Young People’s Civic Engagement and Political Participation

In the last chapter, Chris Taylor's analysis of longitudinal data indicated that one of the most significant determinants of civic participation through the lifecourse was early engagement. If this is the case and media representations are to be believed, there are few grounds to be optimistic about future levels of civic participation. Contemporary discourse about young people paints a picture of a generation that is dominated by unfettered consumerism and an obsession with celebrity status and social media. The young people of the ‘selfie generation’ (Eler 2017) are locked into their mobile phones and preoccupied by the constant stream of social networking and image-making to the extent that they are increasingly isolated and disengaged from the ‘real’ world. And if ‘millennials’ are often represented as having a strong sense of their own entitlement – ‘the me me me generation’ (Stein 2013) – their successors, the ‘post-millennials’ are allegedly destined to bring ‘a new dawn of selfishness’ (M & C Saatchi 2017: 25). In the light of this discourse, it is not surprising that there are fears that the levels of civic and political participation that contribute to a healthy civil society are on the decline. It is widely reported that young people are less likely to vote than older people, they are less likely to volunteer and less likely to give to charities or be involved in other forms of social action (see, for example, CAF 2019). In this chapter, we try to delve beneath these headlines and explore in more detail the actual extent and nature of young people's civic engagement and political participation through analysis of the responses to a questionnaire survey undertaken by nearly one thousand 14-year-olds from seven schools across South and West Wales. The schools were selected to include diverse communities in that they served in urban (3), rural (2), valley (2), Welsh-speaking (1) and coastal areas (1). The schools were also selected to achieve variation in size, religious affiliation, the presence of sixth form provision, academic profile and percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) – the conventional proxy for socio-economic disadvantage.