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，人们对儿童和青年如何获得公民参与感并不十分了解。这个项目的目标是调查从童年到青春期，多种类型的公民参与是如何发展的。这项研究将追踪青年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如何与其他发展能力以及家庭、学校和青年发展的地理环境相关联。 更好地了解公民参与的发展基础，可能有助于公民更好地了解情况和更多地参与，并有可能直接影响公共政策和教育实践。 根据关系发展系统理论，该项目将：（i）记录不同类型的公民参与在整个童年和青少年时期的不同变化模式，（ii）调查青少年认知，情感和社会发展能力的发展变化与青少年公民参与轨迹之间的关联，（iii）测试青少年家庭，学校，和有组织的活动生态资产和青年公民参与，以及（iv）检查生态资产，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展开。该项目将为正在进行的一项研究增加两项纵向后续行动，该研究涉及来自美国三个地理区域的2 500名4-12年级种族和社会经济多样化的青年。青少年将完成评估生态资产（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）的综合调查。统计模型将使用潜在增长曲线和纵向结构模型测试纵向和双向关联。调查结果将有助于青年公民发展的综合理论，描述如何以及为什么公民参与整个童年和青春期的变化。

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.