How Engaged Are Indian Youth? Exploring Behavioral Indicators of Youth Engagement

In recent times the need and scope of mainstreaming youth and their participation has gained greater attention. The term youth engagement refers to the broad framework of approaches that facilitate involvement of youth in the society. Pancer et al (2002) defines youth engagement as meaningful participation and sustained involvement of a young person in an activity with a focus outside of himself/ herself. Youth engagement approaches have been classified using the metaphor of a ladder in which the lower end refers to youth being considered as passive recipients of services, while the higher end refers to approaches where youth take active leadership and decision-making in the processes that lead to positive youth development as well as positive social changes (Hart, 1992).Brady et al (2012) identifies five key discourses on social positioning of young people, which underlie youth engagement. The first of these is the positive youth development (PYD) perspective, which focuses on skill and asset building in youth as opposed to fixing problems. A core premise of PYD is that youth-society alignment leads to youth development, which is manifest through the Five Cs such as Competence, Confidence, Character, Connection, and Caring, which lead to the Sixth C, Contribution. Positive youth development promotes youth engagement, which in turn strengthens the Five Cs (Lerner, 2009).The discourse of democratic citizenship aims at enhancing civic and political participation of youth for creating a vibrant democracy. Youth are viewed as active agents in shaping the welfare state through collaborating in non-governmental as well as governmental processes and youth volunteerism is encouraged as a means to this end. The third discourse - belonging and connection - views youth engagement as a vehicle for developing the ingredients of social capital such as trust, social connections, inclusion, support, etc which instill in youth a sense of belonging within the society as contrasted with the growing individualism.The fourth discourse is about caring for youth who are vulnerable or disadvantaged by addressing their needs, building social support and enhancing mental health and resilience. There is a strong empirical evidence that links youth engagement and health/mental health outcomes as a protective factor against addictive and other risk behaviors in youth, socio-emotional difficulties, teenage parenthood, academic failure, delinquency, and soon (CEYE, 2003). Finally, social justice based discourse of youth engagement aims at fostering critical social consciousness in the marginalized youth and enhancing their socio-political competencies so that they become social change agents.Youth engagement approaches stand apart by a number of markers. Very important among them is an authentic adult-youth relationship marked by mutual respect, trust and support. This involves a process of symbiosis where both adults and youth engage with each other as opposed to a one-way process where adults engage youth. A second marker is passion and sense of purpose (Damon et al, 2003) that youth share with adults in the domain of shared vision and its pursuit. A third marker is youth-voice that is heard and is translated as inputs in planning and decisions. A fourth marker is collective action involving shared power and decisionmaking towards shared goals where the young people and the adults work together as partners. These markers have been described as 'rings of engagement' (Sullivan, 2011 ).India is one of the youngest countries in the world. According to current estimates there is a youth bulge in India as 60% of people are below 30 years of age. The National Youth Policy 2014 has modified the definition of youth as the age group between 15 and 29 years. According to the 2011 India census this age group comprises 28% of India's total population. There is a vibrant volunteering sector fed by the youth bulge in India. …