The Civic Measurement Maps

Civic Readiness & Civic Opportunities

After capturing the full landscape of relevant measurement efforts, the Citizens & Scholars team’s primary purpose became to drill down and identify the common elements in order to map with some specificity these attempts to measure our civic ecosystem.  

This effort resulted in a framework for organizing the ways that people in many different sectors—education, business, philanthropy, community institutions, media, government, and civil society—are defining and measuring different aspects of civic readiness and civic opportunities. This framework is presented as the Civic Measurement Maps. 

These maps are not meant to suggest a prescription for what we think citizens should know and be able to do, or to place diverse practitioners in representative silos, or to present a diagnosis or critique for any organization or sector. Rather, the maps are an attempt to illustrate the depth and breadth of the field and allow us to plot the measurement tools people are using.  

Civic Readiness Map

The Civic Readiness Map shows efforts to measure the civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions of individuals. Most of the tools we collected are being used to assess middle school, high school, and college students. A few of the measures gauge what Americans of all ages think and feel about democracy and civic life. 

Civic Opportunities Map

While most civic measurement tools focus on the individual, there are also efforts to measure civic infrastructure: all the systems, platforms, programs, laws, and processes that help people to solve problems, make decisions, and build community. The Civic Opportunities Map portrays the ways that institutions and organizations allow citizens to build and use their civic skills and knowledge. 

For more detail about the Maps of Civic Measurement and how the two interact, download the full report. 

Explore the findings