Resumen de Political Incorporation and the Protracted Transition to Adulthood: The Need for New Institutional Inventions

Constance Flanagan, Andrea Finlay, Leslie Gallay, Taehan Kim

• Compared with past generations, it takes longer for youth today to attain various markers of adult status. This protracted period of transition to adulthood has implications for their civic engagement. In addition, an institutional lacuna—a dearth of opportunities to practice civic skills and get recruited into civic life—exists for youth who do not go on to college. A growing class divide in civic participation may be the consequence for democracy in the USA. New social inventions to address the delayed transition to adulthood and the class divide in civic participation are called for. We draw from two studies (in-depth interviews with young adults and a national longitudinal study of participants in AmeriCorps) to bolster our arguments.