The Myers-Briggs for Civics

​March 13th, 2026​

​​

Throughout my junior year in college, I've been working as a Student Fellow for the Hoover Institution's Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI). I've been connecting with thought leaders in the civic education space, collaborating with institutions on the Alliance for Civics in the Academy network, and have experienced creative approaches in bridging the theory behind civic learning to practical initiatives. 

​

The RAI team recently launched the Civic Profile, an online educational and research tool that helps Americans explore their civic identity across three main buckets: values, engagement, and knowledge. Similar to a "civics Myers-Briggs," the tool is an interactive quiz that helps you explore your civic engagement patterns and capture the evolving nuances of democratic life. The Civic Profile also addresses the severe decline in civic knowledge in this country that largely go unnoticed. For instance, more than 70% of Americans fail a basic civic literacy quiz on topics such as the branches of government and the number of Supreme Court justices (U.S. Chamber Foundation). This collapse in civic knowledge also coincides with low confidence in democratic institutions: only 4% of Americans report a “great deal” of trust in Congress and 17% in the presidency (Gallup). As you may notice, the "Knowledge" section of the quiz draws on questions from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Naturalization Civics Test. The goal here is not to judge your level of civic knowledge or participation. Too many Americans already hold back from important conversations on civics, convinced they lack the knowledge or status to chime in. Rather, we want to encourage Americans to critically think about what civic life means for them and have a tangible instrument to track their civic progress. ​

​

Right now, our team is focusing on partnering with various institutions––from high schools to foundations to nonprofits––to implement the Civic Profile in classroom settings nationwide. For educators, the Civic Profile can especially become a great conversation starter for students to deepen their understanding of tensions behind shared norms and values. In the long term, we also plan to generate national data which will support longitudinal studies on America's civic life and provide powerful datapoints given that many areas of civic engagement is challenging to measure. I'm excited to see where this goes and will keep you updated as the tool continues to develop! ​

​

You can check out the Civic Profile at civicprofile.org! There's also a "Cohort" feature you can use that lets you take the quiz as a group. You'll be able to see the group's aggregated results and compare them to national benchmarks. You can do this with your friends, teammates, community groups, etc., and it's really interesting to see your civic identity in the context of the entire country.    ​

 

 

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​Back