Community Service and Civic Education

Abstract

BOYT**E. **.**** BY HARRY C. IBOYTE OMMUNITY service, wide C ly touted as the cure for young people's political ap athy, in fact teaches little about the arts of participa tion in public life. To reengage students in public affairs requires redefining pol itics to include, in addition to electoral activity, ongoing citizen involvement in solving public problems. It requires a conceptual framework that distinguishes between public life and private life. And it calls for a pedagogical strategy that puts the design and ownership of problem solving projects into the hands of young people. According to conventional wisdom, teenagers and young adults are deeply disenchanted with politics and public is sues. The Times Mirror Center reports that, for the first time since World War II, young people show less interest in public affairs than their elders. Only one in five follows major issues very close ly.' In fact, youths today have a complex set of attitudes about the world. More detailed probing finds a generation not so much apathetic as furious at adults' ap parent inaction in the face of mounting social problems. Today's young people are jaded with Sixties-style protest and uncertain about what else there is to do. It is clear, however, that senior-class trips to Washington, D.C., or exhortations to be good citizens the stuff of earlier generations' civic education are not go ing to interest young people in politics. Community service is proposed as the resolution of this dilemma. Advocates