About the Yale Youth Poll

The Yale Youth Poll is a new undergraduate-led research organization, funded through the Democratic Innovations Program at Yale’s Institution for Political and Social Studies. 

Polling is our most powerful (albeit imperfect) tool for understanding public opinion. Democracy is about translating public opinion into policy — as Lincoln said, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Politicians promise a better future for young people in the hopes of winning our votes. However, there is a relative scarcity of high-quality survey data on young voters’ opinions. Elected officials can’t represent young people’s interests without accurate data about what young people think. We provide unbiased, non-partisan data to guide policymakers, advocates, and journalists. In particular, we focus on attitudes towards democracy, comparing the opinions of young voters to the views of the electorate overall.

About the Institution for Social and Policy Studies 

ISPS

The Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) at Yale University advances interdisciplinary research in the social sciences that aims to shape public policy and inform democratic deliberation.

Where university centers tend to be inward looking, the ISPS makes a point of not only contributing to academic discourse but also engaging directly with policymakers and participating in public debates. Through this work, the ISPS strives to both identify and elaborate particular areas of concern and to encourage reasoned policy debate and formulation at the state and national level.

By supporting policy education, fellowship programs and extracurricular activities, the ISPS develops future leaders who will themselves inform – and perhaps even join – the policymaking community in years to come, bringing with them the commitments to inquiry and scholarship that lie at the heart of ISPS.

The ISPS network includes scholars and students from many departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and from Yale’s graduate and professional schools as well as select experts from other institutions. 

About the Democratic Innovations Program

Democratic Innovations

Democratic Innovations is a new interdisciplinary ISPS program bringing together social scientists from a variety of fields to think about the factors that affect government policy and decision-making and to analyze novel institutions that might support improvements in representation and government performance.