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Every modern democracy faces a multi-faceted dilemma in constructing civic membership: how to formulate laws and policies that provide substantively equal rights, duties, and opportunities for all citizens, while appropriately addressing their different histories, circumstances, and aspirations. This dilemma of equality and differentiated citizenship is associated with issues of economic status, culture, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, identities, the status of corporations, and so on. This chapter examines this dilemma by focusing on race, gender, and citizenship in twentieth-century United States. It discusses equality and differentiated citizenship from the perspective of Alexis de Tocqueville, the basic pattern of civic development in twentieth-century America, and why racial and gender categories have persisted in modern American law.

Phenotypic positive youth civic development varies dramatically according to the political context in which it occurs. In democratic societies, successful individual development is reflected in commitment to and participation in existing civic structures. In contexts of oppression, however, positive youth civic development can include resistance and opposition. Research featuring designs that allow causal inferences is reviewed to identify developmental factors leading to positive youth civic development and political engagement. The impacts of family transitions, education, work, and community/national service on civic development are considered. We conclude with a plea for both the incorporation of meaning into accounts of positive youth development and more research allowing for causal inference concerning civic development.

As a consequence of their low levels of political activity, knowledge, and interest, young people today are viewed as a threat to the foundations of American democracy. This widely shared contemporary perspective concerning youth is situated in ideological and historical contexts. We argue that the disparagement of young people occludes the very real possibility that civic life can be reinvigorated by providing genuine civic opportunities to youths.

This chapter builds on the notion that a close look at laws regulating the various sites of inculcation reveals multiple ways in which social institutions can serve as an impetus and guide for change, furthering the ideals of equality jurisprudence. It examines how the legal system can balance the immense freedom retained by socializing institutions and private individuals with the need to foster civic development that embraces a sense of equality, tolerance, and just opportunities, which brings us closer to the ideal hallmarks of modern civil society. It articulates broad principles grounded in empirical evidence, such as the need to clarify the values of different socializing systems, the need to provide guidance in determining responsibilities and obligations, and the need to focus on local implementation that can support structural change. While doing so, it provides concrete examples to demonstrate how the legal system can fail and how it can succeed in shaping the values that alleviate invidious discrimination.

This chapter illustrates how civic projects articulated national ambitions. The United States needed technologies to develop industry, transport American-made products, and protect the health and homes of urban citizens. But it was the way Americans chose to promote inventions, devices, and civic constructions that put national aspirations into public conversation. Although the Erie Canal was the most prominent public works project in the early nineteenth century, water systems undertaken in American cities between the 1810s and 1850s were the most tangible evidence of civic development. Celebrated as representations of America's place among the nations of the world, the magnitude of these projects made them tourist attractions. Lithographs, paintings, sculpture, and music depicted these achievements. Moreover, the brick-and-mortar constructions visually articulated empirical ambitions through their design and embellishment. Reservoirs, pumping stations, and fountains incorporated references to ancient empires and communicated Americans' conception of nationhood with an easily understood visual rhetoric.