Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combating Civic Deficit?

by Mark Chou, Jean-Paul Gagnon, Catherine Hartung, Lesley J. Pruitt

Overview

Prominent studies and opinion polls often claim that young people are disengaged from political institutions, distrustful of politicians, and disillusioned about democracy. Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation challenges these political stereotypes by asking whether young people have been contributing to or rectifying our civic deficit. In particular, it examines the role of civics education in addressing the so-called crisis of democracy. Turning away from conventional suggestions often advocated by politicians and educators that offer civics education as the solution, the book advances an alternate approach to civics – one that acknowledges the increasingly diverse ways in which young people are both engaging and disengaging politically.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783489954
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	03/17/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	5.86(w) x 9.04(h) x 0.51(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Mark Chou is an Associate Professor of Politics (Research) at the Australian Catholic University in
Melbourne and an Associate of the Sydney Democracy Network. His PhD in politics and international relations was awarded by the University of Queensland. He has written three books on democracy and published over 20 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Millennium, Political Studies Review, Australian Journal of Political Science, and Policy Studies. His opinion pieces have been published in The Conversation and Chronicle Vitae, among others. In 2014, the Australian Catholic University awarded him $20,000 to undertake a study on Gen Y and Democracy in Australia. He is co-editor of Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the book series, Theories, Concepts and Practices of Democracy.

Jean-Paul Gagnon is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Canberra and a Research
Associate in the Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis. He is the author of two books on democracy with Palgrave, including Democratic Theorists in Conversation. He has placed a number of articles in journals such as the Taiwan Journal of Democracy, AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, Journal of South Asian Development, and Policy Studies. He is also co-editor of Democratic Theory: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the book series Theories, Concepts and Practices of Democracy.

Catherine Hartung is a Research Fellow and Lecturer within the School of Education at Deakin University, Australia. She is currently coordinating an Australian Research Council Linkage Project aimed at building intercultural understanding in Australian schools. Her research and teaching draws on poststructural theory to interrogate notions of children and young people’s citizenship, participation, rights, diversity and wellbeing. She has published works in a number of book chapters and journal articles on children and education.

Lesley Pruitt is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Monash University, Australia. She is an expert in youth peacebuilding and young people and participation. Her publications have included a single-authored book and a forthcoming monograph Her journal publications include essays in Politics, Journal of Youth Studies, International Peacekeeping, and Australian Journal of Political Science, among others. She has held a number of research grants and fellowships from the University of Melbourne and Victoria University.

Table of Contents

1. Preface. / 2. Disengaged: young people and political disengagement in Anglo-American democracies / 3. Democracy in Crisis: are young people to blame? / 4. Civics Education: defender or divider of democracy? / 5. Different Ways, Different Domains: the everyday politics of young people / 6. Brexit, Bono, and the Entrepreneurial Self: young people’s participation as ‘global citizens’ / 7. Co-Designed: a new approach to civics and citizenship.

Editorial Reviews

Young people across the planet are the pioneers of a new global citizenship, emerging from the margins of the nation-state and prefiguring a Democracy 2.0. This book approaches this phenomenon through a series of case-studies and theoretical reflections, that can be viewed as an observatory to the culture of youth politics (and to the politics of youth cultures) in the 21st century.

Carles Feixa

[T]his informed and informative study carefully examines the role of civics education in addressing the so-called crisis of democracy. Turning away from conventional suggestions often advocated by politicians and educators that offer civics education as the solution, Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation advances an alternate approach to civics that clearly acknowledges the increasingly diverse ways in which young people are both engaging and disengaging politically. While very highly recommended as a critically important addition to both community and academic library Political Science collections, it should be noted for the personal reading lists of students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation is also available in a paperback edition and in a Kindle format.

Midwest Book Review

This is perhaps the most important book on civics education yet written. The authors deserve much praise. They highlight the need for a properly-designed civics education curriculum and, crucially, offer proposals as to how that can be achieved. This book will be of great benefit to academics and policy-makers in considering how to better engage young people with politics.

Jon Tonge

Recent decades have seen a resurgence in interest in citizenship education in many countries with, what we would have to recognise as, mixed results. This book provides a timely intervention to help readers think again about what we have been trying to do and how we have been trying to achieve it. By synthesising a range of material from within the literature on citizenship education and beyond, the authors ask us to think afresh about the challenge of citizenship education. School learning is often about the gap between what the learner already knows and can do, and what they may grasp or experience with the benefit of teaching. This volume makes a convincing case that adults have been routinely underestimating young people’s starting point and therefore miscalculating how to plan the learning. The solution they propose is radically simple, and should come naturally to teachers – talk to young people, understand their strengths and concerns and negotiate citizenship education with them, rather than impose a model on them. A deliberative process will lead to new understandings and new solutions in the context of diverse democracies and in doing so may even serve as a mechanism for democratic renewal. The authors recognise this will be challenging in reality but make a strong case for greater humility on behalf of curriculum developers in the face of young people's proven capacity to act as citizens today.

Lee Jerome