The Civic Engagement of Immigrant Youth: New Evidence From the 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation Survey

We present new evidence on the civic engagement of immigrants and the children of immigrant parents (ages 15 to 25). Utilizing the 2006 Civic and Political Health of the Nation Survey conducted by CIRCLE, we find that young immigrants report lower levels of civic engagement on most measures compared to natives. However, once observable demographic factors are controlled, many of these differences are eliminated. In contrast, the children of immigrant parents report levels of civic engagement that match or exceed those of natives. We thank Katherine Howard and Sean Conner for excellent research assistance. We also thank Lene Jensen, Peter Levine, Jane Junn, Connie Flanagan, Emily Kirby, and two anonymous referees for comments on previous drafts of this article. In addition, this article benefited from comments of participants at a CIRCLE funded meeting in April 2006 on immigrant youth and civic engagement at The Milano School for Management and Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. All errors in fact or interpretation are our own. Notes 1Although the vast majority of young people surveyed provided information about their nativity status, and that of their parents, not all young people surveyed did so. This resulted in sample sizes of 160 immigrant youth, 109 children of immigrants, and 851 natives for the phone sample, and 75 immigrant youth, 150 children of immigrants, and 233 natives. As a result, our combined phone and Internet samples of analysis have fewer observations, 1,578, than the entire youth sample for the 2006 CPHS, which was 1,674. 2Results for the full youth sample from the 2006 CPHS are available on request. ∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.001. ns = not significant. All results are weighted. ∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.001. ns = not significant. All results are weighted. 3Perhaps the most direct comparable sample to the non-White Internet sample is the non-White phone sample. The demographics of this sample are different from the non-White Internet sample, and generally are more Latino, lower socioeconomic status, and more immigrant. Tabulations showing this comparison are available upon request. ∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.001. ns = not significant. All results are weighted. For average number of civic engagement activities, standard deviations are in parentheses. ∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.001. ns = not significant. All results are weighted. For average number of civic engagement activities, standard deviations are in parentheses. Note: Each row represents a separate probit model. Reported coefficients represent marginal effects. Robust test statistics are shown in parentheses. Additional controls include four indicators for race/ethnicity, an indicator for gender and college aspirations, three indicators for marital status, two indicators for urbanicity, two indicators for religious services attendance, three indicators for region of the country, four indicators for family socioeconomic class, and three indicators for mother's level of educational attainment. ∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.001. ns = not significant. All results are weighted. The reference group above is natives. ∗∗∗ indicates that no results are available because few young people engaged in this activity. 4We have also estimated linear probability and logistic models for each civic outcome. Because these results are similar to the results obtained with the probit model, we report only the probit results here. Other results are available upon request. Note: Reported coefficients represent marginal effects. All models are probit models except “number of civic engagement activities.” For this outcome results are from an OLS model. Robust test statistics are shown in parentheses. See footnote of Table 3 for a list of included covariates. ∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.001. ns = not significant. All results are weighted. The reference group above is natives. 5We cannot control for citizenship status when discussing electoral activities among immigrant youth, because the 2006 CPHS did not ask participants about their citizenship status.