A new study from CIRCLE anticipates the 2012 election by exploring civic engagement of youth voters (18-29) and resolving stereotypes and myths surrounding the participation of young Americans in the political process. Typically, the media “over-simplifies” political engagement of youth, demonstrating little understanding of the complexity that informs this group’s involvement. However, CIRCLE’s study, “Understanding a Diverse Generation: Youth Civic Engagement in the United States,” draws from US Census data to reveal the diversity in political participation that is characteristic to this age group. Youth involvement in the 2008 and 2010 election cycles shows that at least three quarters of young Americans were in one way or another engaged in their community or in politics. But the ways in which they were involved varied greatly. Key to this study is the finding that, in recent years, young Americans were divided into six patterns of engagement. These include:

The Broadly Engaged
The Political Specialists
The Donors
The Under-Mobilized
The Talkers
The Civically Alienated

This study of civic engagement in millennials is the first in a series of reports to be published by CIRCLE over the next 13 months during the 2012 presidential election.