The California Survey of Civic Education, developed by Joe Kahne, Ellen Middaugh, and Kristi Schutjer-Mance, was designed to examine:

• The extent to which California students are committed to future civic participation.
• The kinds of civic and political activities students are currently involved in.
• The capacities - including knowledge, skills, and feeling of efficacy - students have for active citizenship.
• The opportunities that schools can provide to support future active citizenship.

The survey, built on earlier work done with Joel Westheimer, draws on scales widely used in political science and civic education literature, the authors' prior work, and includes items created specifically for the purposes of this study. Factor (principle components) and reliability analyses (Cronbach's alpha) were performed on a sample of 2,366 surveys for all multi-item scales. Results of these analyses are available upon request.

The survey is organized into four categories of outcomes:

• Civic Commitments
• Civic Capacities
• Civic Activities
• Civic Opportunities

The survey is formatted for web administration. Please contact the authors at civicsurvey@mills.edu to inquire further about scales and items.

For more on scales: Civic Survey Scales