The Great Social Capital Debate

I was waiting in line for a cup of coffee at a gourmet coffee wagon near my office, when a hand patted my back and a voice boomed out: "So what do you think about 'Bowling Alone'?"

It was a distinguished colleague, not in the social sciences, who had just finished reading commentary on Robert Putnam's work, in particular on the argument advanced in his famous article.[1] It wasn't exactly the spot for an extended seminar on America's "social capital." I replied briefly that while I agreed entirely with Putnam (and many others) that the health of the country's associational life and individual participation in civic affairs are of vital importance, I didn't think Putnam was right in claiming that the data show civic decline. "Well, I don't know about the data," my friend replied, "but what he has to say feels right to me, right here." At that he gently patted his abdomen.

My research wasn't initiated primarily as a response to Robert Putnam.[2] I do take issue with his essay, but only as one among many making similar arguments. I began this inquiry against the backdrop of insistent claims that Tocqueville's "nation of joiners"--individuals taking responsibility for their society, its health and integrity--was fast becoming a "nation of loners." Much of the public was seen retreating into private spheres, neglecting community responsibility, retaining large elements of the nation's historic individualism but abandoning its collectivist or community-serving side. In one powerful metaphor that really caught on, Americans hadn't stopped bowling, but increasingly we were "bowling alone."

The Importance of the Inquiry into the Status of Civic America

The United States is an individualist democracy. "Let government do it" has never been our thing. We've counted on individuals doing it--by accepting responsibility for building and maintaining a good society.

Somewhat paradoxically, an individualist democracy is unusually dependent on harnessing collective or cooperative energies. Individual citizens can't manage a society--can't possibly address its manifold needs in any satisfactory fashion--through solitary labors. We must come together in associations large and small where we learn and practice citizenship. Our ideal has been and remains an America of active civic and social organizations, churches, philanthropies, and voluntarism--not just to help concretely with a myriad of social needs and problems, but even more importantly to sustain vibrant community life. That the "me" will become too insistent, at the expense of the "we," is a persistent American worry. And engaging citizens in civic affairs is the persistent American answer to how a narrowly self-serving individualism can best be avoided.

No one has ever thought it would be easy, though. A "collectivist" individualism built around community engagement can release enormous civic energy, but it asks a lot of millions of citizens. It's not surprising that many in each succeeding generation of Americans have worried that vigorous community participation through groups and charities and voluntary service is somehow losing ground.

The Twilight of Civic America?

These worries are very much evident today. The US economy is hugely successful, but isn't "community" suffering even amidst these burgeoning material resources? Aren't we too transfixed by what I need, to make me happy, at the expense of what we need, as in our family life, for real individual fulfillment? Aren't we losing the level of confidence and trust in one another that's essential to the health of our democracy?

Such concerns are often expressed in terms of our "social capital" account. The traditional reference to capital involves economics, of course. My dictionary defines the term as "the wealth, whether in money or property, owned or employed in business..."; and as "any form of wealth employed or capable of being employed in the production of more wealth." Drawing on this root, "social capital" encompasses any form of citizens' civic engagement employed or capable of being employed to address community needs and problems and, in general, to enhance community life. The Great Social Capital Debate addresses this question: Are we spending down our supply of social capital? Many think that the balance is now dangerously low and worry about the consequences.

Are we right to worry? Yes--from one important perspective; but emphatically No from another. Social capital is crucial, and it's undergoing major changes in its expression. But at the same time, the record shows that overall we're building up our supply of social capital, not depleting it.

My research has explored in detail the web of private sector, voluntary participation in groups or associations, highly organized or informal, to advance common goals and shared interests. I've found that individual citizens are participating as never before in a vast array of groups and voluntary service and charities. This social capital is now being spent to meet community needs in towns and cities across America. If we better understand what's already being done, we will be energized to do even more. Publics are less likely motivated by alarmist calls that the sky is falling, than by the sober assurance that they are doing much that's right. In any case, when it comes to civic engagement it's just not true that the sky is falling. The stars are in their place, and the sky is pretty bright.

Measurement Problems

Seeing this hasn't been easy, though, because of a host of measurement shortcomings that have given sensationalizers a huge opening. When it comes to charting US economic performance, we have all sorts of information systematically gathered and carefully maintained. Even so, there have been continuing arguments--both intellectual and partisan--on whether the economy is progressing, regressing, or whatever. It's hardly surprising, then, that so much of the literature on civic performance is riddled with unsubstantiated claims: apart from all of the other problems standing in the way of balanced assessment, we lack comprehensive databases on trends in civic life.

If you want to know a Major League baseball player's batting average against left-handed pitchers in games completed after 11:00 p.m., you can get it in a flash. But if you want to document what's been happening to associational membership, be prepared to spend a lot of time assembling the material yourself. We know that many Americans give of their time and energy to help others, and that many did the same in 1950, 1900, etc. But is the proportion who volunteer increasing or decreasing? Are we gaining important civic results from our volunteer efforts?

Measurement problems are thorny when it comes to trends in associational life. Putnam argued that we should be concerned that membership in such organizations as the Jaycees, Elks, the League of Women Voters, and the PTA has dropped off significantly over the last three decades. But unless one is prepared to argue that a particular organization is uniquely valuable in civic terms, what is one to make of its losing ground? Why should we care that the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) has fewer members now than in the 1950s? Putnam offered no evidence--nor have other civic-decline-thesis proponents--that the loss of Elks and Jaycees has not been matched, or even surpassed, by increases in other groups equally attractive in their social/civic reach.

The idea of declining civic engagement has seemed plausible in part because many older groups have in fact lost ground. But groups have always come and gone, for many reasons. Membership declines become worrisome only when they're widespread, or if limited, when the groups in retreat are highly important civically and aren't being satisfactorily replaced. If the PTA lost half its members and other parent/teacher associations did not fill the gap; if the PTA's decline reflected a growing unwillingness of parents to join with others in support of school programs and improvements beyond what's good for Amy and Christopher; that would point to a troubling loss of social capital at least in one key area. But, is that the case?

Functional Substitution: The Case of Parents and the Schools

Data provided by the PTA's national headquarters in Chicago show that the number of parents in local chapters plunged from the early Sixties through the early Eighties. Membership reached a high of 12.1 million in 1962 and then began falling off, slowly at first but rapidly in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. It reached a modern-day low in 1981 of just 5.3 million--a drop in 20 years of 6.8 million parents. Since most of us agree with Robert Putnam that "parental involvement in the educational process represents a particularly productive form of social capital," the PTA's experience deserves examination.

It turns out that PTA membership fell off not because parents stopped participating, but because they began increasingly to participate through groups other than the PTA. They substituted other groups for the same basic functions. This was a big deal for the PTA, and for those who believe that its lobbying efforts are especially important. But it has nothing to do with developments in civic America. Months after I began puzzling over the PTA story, I discussed it with Harry O'Neill of Roper Starch Worldwide, a prominent survey organization. He noted that in the New Jersey community where he lived, the local parent-teacher groups had decided not to disband but to disaffiliate from the national PTA--largely to keep for local use the large portion of dues going to the national and state headquarters. When I related O'Neill's assessment to my wife, she reminded me that when she was an officer of our local Mansfield, Connecticut, PTA in the late Sixties, the group voted to become independent--calling itself a Parent-Teacher Organization.

How typical, in fact, were parents' decisions in these two communities of what was happening across the US? Highly so, it turns out. In the 1960s and 1970s, huge numbers of local parent-teacher groups disaffiliated from the national PTA. They then took a great variety of different names, but a large majority called themselves PTOs.

By the mid-1990s, less than one-fourth of all public and private K-12 schools had PTA affiliates--ranging from lows of just four percent of schools in Massachusetts, seven percent in Wyoming, eight percent in Vermont, and nine percent in Nebraska, to highs of 48 percent in Virginia, 51 percent in Maryland, and 72 percent in Utah. On its face it was unlikely that in education-conscious Massachusetts only one school in 25 had a parent/teacher group. Something else had to be happening.

There's a political argument over the cause of PTA's decline. Critics of the organization charge it with becoming a "lapdog of the teachers' unions." According to them, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have, in effect, taken over PTA and shaped its political agenda. This has allegedly turned off large numbers of parents.[3] Many prominent education activists are mad at the PTA for its stands on issues like vouchers and school choice--which PTA opposes vigorously. Still, for most parents, "controlling things ourselves right here in town and keeping all our dues money for local use," were probably the main spur to disaffiliation.

How many of the schools without PTAs in fact have no parent-teacher organization at all, or at least none in which parents are much engaged? That was a hard question to answer because no one collects data on PTOs or other unaffiliated parent-teacher groups. We had to conduct our own survey. Covering all 50 states was beyond reach given resources, but doing a careful study in a couple of states was possible. I picked Connecticut, the country's most affluent state, and one with high education levels and a highly urban population. For the other I picked Kansas, in the agricultural Midwest, a state with a demographic profile sharply different from Connecticut's in income, educational background, ethnicity, and occupation. In both these states we drew a random ten-percent sample of all state-accredited private and public schools and contacted their principal's or superintendent's offices. We then conducted telephone interviews to find out what (if any) parent/teacher organizations operated in these schools. We received outstanding cooperation from local officials and completed interviews at more than 90 percent of schools in our original samples.

We found that virtually all the schools had parent-teacher associations that school officials said were active. Their descriptions of the activities belie any claim that we have entered an era of "schooling alone." In both states the preponderance of the parent/teacher groups aren't affiliated with the PTA, or for that matter, with any outside body. By far the largest share of unaffiliates call themselves PTOs, but in Connecticut, with numerous Catholic schools, "Home and School Associations" are also common. In Kansas some groups call themselves "Parents in Education" and "Parent-Teacher Group" (Chart 1 and 2).

 Chart 1

 Chart 2

"PTA" is still a shorthand reference for the entire range of parent-teacher organizations. In fact, the PTA isn't the primary association of parents and teachers any longer; it's now a minority player. But because "PTA" is still the widely accepted shorthand, we have had the confusing case of surveys showing enhanced levels of "PTA involvement" in school affairs, even though formal membership in the organization was declining, or holding at levels far below 1960's highs. Surveys taken by the Gallup Organization for Phi Delta Kappa found the proportion of parents of public school children saying they had attended "a PTA meeting" over the past school year up from 36 percent in 1983 to 49 percent in 1994.

A host of national surveys show the proportions of parents saying they have recently attended meetings dealing with local school needs and programs up over the last two to three decades. The Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa studies report big increases in such parental engagement as meeting with teachers and administrators, and attending a school play or concert. In 1969, just 16 percent of parents told Gallup that they had attended a school board meeting; in 1995, 39 percent said they had. Other polls show this same upward progression of involvement from different angles. For example, a June 1978 survey by CBS News found 56 percent of respondents saying their own parents never participated in "PTA activities," while only 34 percent said that they themselves never participated. Princeton Survey Research Associates in a 1990 poll recorded 30 percent of parents of children aged five through seventeen as not having attended any PTA or special school meeting in the past year; three years later, the proportion not attending was just 19 percent.

Some respondents may, of course, gild their answers to questions like these. The point is that virtually all the studies show higher proportions indicating that they've participated in school meetings, organizations, and programs now than in the past. The National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey did find a plunge in 1980 in the percentage of parents of school-age children saying they had joined one or another school service group--but if this drop-off was real it was short-term. NORC surveys in the 1990s have found the proportion of parents belonging to such groups at their highest levels.

Not surprisingly, the preponderance of parents' involvement occurs informally. A survey done by Wirthlin Worldwide in May 1996 found 46 percent of parents of school-age children saying that helping with homework was key to effective parental involvement, compared to just 11 percent attaching that importance to belonging to the PTA. Similarly, a study by ABT Associates in 1992 reported 90 percent of parents of children in grade 1 having attended a conference with their child's teacher and 49 percent having volunteered for a school trip or project; these responses contrast sharply with the 8 percent having served on a parent advisory committee.

It's impossible to measure precisely the extent and variety of parents' engagement in school affairs--whether working with their own children individually or coming together with others in organized activity--to examine curriculum issues, complain about educational programs, or enhance the schools' social and recreational life. Still, it's striking that not one set of systematic data shows a decline in parental involvement while many show increases. The experience of parents and schools simply doesn't support the argument that America's social capital is eroding. Instead, it makes the case for expansive, energetic local engagement.,

Blind Spots: Overlooking the Religious Side of Civic America

The experience of America's churches is an even more impressive example of widespread civic engagement. Churches and other religious bodies seek to guide their members in worshipping of God, of course, and in living lives that accord with religious precepts. But churches are also civic associations, far and away the largest and most active. Through them tens of millions of Americans meet regularly to participate in an array of social activities that dwarfs those of all other groups. Churches are primary community meeting places. They engage their parishioners to help those who are hurting and to strengthen the larger community. They are easily the major recipients of individual philanthropy. Formal church membership in the United States surpasses that in any other industrial democracy--and it shows no sign of declining, though its denominational make-up is changing radically.

Many Americans tell pollsters that they believe religion is losing ground in the life of the nation. Are they mostly just expressing natural anxiety about institutions and values that really matter to them? Or do they actually see religious influences in retreat? We do know that the proportion of Americans belonging to a church or other religious organization has been trending upward over much of US history. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark have observed that "this pattern can truly be called the churching of America. On the eve of the Revolution only about 17 percent of Americans were churched. . . .[B]y 1906 slightly more than half of the US population was churched. Adherence rates reached 56 percent by 1926. Since then the rate has been rather stable although inching upwards. . . ."[4]

On the eve of the new century, something between four and five in every ten adult Americans say that they attend church "regularly," meaning almost every week or more often. About two-thirds are members of a church or synagogue. More than a quarter call themselves very active participants in their religious bodies, while another 40 percent plus are moderately active. No other organization records anything approaching so high a participation level. Even teenagers who, for as long as data have been collected have had the lowest church-participation rate of any age group, are significantly involved.

While overall membership and participation in religious groups remain high and, if anything, have climbed in recent years, individual denominations are going in opposite directions. Some are growing rapidly, others losing ground. Americans are continuing to "vote with their feet"--moving from one denomination to another to better meet their spiritual and social needs. In the last quarter-century, the old mainline Protestant churches have lost members, while a host of pietist and evangelical denominations have expanded strikingly. "Megachurches" have been appearing around the country, offering their parishioners social services--such as well-equipped gymnasiums--never before part of the church scene. "Para-religious" bodies like Promise Keepers are engaging millions outside any denominational structure. The huge contemporary search for new religious forms is also seen in the huge growth of "community churches," that are often intensely participatory but eschew historic denominational associations.[5]

Again, it's important to keep in mind that churches have never been purely religious bodies; they have been centers of social and civic life--and prime centers of volunteering. They are now showing enormous energy in transforming themselves to meet contemporary needs and tastes. Charles Trueheart writes that the "Next Church" movement is consciously asking "Who is our customer?," and answering that it's people who have been irreligious or unchurched, and not responsive to the old style religion. He describes one Next Church prototype, the Mariners in Newport Beach, California as "relentlessly creative about developing forms of worship--most symbolically and definingly music--that are contemporary, accessible, 'authentic'."

All this can be jarring for those more "tradition" minded; and some of it is undoubtedly both crass and superficial. But little of it fits a picture of Americans retreating into more solitary pursuits, finding their cultural substance primarily through the tube.

A Vast Proliferation of Small Groups

The experience with community churches--growing rapidly, entirely decentralized--follows a pattern now evident in many civic groups. The Dallas Morning News made a major commitment to explore for its readers civic participation around the country. Its extended series reported on "a dizzying array of community revitalization groups and initiatives."[7] Examples of what was variously described as the "civic revival movement," the "new citizenship," "civic democracy," and "community building" were tracked in roughly 50 metropolitan areas. The work of over 80 nonprofit organizations, foundations, and other community groups was discussed. And all this represented only a drop in an ocean of activity. Many of the organizations cited are themselves "roof organizations" for numerous other bodies (e.g., Alliance for National Renewal--an umbrella for more than 100 organizations involved in the civic renewal process; Family Support Centers--22-fold across Maryland, etc.). Community development corporations numbered only 300 in 1980, but today stand at 3,000. The impossibility of measuring at all precisely the growth of local initiatives was exemplified in the failed attempt by a Washington research firm to compile--as part of a study commissioned by the Rockefeller foundation--"a comprehensive list of local, state and national actors" in the civic revival movement. The task was called "too daunting" by one of the directors.

More than a decade and a half ago, sociologist J. Miller McPherson described the exceptional proliferation of small groups in modern-day America. He found group engagement at such a level that, typically, something on the order of 100,000 groups or more operate in a US city of 1,000,000 people.8

In many sectors of national life, the trend is away from centralized, national organizations to those decentralized and local.[9] Voluntarism and civic participation evince a degree of devolution that may surpass what's occurring in the governmental sphere. Many civic leaders believe that this expansion of grassroots engagement enhances the efficacy of work being done. Again, though, it's much harder to measure participation that's highly decentralized and local than that which is centralized and national.

Only on occasion is systematic effort made in a community to describe the extent of civic activity. One such effort is ongoing in West Philadelphia, encouraged by the University of Pennsylvania. It focuses on only the part of the city where the University is located, and hence doesn't chronicle even the entire Philadelphia story. Nonetheless, the range of groups and activity described for West Philadelphia is extraordinary and gives further challenge to the idea Americans are retreating from civic engagement.

Competition is a Major Force in the "Group Marketplace" as in the Economy

In case after case where a group that's been important in the past now finds itself losing ground, or at least is struggling to maintain its place, investigation shows that the main cause is simply strong competition. The PTA has been getting beaten by local entrepreneurs who are more concerned with "hometown" than with Chicago headquarters. The old mainline churches are getting beaten by all sorts of religious newcomers. And the Elks and Masons are losing out to the Sierra Club.

Often competition doesn't destroy the old front-runner--it just erodes its old ascendancy. The experience of the Boy Scouts is a case in point. Total membership--including adults who participate as volunteers, as well as the boys themselves--reached its high in 1970; it has since then declined by roughly 15 percent. To be sure, 1996 membership surpasses that of 1960. And the organization's whopping 1.2 million adult volunteers is by any standard impressive. Similarly, the Girl Scouts report more than 780,000 adult members or volunteers for 1995, down slightly from the nearly 790,000 high achieved of 1992, but far above the low point of the last four decades reached in 1980, when adults volunteering in Girl Scout activities totaled just under 535,000. Participation in scouting isn't withering, but it's no longer getting the growth of times past.

From Bowling Leagues to Soccer Nation: Churning, Not Decline

Scouting is struggling to maintain its position, because it has to compete with a multitude of other youth organizations--some of which are growing exponentially. The proliferation of sports leagues offering organized instruction, parental involvement, and active youth participation in baseball, softball, and soccer illustrates this development. The Little League was established in 1939 by Carl Stolz, to keep older kids from beating up on younger ones in his hometown, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Today, Little League fields about three million boys and girls in 88 countries. And it's but one part of a vast effort at youth participation designed to teach athletic skills, encourage discipline and teamwork, and provide fun and social interaction. First and second graders begin with "Tee-Ball," proceed in third and fourth grades through "CAPS," enter Little League formally in grades five and six, and then go on to Pony League. Little League is run on the local level by adult volunteers; the organization has only 100 full-time paid employees.[10] Little League softball was started in 1974, as was Senior League softball (for girls 13-15). Big League softball (girls 16-18 years old) was introduced in 1980.

Soccer tells the same story. "US Youth Soccer" now has over a half-million adult volunteers and 2.5 million youth players. In just one smallish city, Oswego, New York, the Youth Soccer Association enrolls about 500 players in both its fall and spring programs. The activity didn't exist at all until 1977.[11] Young Americans are certainly not playing alone. What's more, all this youth activity doesn't occur without serious adult engagement. Writing in the Atlantic Monthly about the growth of US Youth Soccer, Nicholas Lemann observes that "as a long-standing coach in this organization, I can attest that it involves incessant meetings, phone calls, and activities of a kind that create links between people which ramify, in the manner described by [Robert] Putnam, into other areas."[12]

Americans today are joining different sorts of groups than in the past: the Sierra Club instead of the Elks; PTOs rather than PTAs, and US Youth Soccer instead of bowling leagues. But we're not coming together less for civic purposes.

Volunteering and Giving: The Cast Has Changed, But Levels Are Up

Joining face-to-face groups to express shared interests is a key element of civic life. Such groups help resist pressures toward "mass society" that may inhere to an impersonal, national electronic communications system. They teach citizenship skills, and extend social life beyond the family. They address common problems. Anyone who has participated much in community associations knows they can be petty and peevish--but they're essential to a healthy civic America. As we have seen, group participation isn't diminishing.

Volunteering is another key aspect of citizen engagement. Here, too, the news is good--contrary to some critics' lament that these days "everything has a price." Volunteering is up significantly, even among young people. So is charitable giving.

A huge number of Americans do volunteer work--for all the demands on two-wage earner families and the allure of television sitcoms. ABC News and the Washington Post found, in a 1997 survey, 58 percent reporting that in the past year they had volunteered for a church, charity, or other community group--up from 44 percent in 1984, when the same question was asked. Roughly half who claimed they had volunteered said that they do it regularly. That's about a quarter of the entire adult population (Chart 3). About four in ten who volunteer got started by a personal invitation to do so. One of the best ways to get more people involved is to ask them.

 Chart 3

Other studies show a similar, upward progression in voluntarism in our contemporary postindustrial era. Polls done by Gallup and Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA) have asked the same question on personal involvement in social service work since 1977; and these data show the percentage of the public thus engaged having roughly doubled over the span (Chart 4). Surveys taken by the Roper Center for Reader's Digest found 53 percent saying in 1994 they had volunteered at least once over the past year; in 1997 the proportion was 59 percent. Changes of this magnitude shouldn't be taken seriously when they occur only in single instances. But when study after study show the same pattern, and trend lines are clearly etched, we should take notice. Americans are now reporting levels of volunteer service substantially higher than they reported a decade or two ago.

 Chart 4

When CBS News and the New York Times asked their respondents whether they had "personally gotten involved in giving your time and energy to a volunteer or community service activity" in the past year or two, 59 percent said yes (poll of January 1997). This survey then sought to "fine-tune" the response by pushing harder: "I mean not just belonging to a group, but actually working in some way to help others for no pay." The proportion now saying they had volunteered dropped--but only modestly, to 49 percent.

Those who volunteer dwarf those who participate regularly in established civic organizations. The CBS News/New York Times poll (above) that found 49 percent having worked to help others for no pay over the past year, reported just 20 percent saying they "regularly attend or participate in a civic organization or service club, like the Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis Club, or the PTA. . . ."

Independent Sector is an organization that monitors voluntarism and charitable giving and promotes these activities. Surveys it has sponsored since 1987 (field work by Gallup) classified 80 million adult Americans as volunteers (45 percent of the population) in 1987, and 93 million as volunteers in 1995 (49 percent of adults). The 1995 study estimated that the average volunteer gave about four hours of his/her time a week, or more than 200 hours over a year. All such estimates are, of course, rough approximations.

The key finding is that most research shows the proportions of Americans doing volunteer service both high and rising. By any measure the reported rates are extraordinary. In a study done by Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA) in April 1997, 83 percent of all respondents said they had volunteered at least once a month for at least one of a series of civic activities. Presented with a list of nine avenues for voluntarism, just 17 percent said they did not participate regularly in any of them, and just 12 percent volunteered in only one. Twenty-nine percent of respondents said they volunteered regularly in four to six of the nine, and 10 percent in seven or more of these areas (Chart 5).

 Chart 5

Tocqueville argued in the Democracy in America that religion had served in this country as a principal ally of political democracy and civic engagement. Modern-day surveys support and amplify his observations. Without exception, they have found a strong correlation between levels of civic engagement and church attendance. For example, one survey taken by the Center for Survey Research at the University of Virginia in late 1996 found just 29 percent of those who reported never attending religious services saying they had done volunteer work over the past year, compared to 49 percent of those who attended church weekly, and 61 percent who said their church attendance was even more frequent.

Early in 1997, prior to the convening of the President's "Summit for America's Future" in Philadelphia, the Pew Research Center commissioned Princeton Survey Research Associates to conduct major surveys of volunteer activity nationally and in Philadelphia itself. The Pew research reported levels of activity nationally comparable to what other recent studies have found. Like most central cities, Philadelphia has a relatively high proportion of its population needing economic assistance, and living in single-parent households; so it isn't surprising that its rates of volunteering fell below the national average. But participation in Philadelphia was still substantial: 22 percent said they had volunteered for one or more organizations to help the poor, elderly, or homeless (compared to 34 percent nationally); 16 percent had volunteered in a school tutoring program (22 percent nationally); and 27 percent had worked without pay for a church or religious group (39 percent nationally).[13]

One of the most interesting findings of the Pew surveys comes from comparison of levels of volunteering for religious and other nonpolitical civic organizations on the one hand, and for political activity on the other. The latter lags far behind. Church is up; state is down. This is hardly cause for concern despite the hand wringing of some who see government as the center of public life. Politics just isn't as important for most of us as other facets of civic engagement. We settled fundamental issues of how government should be organized a long time ago, and we opted decisively for limited government. With political conflict relatively muted, we feel able to pay little attention to the game of politics much of the time and focus on civic activities that really interest us. This tells us something about the public's response to the Clinton scandals.

The Next Generation

Older folks may always worry about the next generation, fearing that it just may not "be up to it"--not willing to work hard enough, for example, or expecting too much to come too easily, or adopting less demanding standards. In American experience, though, young people have typically resembled their elders in core values. I did earlier research showing that claims of generational distinctiveness--whether for the "twentysomethings," the "boomers," or the "Depression generation"--have often been wildly overstated.[14] As people grow older, they assume new social roles and responsibilities, acquire different interests, experience changing needs. But young Americans differ from their elders in essentially the same way now as in the past: They're just younger.

The country's religious life is sometimes thought to be caught up in generational shifts. The Sixties generation was supposed to be much less religious than its predecessors. But when we have asked people about their religious beliefs--for example, whether they believe in God, or the idea of Heaven--we haven't found any significant differences separating the young, the middle-aged and the old. When we turn to current religion-related behavior, such as rates of church attendance, we do find large age differences. Today's youth are less inclined than their elders to describe religion as immediately important to them. But surveys in earlier periods found this same thing. People in their late teens and twenties typically have been less regular church-goers than those with growing families, or than those whose age gives them a more vivid sense of their mortality. We are now seeing a slew of "Gee Whiz" stories about boomers "returning to church." The development is in fact just another case of the normal age progression. Boomers are getting older.

In volunteering and other forms of helping others, teens look much like older Americans, though they get involved in different ways. A survey of teenagers done by CBS News and The New York Times in April 1998 found 58 percent of them reporting that they had done volunteer work in the past year--"actually working in some way to help others for no pay." They are comparably ready to take individual responsibility through direct engagement. At the same time, as data presented below indicate, they are less likely to contribute to charities; most of them, of course, haven't yet acquired independent financial means. That young people are less inclined to join community groups is also primarily a product of routine age-cycle experience: Joining community associations will come later as they settle into their own jobs and family life, independent of their parents. Overall, there's no indication that the "next generation" of Americans is less civic-minded than its predecessors.

Did Volunteering Fall in the Late Sixties and the Seventies?

Some organizations like the American Red Cross have found it harder in recent years to recruit volunteer help than they did in, say, the 1950s. But a host of other groups have seen their volunteer ranks increase dramatically. The volunteer program of the Prison Fellowship Ministries has, for example, almost doubled in the past decade. Even some older groups thought to have been especially hard hit by the big increase in the proportion of women in the paid labor force, have in fact seen volunteering hold its own or even increase. The Girl Scouts are a case in point. They have more volunteers or "adult members" now in the 1990s than in any preceding period. The national office of Girl Scouts of the USA reported roughly 380,000 adult members in 1950, 535,000 in 1980, and 805,000 in 1996.15 Volunteering in support of Girl Scout activities is higher now than a half-century ago, even when population increases are taken into account.

This said, girl scouting's volunteer ranks were reduced sharply between 1960 and 1980, dropping by roughly 240,000 over the span. Since 1980, they have rebounded strongly. By itself this might not mean much: civic organizations are always confronting developments quite special and specific that impact on their membership and participation rates. But the Girl Scout experience is fairly common. Other organizations saw their participation levels drop in the late 1960s and 1970s, only to recover and move ahead again during the past 15 years or so. Boy Scout membership fell by nearly 2 million in the 1970s; it has since climbed by about 1.3 million. PTA membership plunged from the late 1960s through the early 1980s but has since come back significantly--despite the fact that the decision of many local parent-teacher groups to operate independently apparently isn't being reversed. NORC's General Social Surveys reported a decline over the 1970s in the percentage of parents saying they participated in school service groups; again, the low point was reached in 1980. Since then, the percentage of parents participating in school service groups has climbed and was about 13 points higher in 1994 than it had been fourteen years earlier. By a host of different measures, the late 1960s on the one side, and the late 1970s or early 1980s on the other, seem important boundaries in civic participation.

We lack evidence that firmly establishes this apparent pattern of short-term decline followed by recovery. Much of the systematic collection of relevant data didn't commence until sometime in the 1970s. The latter show large gains in participation since the 1970s, but leave us uncertain about what went on before. Still, findings such as those in Chart 4 suggest that the 1970s may have been an aberrational decade, in which there was a short-term fall in many forms of civic engagement. It's striking that only 26 percent of adult Americans interviewed by Gallup in 1977 said they were involved in any charity or social service activity; while the proportion was twice as great (54 percent) when the same question was posed by Princeton Survey Research Associates in 1995.

That these fragmentary findings may point to a real pattern gains credence against the backdrop of the socioeconomic and political experience of the late 1960s and the 1970s. This was a time of growing opposition to the war effort in Vietnam, especially on college campuses across the country. A president was forced to resign amidst the Watergate scandals. The 1970s saw what was for the US unprecedentedly high inflation, spurred in part by "oil shocks." Motorists found themselves waiting in line for hours to buy gasoline--a commodity whose ready availability had been taken for granted (except during World War II rationing). The Seventies closed with the seizure of American embassy personnel in Teheran and a botched rescue attempt in which much of American troops' military equipment broke down.

It would be surprising if such a string of errors, disappointments, and frustrations had no impact on citizens' confidence. We would expect so many dispiriting events to discourage many regular forms of civic participation. But we would also expect that a fairly rapid return to "normalcy" would leave the structure of public values bearing on civic life largely untouched--and permit socioeconomic forces to work their way. Is the American social and political system about to embark again on a period of extreme buffeting--with negative consequences for civic participation?

Voluntarism and other facets of civic engagement are shaped by three separate sets of factors: (1) core moral commitments, such as understandings of individual responsibility; (2) stages of socioeconomic development, which determine relevant resources; and (3) short-term forces that variously encourage or dispirit the population. There is no indication that the first of these has moved much from its historic course. The second apparently has; the postindustrial setting provides greater resources for engagement by ordinary citizens. The third factor would be expected to produce ups and downs within the structure shaped by the first two. Some decline in the 1970s in citizens' confidence and levels of community participation--though hardly a collapse of civic America--would be a likely outcome of the decade's many wrong turns. It's up to us to do what we can to make sure the decade ahead doesn't experience a severe recurrence of "third-factor" effects.

Charitable Giving On the Rise

Al and Tipper Gore made headlines when they released their 1997 IRS filing, which showed they had made charitable contributions of just $353. Little wonder many Americans looked askance: Most of them earn far less than the Vice President and his wife but give more. An Opinion Dynamics poll for Fox News in April 1998 found only 36 percent reporting gifts to charities that totaled $353 or less. Fifty percent with family incomes in the $25,000 to $50,000 range said they gave more than the Veep did, only 40 percent the same or less.

Individual philanthropy need not involve the face-to-face interaction that comes with participation in community groups, but it reflects an assumption of responsibility for the common good that is part of the idea of social capital. Here the news is astonishingly good. Chart 6 shows that Americans are giving much more for philanthropic purposes now than ever before. The best efforts at calculating total charitable giving by individuals (as opposed to foundations, corporations, etc.) pegged the amount at about $10 billion in 1960; 36 years later the figure had climbed to $150 billion. Inflation accounts for a part of this gain, of course. But when giving is converted to constant purchasing power (here, what the dollar would buy at its 1993 level) we see that total giving in real terms nearly tripled between 1960 and 1995. Real per capita giving essentially doubled in this span.

 Chart 6

The five surveys taken by Gallup for Independent Sector since 1987 all show about 70 percent of US households making contributions each year. These studies estimate that average per-household giving among the seven in ten who gave at about $1,000 in 1995. General Social Survey data show similar rates of charitable giving. The 1996 GSS found that three-quarters of the adult population had donated to at least one cause, and one-quarter to three or more. Both the GSS and the 1995 Gallup survey for Independent Sector show a strong correlation between respondents' income, and rates and amounts of giving. But more striking than this iteration that low-income people are less likely than those with high incomes to make charitable contributions, is the finding that about 50 percent of respondents with annual incomes under $20,000 were contributors, despite their modest means. The Independent Sector surveys found, too, that among middle and upper-middle income people, the levels of charitable giving are similar for blacks and whites. In the 1988-96 span, 37 percent of blacks with incomes of $50,000 and higher reported annual charitable contributions of $1,000 and higher, matching the 38 percent of whites in these income strata reporting such giving levels (Chart 7).

 Chart 7

A third of respondents who attend church regularly reported in the 1996 GSS study that they had contributed to three or more organizations or causes, while only 13 percent had given to none. In sharp contrast, over 40 percent who never attend religious services said they made no charitable contributions, and only 13 percent that they had given to three or more causes. The strength of the association between church attendance and charitable giving isn't weakened when one controls for income. For example, half of regular church attendees with low to modest incomes (under $30,000 a year) reported that they had contributed to two or more causes. Only 16 percent in this income bracket who rarely or never attend religious services gave to two or more organizations.

 Table

Rates of charitable giving are determined by much more than economic means; they reflect understandings of individual responsibility. In much the same way, I've demonstrated elsewhere in the book, differences in rates of giving cross-nationally aren't mere byproducts of countries' relative economic standing.

Charitable giving in the United States comes disproportionately from individuals. In 1996, according to data compiled by the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy and published in its report, Giving USA, 1997, 80 percent of all philanthropy comes through individual giving, as against just 14 percent from foundations and corporations. And, as Chart 8 attests, the proportion of Americans supporting religious organizations far surpasses that giving to any other set of groups or causes.

 Chart 8

"Biography of a Nation of Joiners"

Arthur M. Schlesinger, in a brilliant 1944 essay, wrote that individualism has meant to Americans "not the individual's independence of other individuals, but his and their freedom from government restraint. Traditionally, the people have tended to minimize collective organization as represented by the state while exercising the largest possible liberty in forming their own voluntary organizations."[16] But voluntary action didn't emerge full-blown at the outset; it developed gradually. Voluntarism and other civic engagement were learned skills. "Each fresh application of the associative principle opened the way for further ventures and at the same time helped to provide the needed experience."[17]

Despite a modern day inclination to romanticize the extent of mutual assistance in the first century or so of the colonial period, the populace showed little understanding of cooperative undertakings, Schlesinger argued. "They had had scant experience in doing things collectively in Europe. Moreover, the population was small, towns were few, and communication was difficult."[18] But with time the reach of voluntarism expanded. Schlesinger thought that the "complete divorce" of church and state was a critical element. Without state aid, "voluntarism...became the practice of all devotional associations."[19]

Civic participation evolved so rapidly that by the time of his visit to the United States in 1831-32, Tocqueville could write that "the power of association has reached its uttermost development in America."[20] Technological advances, far from being the enemy of civic engagement, were an essential spur. William E. Channing credited the "immense facility given to intercourse by modern improvements, by increased commerce and travelling, by the post-office, by the steam-boat, and especially by the press. . . . Through these means, men of one mind...easily understand one another, and easily act together."[21]

Each stage of socioeconomic development in US history extended resources for civic participation, and experience has established such participation more firmly. Schlesinger saw the progress of associationalism prior to the Civil War but "a prelude to far greater advances in the years to come. All the earlier favoring conditions now operated with magnified force. Cities were bigger, more numerous, and more generally distributed throughout the land. They were also bound together by swifter communications. . . . Newspapers not only grew in number and circulation but, themselves obeying the associative impulse, developed chains, syndicated features, and co-operative news-gathering methods, thereby further increasing the tendency to common thought and action."[22]

Schlesinger saw the associational impulse expressing itself ever more forcefully, if at times humorously. "The irrepressible spirit of gregariousness sometimes [breaks] out ...in unexpected forms. Thus the period since the first World War has seen the rise of the National Horseshoe Pitchers' Association, the Guild of Former Pipe Organ Pumpers, the Circus Fans' Association of America, the American Sunbathing Association, and the Association of Department Store Santa Clauses."[23] The progression of "the associative principle" that he chronicled has continued to our own day, as he expected it would. He had written that "out of the loins of religious voluntarism in colonial times had issued a numerous progeny, each new generation outstripping the old in number and variety of its creations."[24] As we have seen, much contemporary experience confirms the progression that Schlesinger anticipated.

Some observers, though, see a serious exception: that the latest crop of super-rich Americans may be less inclined to engage in philanthropy than were their illustrious predecessors of yesteryears, the Carnegies, Fords, and Rockefellers. The new computer industry billionaires have been a particular target of concern. In January 1998, Microsoft's Bill Gates fired back in defense that "at age 42, I've given at this point a little over $500 million to foundations that are doing some things I really believe in," and insisted that this was just the beginning of his charitable giving. At this point, it would seem sensible to withhold anything like final judgment. In every period historically many rich Americans didn't give generously to charitable causes, and many who did made their contributions at later stages of their lives. The compilation made by Slate Magazine for the span from January 1996 through June 1998 show five individuals (or individuals and spouses) having made charitable contributions in this period of $200 million or more; 14 gifts of $50 million to $200 million; and another 58 making charitable gifts of $20 million to $50 million.

Social Confidence and Trust: Contemporary Performance is Faulted, But "The System" is Reaffirmed

By all the basic measures--group membership, voluntarism, and philanthropy--civic engagement is as strong today as in times past. Still, there may be underlying trends in citizens' outlook that bode ill for the future. Robert Putnam has argued that Americans are now less trusting of their fellow citizens and the society than were their counterparts in the preceding "long civic generation." He observed that "the proportion of Americans saying that most people can be trusted fell by more than a third between 1960, when 58 percent chose that alternative, and 1993, when only 37 percent did."[25] This matters because of the close link between trust and participation. Citing findings of the 1990-93 World Values Surveys, Putnam observed that "across the 35 countries [studied], social trust and civic engagement are strongly correlated; the greater the density of associational membership in a society, the more trusting its citizens." He concluded that "trust and engagement are two facets of the same underlying factor--social capital."[26]

He is absolutely correct. Many other analysts have, of course, made similar arguments. Any serious decline of trust in one's fellow citizens, or erosion of confidence in the integrity and moral standing of the social system, are bound in time to corrode citizenship itself. Again, though, we must ask: Are Americans in fact becoming less confident and trusting than earlier generations were? Like other elements of civic engagement, social trust is hard to measure precisely or express in terms of clear trends. One can't imagine a time when all measures were rising or falling together. We must look for the defining pattern--and we need to distinguish developments in political trust and confidence from those in other spheres.

The Political Dimension

A variety of survey questions show low and declining proportions expressing trust and confidence in government performance and the conduct of political leadership. The Clinton scandals are an important part of this response today, but the drop-off began long before this presidency.

Asked by University of Michigan researchers in 1958 and again in 1964, "How much do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right," close to three-fourths of respondents chose "just about always" or "most of the time." In six national surveys taken from 1958 through 1972 and posing this same question, an average of 63 percent expressed trust. But in nine askings between 1974 and 1979, after Watergate and a host of other governmental problems, just 34 percent put themselves in the trusting camp. There was some recovery in the 1980s, when 27 surveys found a 41-percent average saying they trusted the government to do what's right just about always or most of the time; but in 40 surveys done since 1990, the average proportion expressing high trust was down again to just 27 percent. A shift over four decades from 63 to 27 percent saying they trusted their national government to do what's right can't be dismissed as inconsequential.

I see a parallel between these contemporary complaints and those early in this century. Large segments of the public during the Progressive Era were frustrated by special interests--"the trusts," corrupt politicians, and political party machines. There was strong support for opening the system up--through direct primaries, referenda, etc.--to take political control away from the interests and "return it to the people." While the Progressive reforms were imperfect and limited in their scope, they accomplished much of what was intended. They reduced public skepticism about the governmental process. From the 1930s through the 1960s, Americans showed little concern about how the game of politics was being conducted. "Process" issues rarely reached beyond political circles, polls show. Since the 1960s, however, public frustrations have been building again. Many now believe that a new set of special interests is wielding excessive control over the political system.

Cyclical ebbs and flows in satisfaction with governmental performance don't tell us much about underlying public confidence or trust. "Trust" must be understood as involving something deeper than calls to public officials to "shape up and do better." Citizens are supposed to holler when things go wrong in the public sphere; and Americans have always had a healthy skepticism about politicians. In 1943, for example, in a poll done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, about half of those surveyed agreed that "it is almost impossible for a man to stay honest if he goes into politics." That's just about the same proportion that Opinion Dynamics found when they asked a similar question in 1997, in a Fox News survey.

Relatedly, since 1945 when Gallup first asked the question, large majorities have said they wouldn't want a son to go into politics as a career. In more recent askings, similarly strong majorities have felt that way about their daughters, too. When Gallup posed a follow-up question about why they didn't want a son to go into politics, most said something about corruption. Americans haven't even been enthusiastic about the prospects of a child of theirs becoming president. In a country where skepticism about politicians has long abounded, and a pro-state tradition has been absent, it's hardly surprising that a string of abuses in government performance and personal conduct would yield a drop-off in "I-trust-government" answers to survey questions. The latter doesn't mean, of course, that system confidence and support are eroding.

If dissatisfaction is up, political participation on the whole is holding steady and even climbing in some areas. Voting rates are down from the levels of the 1960s, but they're close to the average for the span since the Great Depression. All other forms of political engagement by individuals--contacting public officials, contributing money to candidates joining with other to address community issues, etc.--show generally higher levels now than in the past.

One last body of data bears importantly on the political/governmental side of trust and confidence. Americans favor reforms, and want their leaders to shape up. They don't support major changes in the structure of their political institutions. By overwhelming majorities we describe the country's constitutional system as sound. We want better performance, but few of us look longingly at any other governmental system.

The Society Side of the Trust Question

Issues of social trust and confidence reach well beyond what Americans may think of their country's politics, to views of its social system. Is American society a fair one? Does it reward the right values and efforts? Does it extend opportunity to those whose strivings merit it? And, are we generally upbeat, or discouraged about the country's prospects?

Asked directly whether they are optimistic or pessimistic about America's future, about seven respondents in every ten have declared themselves optimists in a series of polls taken over the last 15 years. "To what extent do you think the best years for America are in the future?" Respondents in a 1996 survey by two to one chose "best years ahead" over "no, not ahead." The same two-to-one margin held for most groups in the population--for African Americans as well as whites, women as well as men, low-income manual workers as well as high-income professionals.[27]

Whether citizens see their society giving them a fighting chance to succeed is an important measure of their confidence in it. In a long series of polls reaching back to the early 1950s, Americans by large majorities have said that opportunity is there for average citizens, that "if you work hard you can get ahead--reach the goals you set and more," etc. (Chart 9). Since the early 1970s, the National Opinion Research Center has been asking its respondents which of two contending propositions accords best with their outlook: "Some people say that people get ahead by their own hard work; others say that lucky breaks or help from other people are more important. Which do you think...?" Two-thirds interviewed in 1973 chose getting ahead by one's own efforts, and seven in ten picked that response in 1996.28 We are far more inclined than our counterparts in other industrial democracies to believe that the effort a person makes determines his/her status, rather than that success is more a matter of luck and connections. Roughly two-thirds of US respondents chose the "effort rewarded" end of the continuum in the question posed in the World Values Surveys. In comparison, this answer was picked by only a third or slightly more of respondents in France, Britain, Italy, Sweden, and Japan. Only Canadians evinced the same optimism as Americans on this fundamental dimension of social fairness (Chart 10).

 Chart 9

 Chart 10

Do many CEOs of large corporations cut themselves in on excessive compensation? Many of us think they do. Stanley Greenberg's assessment that awarding high salaries at the top while downsizing among the troops below, breeds resentment is also true. Still, confidence in the fairness of the economic system has remained high. We see this in the unwillingness of large majorities of the population to impose limits on the amount of money an individual is allowed to earn. In a 1994 survey by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, conducted for Reader's Digest, respondents were asked whether there should be "a top limit on income so that no one can earn more than one million dollars a year." Only one in five thought so. Majorities have given much the same response since polls began posing variants of the question in the late 1930s.

 Chart 11

The American ideology has long been distinguished by a far-reaching individualism that inclines many to oppose limits on what people can acquire through their labors. Opposition to income limits reflects this. Even in this context, though, responses to a National Opinion Research Center question in the 1993 General Social Survey are extraordinary. Asked whether they agreed or disagreed that "people should be allowed to accumulate as much wealth as they can even if some make millions while others live in poverty [emphasis added]," two-thirds agreed. Such judgments could not survive a widespread sense that the society is unfair.

The Personal Side of Trust

We describe our personal status and prospects in generally positive terms. In the late 1950s Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril introduced into survey research a measure that they called the "self-anchoring striving scale." Respondents were given a picture of a ladder scale with 11 rungs numbered zero to ten. The top "represents the best possible life for you as you describe it," the bottom the worst. People were then asked where they stood on this "ladder of life" five years earlier, where they are now, and where they expect to be five years hence. The scale has been administered to national samples more than 30 times since 1959.

With only one exception (in 1982) the placement for "today" averaged higher than that for five years earlier; and in every case respondents on average said they expected to be better off in the future than they were currently. In the first Gallup asking four decades ago, the average placement for five years ago was 5.9, for the present, 6.6, and for the future 7.8. In 1996, the last asking to date, the average self-located placements on the ladder of life were 5.8, 6.7, and 7.7. "I'm better off now than I used to be, and I think my position will be better still in the years ahead." By large majorities, Americans say they are satisfied with the key elements of their status--family, job, standard of living, etc. Eighty-four percent in a February 1997 Gallup survey were content with their jobs. Eighty-five percent had given this same response in 1963 when Gallup first put the question. Eight-five percent expressed satisfaction with their standard of living in 1997; 77 percent had similarly responded a quarter-century earlier. In all cases the proportions expressing satisfaction with the various aspects of their lives and prospects were high, and had either held constant or climbed.

Will America's youth generally do as well as we have? Many people tell survey researchers that they worry about future generations' prospects. But when asked about our own children's prospects, we say in large majorities that we expect our kids' opportunities to be better than ours were. Mothers were asked in 1946 and then again in 1997 whether "your daughter's opportunities to succeed [will] be better or not as good as those you've had." Fathers were asked the same about their sons. The proportion of mothers expecting their daughters' chances to be better than theirs was up sharply (85 percent in 1997, compared to 61 percent in 1946). Fathers weren't as sanguine, but that's probably because they started from higher expectations. Sixty-two percent said in 1997 they thought their sons' opportunities to succeed would exceed theirs, essentially identical to the 64 percent that gave this assessment a half-century earlier.

According to two surveys, one national, one in Philadelphia, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates in late 1996 and early 1997, Americans by large majorities indicate trust in those with whom they interact closely--in their churches, for example, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Sixty-four percent of the Philadelphia respondents, answering another question in this PSRA study, said that "most people can be trusted." Only 25 percent responded, "You can't be too careful in dealing with people." Seventy percent of young people (aged 12-17) interviewed by Gallup in 1996 agreed with the proposition that "most people are basically good."

Even in the Big Trouble Spots, It Isn't True That Trust is Declining

Relations between the blacks and whites have long manifested the greatest challenge to social trust in the US. Yet even here, where conflict is all too prevalent, the trend of the last several decades is positive. By the mid-1990s, when Gallup asked blacks whether they thought only a few whites, many, or almost all white people disliked blacks, 54 percent said such group animus was confined to a few. Roper Starch Worldwide found 80 percent of black respondents in a national poll saying that blacks and whites generally get along "very well" or "fairly well." In 1981, 54 percent of whites said they knew at least one black person whom they considered "a fairly close personal friend"; by 1997, the proportion was up to 71 percent. African Americans show the same progression. In 1981, 69 percent knew of at least one white person whom they considered a friend, while 16 years later 83 percent said they did--according to surveys taken by ABC News and the Washington Post.

Equally important, despite their strong criticisms of aspects of the country's policies and performance, African-Americans now express underlying confidence in the system itself remarkably similar to that of whites. Asked in a Los Angeles Times survey of late 1995 whether they believed that "anyone who works hard enough can make it economically" in America, 54 percent of black respondents said they could, only 30 percent that the couldn't. Among whites, the proportions were 66 percent "can make it," 25 percent "not so." The Washington Post asked a sample of black teenagers in the Washington, DC area in December 1995, "who has a better chance to achieve in life--black people or white people, or do...they have an equal chance?" Far more (35 percent) said whites have a better chance than said blacks (4 percent), but a large majority (60 percent) said both groups now have equal opportunity.[29]

All sorts of contemporary developments, from high rates of crime and drug use, to family dislocation, to big changes in employment practices, trouble us, as they should. Nonetheless, the argument that national confidence and social trust are in retreat finds no support in any body of systematic data. Americans express confidence in the institutions of government and economy. We hold firmly to the core values that historically have constituted the United States as a nation. Though many countries around the world are gripped by ideological upheavals, we remain content with our country's long-established social and political ideals.

We still believe opportunity is there for us. What Herbert Croly early in this century called "the promise of American life"--and what others of late have called "the American dream"--is a promise of real opportunity for individual betterment, if effort is made.30 Amidst predictions of a closing of the window of opportunity--not so common today, but heard often over the last quarter-century--Americans voiced concerns, but we have continued to see a bright promise in our own lives and in those of our kids.

Permanent Anxiety

Citizenship is one of America's proudest claims, yet at the same time a most demanding ideal. We inevitably fall short of the ideal--and worry about it precisely because it is so important to us. Each generation has evinced concern about the condition of citizenship and whether certain trends are leaving it diminished.

The American ideology is commonly described in terms of a far-reaching individualism, and while that's valid, unless carefully qualified it's also misleading. The drift and consequences of American individualism are collectivist, though certainly not of a state-centered variety. It's a collectivism of citizenship. The value of each individual's share holding depends upon the beliefs and behavior of millions of others. A sense of ownership encourages us to make sweeping claims of our rights, and to accept responsibility for the nation's health--and yet in both areas to feel vulnerable. We Americans have been less inclined than our counterparts in other democracies to turn to government for answers--in part because we've sensed that only the quality of our shared citizenship, expressed through a vast array of self-formed and self-managed groups, can sustain the type of societal life to which we aspire.

G. K. Chesterton visited this theme, with characteristic insight, in What I Saw in America when he contrasted US experience to England's. "The idealism of England, or if you will the romance of England, has not been primarily the romance of the citizen. But the idealism of America...still revolves entirely around the citizen and his romance." Americans individually and collectively often fall short, Chesterton observed, in meeting their ideal of citizen rights and responsibilities. But "citizenship is still the American ideal; there is an army of actualities opposed to that ideal; but there is no ideal opposed to that ideal."[31] The American creedal nation is permanently anxious about its custody of the ideal.

New Eras, New Challenges

If the public now showed signs of abandoning its historic inclination to join with others to meet common needs; if positive energy applied to social improvement were dissipating, leaving narrowly self-serving impulses, always present, ever more ascendant--we would in fact be facing a crisis of American citizenship. That's why it's so important for us to get the facts on social capital. The levels of engagement of individual citizens in associational activities documented here--involving millions of kids in the physical training, competition, and friendships of soccer leagues; enhancing and enjoying our natural environment; supporting school programs in almost every city and town; helping the elderly and the infirmed; sustaining vigorous community religious life; etc.-- refute claims that individualism's narrow "dark side" is becoming predominant.

The record shows clearly that the "nation of joiners, volunteers, and givers" idea isn't myth; the foundation built from past experience is pretty strong. What's more, present trends are encouraging. Contemporary socioeconomic developments are adding to our supply of civic resources. Whether the latter, together with other types of resources, are enough to move us further toward the type of America to which we aspire, remains to be seen. But social capital is a critically important resource--and contemporary America hasn't dissipated it. We have a chance to pass on to succeeding generations a supply richer than any predecessor enjoyed. And for all the hand-wringing, lots of Americans understand this. The record examined here hasn't been compiled by a public that's given up on the demands of citizenship

Everett Carl Ladd is the executive director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.