Where will the country's next generation of leaders come from if young people don't care? This question was being asked with considerable urgency at Carnegie Corporation in late 2001. At that point, surveys showed Americans under the age of 25 were less likely to vote than their parents, or young people of prior generations. Even though many were volunteering and joining in community activities, the connection to civic engagement was seen as tenuous. New strategies were needed to educate the country's youth and fully prepare them for responsible citizenship, but experts couldn't agree on what approach would work best. To find the answer, the Corporation created a new area of democracy grantmaking aimed at identifying and jump-starting the most effective approaches to civic education.
Citation: Theroux, Karen. A New Civic Mission of Schools (Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2011)
Program: Democracy
