Developing Civic Engagement: Social, Cognitive, Cultural, and Contextual Contributors across Childhood and Adolescence

公民参与，即积极参与公众关心的问题，对民主至关重要，有助于促进健康和充满活力的社区。然而，儿童和青年如何获得公民参与感还没有得到很好的理解。该项目的目标是调查多种类型的公民参与是如何从童年发展到青春期的。这项研究将追踪年轻人是否以及如何随着时间的推移参与公民活动。该项目将探讨公民参与与其他发展能力以及青年正在发展的家庭、学校和地理环境之间的关系。更好地了解公民参与的发展基础可能有助于公民更知情和更多地参与，并有可能直接影响公共政策和教育实践。利用关系发展系统理论，该项目将：(I)记录儿童和青春期不同类型公民参与的不同变化模式；(Ii)调查青年认知、情感和社会发展能力的发展变化与青年公民参与轨迹之间的关系；(Iii)测试青年的家庭、学校和有组织的活动与青年公民参与之间的联系；以及(Iv)研究生态资产、发展能力和青年公民参与之间的顺序路径，以更好地了解它们如何随着时间的推移而展开。该项目将在对来自美国三个地理区域的2500名4-12年级不同种族和社会经济背景的青年正在进行的研究的基础上增加两项纵向后续行动。青年将完成全面的调查，评估生态资产(父母、学校、有组织的活动)、发展能力(认知、情感、社会)和公民参与(志愿服务、政治行为、政治信仰、社会责任价值观、非正式帮助、公民技能、环境行为)。统计模型将使用潜在增长曲线和纵向结构模型来检验纵向和双向关联。研究结果将有助于建立一个全面的青年公民发展理论，描述公民参与如何以及为什么会在儿童和青春期期间发生变化。

Civic engagement, active involvement in issues of public concern, is vital for democracy and helps promote healthy and vibrant communities. However, how children and youth acquire a sense of civic engagement is not well understood. The goal of this project is to investigate how multiple types of civic engagement develop from childhood through adolescence. The study will track whether and how youth become civically engaged over time. The project will explore how civic engagement relates to other developing capacities and to the family, school, and geographical contexts in which youth are developing. Greater understanding of the developmental foundations underlying civic engagement may contribute to better informed and more involved citizens, and has the potential to directly impact public policy and educational practice. Drawing on relational developmental systems theory, this project will: (i) document distinct patterns of change in different types of civic engagement across childhood and adolescence, (ii) investigate associations between developmental change in youth cognitive, emotional, and social developmental competencies and trajectories of youth civic engagement, (iii) test associations between youths' family, school, and organized activity ecological assets and youth civic engagement, and (iv) examine sequential pathways among ecological assets, developmental competencies, and youth civic engagement to better understand how they unfold over time. This project will add two longitudinal follow-ups to an ongoing study of 2,500 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse youth in grades 4-12 from three geographic areas of the United States. Youth will complete comprehensive surveys assessing ecological assets (parents, school, organized activities), developmental competencies (cognitive, emotional, social), and civic engagement (volunteering, political behavior, political beliefs, social responsibility values, informal helping, civic skills, environmental behavior). Statistical models will test longitudinal and bidirectional associations using latent growth curve and longitudinal structural models. Findings will contribute to a comprehensive theory of youth civic development that describes how and why civic engagement changes across childhood and adolescence.