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The purpose of this paper is to examine different facets of trust in the political system or civic realm and how they are correlated to the expected civic or political engagement of young people. The nature and effects of trust in social and political institutions have been studied in adults, distinguishing between various types of trust (in institutions compared with more generalized trust in people). Few studies have focused on how trust affects the political socialization of children and adolescents, who are in the process of developing their attitudes towards government and other social institutions. This analysis uses data collected in 1999 from the IEA Civic Education Study of 14-year-olds to examine trust at three levels?trust in institutions with which individuals have little or no daily contact (those delegated as representatives in institutions such as the national legislature), trust in institutions with whose representatives individuals interact frequently (schools), and trust in other people. First in this analysis, levels of these three types of trust are compared in five democracies whose levels of political stability vary (Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, England and the United States). Second, correlates of individuals' levels of trust (including school climate and experiences with family) are examined. Third, trust, civic knowledge, school experiences, and family variables are used to predict levels of three types of civic or political engagement (voting, conventional political participation that goes beyond voting, and community participation). Levels of trust relate to the stability of democracy in the countries examined and to participation, suggesting a ?threshold? of trustworthiness which a political system needs to establish in order to foster civic and political participation in young people. Additionally, different types of civic engagement are influenced differentially by trust and by other aspects of experience in schools. Civic knowltorThe purpose of this paper is to examine different facets of trust in the political system or civic realm and how they are correlated to the expected civic or political engagement of young people. The nature and effects of trust in social and political institutions have been studied in adults, distinguishing between various types of trust (in institutions compared with more generalized trust in people). Few studies have focused on how trust affects the political socialization of children and adolescents, who are in the process of developing their attitudes towards government and other social institutions. This analysis uses data collected in 1999 from the IEA Civic Education Study of 14-year-olds to examine trust at three levels?trust in institutions with which individuals have little or no daily contact (those delegated as representatives in institutions such as the national legislature), trust in institutions with whose representatives individuals interact frequently (schools), and trust in other people. First in this analysis, levels of these three types of trust are compared in five democracies whose levels of political stability vary (Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, England and the United States). Second, correlates of individuals' levels of trust (including school climate and experiences with family) are examined. Third, trust, civic knowledge, school experiences, and family variables are used to predict levels of three types of civic or political engagement (voting, conventional political participation that goes beyond voting, and community participation). Levels of trust relate to the stability of democracy in the countries examined and to participation, suggesting a ?threshold? of trustworthiness which a political system needs to establish in order to foster civic and political participation in young people. Additionally, different types of civic engagement are influenced differentially by trust and by other aspects of experience in schools. Civic knowltor

What difference does a sense of trust in a political system, schools, or fellow citizens make for young people's civic and political participation? Some argue that a certain amount of skepticism among adult citizens motivates participation rather than complacency. Is that also true for young people? Or, is there a threshold level of trust necessary to believe it is worthwhile to get involved? Researchers interested in engagement in politics distinguish between trust of other people and trust of institutions. This two-level model may not fully capture the range of trust. While some institutions like government are experienced from a distance, individuals come into regular contact with representatives of other social institutions. A three-level model of trust seems appropriate: (1) Delegated trust; (2) Collective trust; and (3) Affective trust. Data collected in 1999 by the IEA Civic Education Study, with a focus on students? civic and political knowledge and attitudes, provides an opportunity to examine this three-level model and the following three questions: (1) How do students in the United States compare to those in other countries in their levels of trust? (2) Are students who participate in voluntary organizations more trusting? (3) Does trust relate to United States students? expectations of future civic participation? How do students in the United States compare to those in other countries in their levels of trust? This document provides information and answers to these questions.

A commonly occurring problem in drug development is that the binding affinities for a few compounds to a particular binding site on some protein have been measured, but the crystal structure for that protein is not available. Quantitative structure-activity methods attempt to empirically correlate the binding data with various features of the chemical structures of the drug molecules, so that one can predict the binding of novel compounds and thus aid the search for improved drugs. A common feature of nearly all these methods, however, is that they rely???implicitly or explicitly???on a guess as to the positioning of each molecule when bound to the common site. If one instead assumes that each molecule is free to seek out its optimal positioning in the site, then correlating the observed activity to molecular structure becomes more difficult, and can lead to surprisingly complicated site models. Here we show with some extremely simple artificial examples how this complexity necessarily arises.

The relationship between participating in political discussion and civic engagement was examined using survey data collected for the IEA Civic Education Study from a large, nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States. This study extends previous research by considering the extent to which political discussion occurring in different contexts relates to several kinds of civic engagement and by considering the influence of civic knowledge and efficacy as possible intervening factors. Interviews with a separate sample of 32 14-year-olds provided descriptive data that enriched the presentation of statistical findings with respect to the reasons adolescents see for their participation in discussion. Results from statistical analyses found that adolescents who report more frequent discussion of politics with peers, parents, and teachers, and perceive their class as a supportive environment for discussion are more likely to believe they will engage in civic activities as adults. This is the case for both conventional activities such as writing a letter to a newspaper about an issue and social movement-related activities such as participating in a non-violent protest. Furthermore, these adolescents were more likely to report that they are currently involved in civic-related organizations. The one exception is that adolescents' perception that their classroom supports the discussion of political issues is not related to their current involvement in civic-related organizations. Adolescents' civic knowledge was not related to their expectations for future or current civic engagement when controlling for political discussion, nor did it change the relationship between political discussion and civic engagement. When adolescents' reported a sense of competence in politics and in their participation at school, they were more likely to expect they would engage in civic activities as adults and report that they currently participate in a greater number of civ