During the summer we polled nearly 1,700 youth, 18 to 29 years old, about the election. Among many questions, we asked what would influence the respondents to vote. There was a clear answer: ask.

Almost half of young respondents reported that being asked by a friend or a parent would or might influence them to vote. In fact, of the situations that we asked about,  the one they said would have the most influence was being asked by a parent.

This response is not unusual; for many behaviors, research has shown that young people get involved when asked by someone whom they trust. As we show in our recent report, sometimes not being asked sends a message to young people that their voice and participation are not wanted.

Let’s start asking.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012 at 12:11 pm and is filed under CIRCLE Blog, Community Participation, Group Membership and Social Networks, Research Topics, Youth Voting/Political Participation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.