilities in transition by providing information…

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) reports that for the first time in over a quarter-century, literary reading has risen among adult Americans, with measurable increases among all groups represented in this comprehensive national survey. Combined with general population growth, higher reading rates have expanded literary readership by 16.6…

When it comes to making decisions about sex, teens today are doing far better than they were 20 years ago. Fewer teens are having sex, and among those who are, more teens are using contraception. The happy result is that teen pregnancy and birth rates have declined dramatically. Despite this extraordinary progress, teen pregnancy and childbearing…

This report describes patterns of continuity and change over time in four areas of the transition to adulthood among young adults as measured 2 years after their senior year of high school. The four areas are postsecondary enrollment, labor force roles, family formation, and civic engagement through voting or military service. The analysis…

Approximately one quarter of U.S. students do not graduate from high school with their peers. Failing to complete high school severely limits opportunities for employment and future financial stability. High school dropouts earn lower wages through their lifetime and work for fewer years. The costs to society of high school dropouts are also high…

The National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) funded by the National Center for Special Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, provides a unique source of information to help in developing an understanding of the experiences of secondary school students with disabilities nationally as they…

In an effort to document the secondary school experiences and postsecondary outcomes of students with disabilities over the last two decades, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) sponsored two longitudinal research studies 15 years apart. The first study, the National Longitudinal Transition Study (NLTS) generated nationally representative…

CIRCLE has issued two releases estimating youth turnout in the 2004 presidential election. The first release was issued on November 3rd and provided the earliest turnout estimates based on National Election Pool (NEP) state and national exit polls and a preliminary vote count. The second was a Fact Sheet released on November 8th which provided…

Volunteering rates among young people are generally higher than they are among adults 26 and older. However, measuring volunteer rates among all adults is a difficult task. In recent years, efforts at measuring volunteering have produced widely different estimates, largely because of the methods employed to measure volunteering. For example, the…

College experience and volunteering are positively correlated. Measurable differences in civic activity exist between young people who attend college and young people who do not. This fact sheet explores volunteering as civic engagement among youth with college experience, ages 19-25, which was down for the second year in a row in 2006. The…

What difference does a sense of trust in a political system, schools, or fellow citizens make for young people's civic and political participation? Some argue that a certain amount of skepticism among adult citizens motivates participation rather than complacency. Is that also true for young people? Or, is there a threshold level of trust…

In this data brief, key characteristics of young adults in the United States at or around age 25 are described. These characteristics include: (1) educational attainment and financial self sufficiency; (2) health behaviors and family formation;and (3) civic involvement. In addition, separate descriptive portraits for the major racial groups and…

Previous research on differences in civic engagement between young people with some college experience and those without suggests that college attendance is positively associated with some measures of civic engagement. This Fact Sheet presents new evidence, but largely supporting the findings of other researchers, on the correlation between a wide…

This year's elections follow a presidential election that witnessed the highest level of national youth voter participation in over a decade, and a voter turnout rate among 18 to 29 year olds of 47 percent, up 9 percentage points over 2000. This fact sheet reports the characteristics of young voters nationally, including estimates of the number of…