The Youth Participatory Politics Survey Project

Principal Investigator: 
Cathy Cohen
Principal Investigator: 
Joseph Kahne
Contact: 
Ellen Middaugh

The Youth Participatory Politics Survey group is collecting survey data from a nationally representative sample of more than 2,500 respondents ages 15-25. The sample includes an oversample of African American, Asian, and Latino respondents. Our surveys, administered following the 2010 and 2012 elections, include questions that examine the quantity, quality and equality of youth new media practices, political and civic attitudes and behavior and engagement in something we have labeled participatory politics. This data will provide researchers with a unique opportunity to interrogate how youth from a variety of backgrounds participate in and experience public life, online and off.

To enhance our understanding of youth participatory politics, a sub-sample of 600 participants will be surveyed twice, as a panel, facilitating the examination of relationships between different forms of new media participation and a variety of civic and political attitudes and behaviors. Additional survey studies, between waves of the national surveys, will pay particular attention to engagement and attitudes related to race, inequality, and the qualities of civic and political participation online and off. The YPP Survey Project is also conducting a complementary qualitative interview study of high school and college youth in two regions (Midwest and Southeast) to learn more about the thinking behind youth self-reported attitudes and behaviors and how youth think about, experience and participate in new media and civic and political life.

Presentations/Publications
Presented on black youth, civic engagement and new media at the Open Society Institute meeting on black youth civic engagement entitled: "Where Do We Go From Here," July 2011.

< Back to Projects