Minority Youth and Civic Engagement: The Impact of Group Relations

Abstract

Civic involvement is something that all liberal-democratic governments want to encourage among their young citizens. Much of the literature has focused on the individual and what factors influence him or her to become civically engaged. What has been absent from these analyses of civic participation is an investigation of the impact of groups on the individual's perception of, and participation in, civic activities. This article looks at the impact of ethnic group history on perceptions of civic engagement and argues that, instead of there being 1 civic culture in the United States, there are a variety of civic subcultures; each with their own set of attitudes about civic engagement and a set of concomitant behaviors that they understand to be appropriate contributions to civic life.