Understanding youth civic engagement: debates, discourses, and lessons from practice

Our future: a Lancet commission on adolescent health and wellbeing

“…The growth of democratic processes in many countries brings new opportunities. 345 The greater involvement of adolescents and young adults in education, employment, and local community and youth organisations also offers new contexts for meaningful engagement. Social networking and digital media make it possible to access information, communicate, and mobilise with other advocates as well as draw in resources in unprecedented ways.…”

Empowering New Agents of Civil Society or Fostering Good Citizens? Framing Youth Participation in Finnish Youth Organizations

“…One common way of defining youth participation is based on the ideals of democracy, the right of young people to get their voices heard and to be part of decisionmaking processes in issues affecting them (Feldmann-Wojtacnia et al, 2010;Shaw et al, 2014). Research inspired by a need to understand how these ideals are met sees participation essentially as a question of power (Hart, 1992) and agency (Feldmann-Wojtacnia et al, 2010) that is negotiated in relationships between adults and young people.…”

“…A second approach to youth participation focuses on the individual young participant and sees participation essentially as a learning opportunity. This can take place in democratic structures as described above, but also in other types of situations where the learning process itself is more important than the outcome (Shaw et al, 2014). In this approach, participation is seen as a means to positive youth development (PYD) that consists of competence, confidence, character, connection, caring, and contribution (Lerner et al, 2005;Thomas, 2007).…”

“…In addition to these two very commonly used approaches, Shaw et al (2014) introduce three discourses, belonging, care, and social justice, which present youth participation as a desirable effort. All of them focus on specific groups of young people and an understanding that some young people need more support than others to find active roles in the society.…”

“…The characteristics, developments and changes of participation in civil society have been important targets of research throughout the beginning of the 21 st century (e.g., Barrett & Brunton-Smith, 2014;Holmes & Slater, 2012;Hustinx & Denk, 2009;Putnam, 2000;Schofer & Fourcade-Gourinchas, 2001;Siisiäinen & Blom, 2009;Skocpol, 2003;van Ingen, 2009). At the same time, there is a rich body of literature describing the various phenomena of youth participation and looking for ways to enable, encourage, and support young people to become active agents in shaping their lives and democratic structures around them (Feldmann-Wojtachnia et al, 2010;Gretschel et al, 2014;Hart, 1992;Shaw et al, 2014;Thomas, 2007;Tsekoura, 2016). What is missing, however, is an understanding of youth participation in the context of CSOs.…”