Recordings and Highlights from
Civic Language
Webinar Recaps
After the release of new Civic Language Perception Project findings in 2024, PACE facilitated a series of webinars that presented a deeper look into Americans' perceptions of specific terms, as well as how certain audiences receive civic terms. Below you will find a recording and synopsis of each webinar as they are ready, along with slide decks and featured graphics.
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March 6
Signal Speak: What our civic language says to others -- and how they feel about it
Three Things to Know From the Data
#1: American voters got more positive on civic terms.
We retested 11 of our 21 civic terms. Comparing our data from 2021 to 2023, Americans got significantly more positive on terms like liberty, citizen, and belonging. Even terms like racial equity and social justice saw meaningful gains. Unity and diversity were the exceptions; Americans’ impressions of these two terms stayed about the same.
#2: American voters agree that freedom is a highly positive term. It was the most positive civic term in our 2023 data.
If you want a term that resonates with Americans broadly, freedom is a great place to start. Over 85% of Americans have a positive impression of freedom.
#3: Terms that align with people’s personal values and make them feel hopeful about the future are the most positive.
We asked people what factors were shaping their positive and negative impressions of terms. Values alignment and hope were the top two reasons influencing positivity; whereas politicians speaking negatively about a term and causing people to feel fearful about the future were the top two reasons influencing negative impressions.
March 15
Civic education & Civic language:
What should we say?
Three Things to Know From the Data
#1: Civic education makes a difference in Americans’ embracing of civic terms.
Across the board, term positivity was higher for survey respondents who reported taking civics or American government classes than those who did not. The only exception was social justice.
#2: For the most part, the more civic education experiences someone had, the more positive they were towards terms.
This was true for 15 of our 21 terms. The terms that did not follow this pattern included American, citizen, equality, liberty, patriotism, and service. For these words, people with just one or two civic education experiences were the most positive towards terms.
#3: Term positivity went up overall from 2021 to 2023, and interestingly, that increase was driven more by people who did not have civic education than those who did.
When looking at the 11 terms we tested in both 2021 and 2023, the average positivity increase was 9 percentage points for people who had civic education, but 15 percentage points for people who did not.
April 4
Should we say patriotism?
Three Things to Know From the Data
#1: A Majority of Americans have positive impressions of the term “patriotism.”
Two-thirds (66%) of all Americans say they have a positive impression of the term, and especially those who have served in the military (79%) or served on a jury (77%).
#2: One’s impression of the term can vary based on their age, race, or political ideology.
Older Americans tend to have more positive impressions of the term than younger Americans, while white Americans have more positive impressions of the term than Americans of color. Political conservatives are far more positive about the term than political liberals — somewhat conservative Americans led with 87% having a positive attitude toward the term patriotism, while very liberal Americans had the lowest percentage of those with a positive attitude toward the term patriotism (33%).
#3: For those who have a negative impression of the term, the most cited reason is it “makes me think of people I dislike.”
This is especially true for political liberals. Half of those identifying somewhat liberal and two-thirds of those identifying as very liberal cited “people I dislike” as the reason they do not like the term, compared to less than a quarter of those identifying as somewhat/very conservative.