In today's Russia, the young people's and children's movement is quite widespread. There are more than 400,000 young people's and children's civic organizations on the different territorial levels. A survey was carried out in the city of Magnitogorsk in 2002 through the efforts of the Young People's Parliament of Leninskii Raion and with the support of the raion Administration and the Magnitogorsk Department of the Russian Children's Foundation to study students' attitudes toward the activities of today's civic organizations and toward participation in public life as well as in youth programs and various events, and in order to determine what reserves there are for the development of the children's movement as a vital actor in the socialization of the rising generation. The survey covered upper-grade students and students enrolled in professional schools of Leninskii Raion in Magnitogorsk. The sample consisted of 2,184 students in the eighth through eleventh grades in eighteen general education schools and 1,240 students enrolled in four professional schools. Findings of the study reveal that the school students and vocational-school students experience to an equal degree a need to take part in some kind of socially significant activity. In addition, when compared to their peers, the adolescents who are members of some kind of children's civic organization stand out by virtue of their active civic involvement and their social optimism. (Contains 5 tables.)