Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T08:21:21.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 15 - ‘Can I Trust My Future?’

Youth Civic Engagement, Civic Identity and Dystopias

from Part III - For the People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2022

By
Benjamin Bowman ,
Thalia Magioglou  and
Helen Haste
Edited by
Ashley Weinberg
Ashley Weinberg
Affiliation:
University of Salford
Get access

Summary

Democracies provide civic education in order to support young people as they emerge as responsible, well-informed and effective citizens. In this chapter, we critically assess the idea of civic efficacy as it pertains to young people in an era characterised by ongoing economic, political, social and environmental crises, as well as uncertainty, precarity and inequality. Civic education proposes an optimistic, progressive perspective at a time when young people may well be pessimistic about their future prospects and sceptical about the likelihood of positive political change. In this chapter, the authors explore ways in which young people make sense of the future through dystopic and pessimistic imaginaries. Drawing on comparative fieldwork in the UK and Greece to illustrate the concepts, we examine how the social construct of imaginaries can inform our concept of the role young people play in contemporary democracies in crisis. We argue that civic education, and democracy more widely, can empower young people during times of crisis through a new civic approach that accommodates critical – and sceptical – thinking among young people, and supports a wider repertoire of young people’s civic and political action.

Keywords

Young peoplecivic educationcitizenshipdemocracypsychologyNew Civics
Type
Chapter
Information
Psychology of Democracy
Of the People, By the People, For the People
 , pp. 332 - 353
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Antonucci, L. and Hamilton, M. (2014). Youth transitions, precarity and inequality and the future of social policy in Europe. In Antonucci, L., Hamilton, M., Roberts, S. (Eds.), Young people and social policy in Europe: Dealing with risk, inequality and precarity in times of crisis, work and welfare in Europe, pp. 256–265. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Apple, M. W. (Ed.) (2010). Global crisis, social justice, and education, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Banaji, S. (2008). The trouble with civic: A snapshot of young people’s civic and political engagements in twenty-first century democracies. Journal of Youth Studies, 11(5), 543–560.Google Scholar
Barr, B., Kinderman, P. and Whitehead, M. (2015). Trends in mental health inequalities in England during a period of recession, austerity and welfare reform 2004 to 2013. Social Science and Medicine, 147, 324–331.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
BBC (2013). David Cameron suggests cutting benefits for under-25s. 2 October. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24369514Google Scholar
Bessant, J., Farthing, R. and Watts, R. (2017). The precarious generation: A political economy of young people. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bickmore, K. (2017). Conflict, peace building ad education; rethinking pedagogies in divided societies, Latin America and around the world. In Bickmore, K., Hayhoe, R., Manion, C., Mundy, K. and Read, R. (Eds.). Comparative and international education, pp. 268–299. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P., (1979/2020). Habitus and Field. Sociology, Vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bowman, B. (2020). ‘They don’t quite understand the importance of what we’re doing today’: The young people’s climate strikes as subaltern activism. Sustainable Earth, 3(1). doi.org/10.1186/s42055-020-00038-xGoogle Scholar
Bowman, B. (2019). Imagining future worlds alongside young climate activists: A new framework for research. Fennia, 197(2), 295–305. doi:10.11143/fennia.85151Google Scholar
Bowman, B. (2016). ‘They don’t know what’s going on’: Exploring young people’s political subjectivities during transitions to adulthood in the UK. PhD Thesis. Bath: University of Bath.Google Scholar
Bramall, R. (2013). The cultural politics of austerity: Past and present in austere times. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cammarota, J. and Fine, M. (2008). Revolutionising education: Youth Participatory Action Research in motion, New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carretero, M., Berger, P. and Grever, M. (2017). International handbook of research in historical culture and education; hybrid ways of learning history. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Carretero, M., Haste, H. and Bermudez, A. (2016). Civic education. In Corno, L. and Anderman, E. (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology, 3rd edition, pp. 295–308. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
CIRCLE: Carnegie Corp. of New York, N.Y. (2003). The Civic Mission of Schools. Center For Information And Research On Civic Learning And Engagement (CIRCLE), www.carnegie.org/publications/the-civic-mission-of-schools/.Google Scholar
Curnow, J., Gross, A., Connor, J. and Rosen, S. M. (2016). Injustice is not an investment: Student activism, climate justice, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign. In Conner, J. and Rosen, S. (Eds.), Contemporary youth activism: Advancing social justice in the United States. Westport: Praeger.Google Scholar
De Saint-Laurent, C., Obradovic, S. and Carriére, K. R. (Eds.) (2018). Imagining collective futures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Della Porta, D. (2013). Can democracy be saved? Participation, deliberation and social movements. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, L. (2015). Facing up to the democratic recession. Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 141–155.Google Scholar
Durbin, S., Page, M. and Walby, S. (2017). Gender equality and ‘austerity’: Vulnerabilities, resistance and change. Gender, Work and Organization, 24(1), 1–6.Google Scholar
Edwards, K. (2007). From deficit to disenfranchisement: Reframing youth electoral participation. Journal of Youth Studies, 10(5), 539–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ercan, S. A. and Gagnon, J.-P. (2014). The crisis of democracy: Which crisis? Which democracy? Democratic Theory, 1(2), 1–10.Google Scholar
Fauci, A. S., Lane, H. C. and Redfield, R. R. (2020). Covid-19 – Navigating the Uncharted. New England Journal of Medicine, 382(13), 1268–1269.Google Scholar
Flanagan, C. A. (2008). Private anxieties and public hopes: The perils and promise of youth in the context of Globalization. In Cole, J. and Durham, D. (Eds.), Figuring the Future: Children, Youth and Globalization, pp. 125–150. Santa Fe: SAR Press.Google Scholar
Flanagan, C. A. and Christens, B. D. (Eds.) (2011). Youth civic development: Work at the cutting edge. New directions for child and adolescent development, 134, San Francisco: Jossey Bass.Google Scholar
Giroux, H. A. (2014). The swindle of democracy in the neoliberal university and the responsibility of intellectuals. Democratic Theory, 1(1), 9–37.Google Scholar
Gordon, M. (2009). Reclaiming dissent; civics education for the 21st century. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.Google Scholar
Grasso, M. (2018). Young people’s political participation in Europe in times of crisis. In Pickard, S. and Bessant, J. (Eds.), Young people re-generating politics in times of crises. Cham: Springer International Publishing.Google Scholar
Guérin, L. J. F., van der Ploeg, P. A. and Sins, P. H. M. (2013). Citizenship education: The feasibility of a participative approach. Educational Research, 55(4), 427–440.Google Scholar
Gutmann, A. (1999). Democratic education, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagedorn, G., Kalmus, P., Mann, M., Vicca, S., Van den Berge, J., van Ypersele, J.-P., Bourg, D., Rotmans, J., Kaaronen, R., Rahmstorf, S., Kromp-Kolb, H., Kirchengast, G., Knutti, R., Seneviratne, S. I., Thalmann, P., Cretney, R., Green, A., Anderson, A., Hedberg, M., Nilsson, D., Kuttner, A. and Hayhoe, K. (2019). Concerns of young protesters are justified. Science, 364(6436), 139.2–140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haste, H. (2004). Constructing the citizen. Political Psychology, 25(3), 413–440.Google Scholar
Haste, H. and Bermudez, A. (2017). The power of story: History, narrative and civic identity. In Carretero, M., Berger, S. and Grever, M. (Eds.), International handbook of research in historical culture and education; Hybrid ways of learning history, pp. 427–448. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Haste, H. and Chopra, V. (2020). The futures of education for participation in 2050: Educating for managing uncertainty and ambiguity. Paper commissioned for the UNESCO Futures of Education reportGoogle Scholar
Haste, H. and. Hogan, A. (2012). The future shapes the present; scenarios, metaphors and civic action. In Carretero, M. (Ed.), History education and the construction of identities, pp. 311–326. NC: Information Age Publishing.Google Scholar
Haste, H. and. Hogan, A. (2006). Beyond conventional civic participation, beyond the moral-political divide; young people and contemporary debates about citizenship. Journal of Moral Education, 35(4), 473–493.Google Scholar
Held, D. (2006). Models of democracy. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Hess, D. (2009). Controversy in the classroom: The democratic power of discussion. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hess, D. E. and McAvoy, P. (2015). The political classroom: Evidence and ethics in democratic education. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heyes, J. (2013). Flexicurity in crisis: European labour market policies in a time of austerity. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 19(1), 71–86.Google Scholar
Hicks, D. and Holden, C. (2007). Remembering the future: What do children think? Environmental Education Research, 13(4), 501–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, A. and Alvinius, A. (2019). Children’s protest in relation to the climate emergency: A qualitative study on a new form of resistance promoting political and social change. Childhood, 27(1), 78–92.Google Scholar
Jenkins, H. and Shreshtova, S. (2016). By any media necessary; the new activism of American youth. New York: New York University PressGoogle Scholar
Jensen, T. (2014). Welfare commonsense, poverty porn and doxosophy. Sociological Research Online, 19(3), 277–283.Google Scholar
Jetten, J., Reicher, S., Haslam, A. and Cruwys, T. (2020). Introduction. In Jetten, J., Reicher, S., Haslam, A. and Cruwys, T. (Eds.) Together, apart: The psychology of COVID-19, pp. 3–12. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Kahne, J. and Westheimer, J. (2004). Educating the ‘good’ citizen; political choices and pedagogical goals. Political Science and Politics, 37 (2), 241–247.Google Scholar
Kaijser, A. and Kronsell, A. (2014). Climate change through the lens of intersectionality. Environmental Politics, 23(3), 417–433.Google Scholar
Karanikolos, M. and Kentikelenis, A. (2016). Health inequalities after austerity in Greece. International Journal for Equity in Health, 15(1). doi.org/10.1186/s12939-016-0374-0Google Scholar
Kay, J. and King, M. (2020). Radical uncertainty: Decision-making for an unknowable future, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Kennedy, K. (2007). Student constructions of ‘active citizenship’: What does participation mean to students? British Journal of Educational Studies, 55(3), 304–324.Google Scholar
Kirshner, B. (2015). Youth activism in an age of education inequality, New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Kreikemeier, A. (2021). Youth research in community: How Critical Pedagogy, collaboration, and art-making inspires social engagement. Teachers College Record.Google Scholar
Lebaron, F. and Blavier, P. (2017). Classes et nations : Quelle articulation à l’échelle européenne ? Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 4(219), 80–97.Google Scholar
Levinson, M. (2012). No citizen left behind, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Levitas, R. (2013). Utopia as method; the imaginary reconstitution of society. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Magioglou, T. (2017). Intergenerational inequality and Young adult’s representation of Democracy. GreeSe Papers, Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe, LSE.Google Scholar
Magioglou, T. (2015). Les représentations des jeunes Grecs à propos de la démocratie et de l’Europe. Etudes Balkaniques, Cahiers Pierre Bélon, 1 (21), 67–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magioglou, T. and Coen, S. (2020). The construction of a hegemonic social representation: Climate crisis and the role of Covid-19 in defining survival. European Psychologist, 26(3), 230–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magioglou, T., Sciplino, C., Riva, S. (forthcoming). Young adults’ future aspirations and research oriented learning in higher education. Qualitative Research.Google Scholar
McKibben, W. (2020). Falter; has the human game begun to play itself out? New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Mendick, H., Allen, K. and Harvey, L. (2015). ‘We can get everything we want if we try hard’: Young people, celebrity, hard work. British Journal of Educational Studies, 63(2), 1–18.Google Scholar
Mitrea, E. C., Mühlböck, M. and Warmuth, J. (2021). Extreme pessimists? Expected socioeconomic downward mobility and the political attitudes of young adults. Political Behaviour. 43, 785–811.Google Scholar
Nayak, A. and Kehily, M. J. (2008). Gender, youth and culture: Young masculinities and femininities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
OECD (2016). OECD Economic Surveys: Greece. March, OECD. Accessed at: www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/GRC%202016%20Overview%20EN.pdf.Google Scholar
Reicher, S. and Stott, C. (2020). On order and disorder during the COVID‐19 pandemic. British Journal of Social Psychology, 59(3), 694–702.Google Scholar
Rickford, R. (2016). Black Lives Matter: Toward a modern practice of mass struggle. New Labor Forum, 25(1), 34–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, D. E. (2012). Race, gender, and the political conflation of biological and social issues. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , 9(1), 235–244.Google Scholar
Scarpetta, S., Sonnet, A. and Manfredi, T. (2010). Rising Youth Unemployment During the Crisis: How to Prevent Negative Long-Term Consequences on a Generation? OECD Social, Employment and Migration Papers 106.Google Scholar
Seif, H. (2011). Unapologetic and unafraid: Immigrant youth come out from the shadows. New Directions in Child and Adolescent Development, 134, 59–75.Google Scholar
Sherrod, L. R., Torney-Purta, J. and Flanagan, C. A. (Eds.) (2010) Handbook of research on civic engagement in youth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloam, J. (2020). Young Londoners, sustainability and everyday politics: The framing of environmental issues in a global city. Sustainable Earth, 3(14), doi.org/10.1186/s42055-020-00036-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, L. (2014). ‘We’re reaping what we sowed’: Everyday crisis narratives and acquiescence to the Age of Austerity. New Political Economy, 19(6), 895–917.Google Scholar
Stenner, P. (2017). Liminality and experience: A transdisciplinary approach to the psychosocial, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Tausch, N., Becker, J. C., Spears, R., Crist, O., Saab, R., Singh, P. and Siddiqui, R. (2011). Explaining radical group behaviour; Developing emotion and efficacy routes to normative and non-normative collective action, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(1), 129–148.Google Scholar
Torney-Purta, J. and Barber, C. (2011). Fostering young people’s support for participatory human rights through their developmental niches. American J. Orthopsychiatry, 81(4), 473–481.Google Scholar
Torney-Purta, J., Wilkenfeld, B. and Barber, C. (2008). How adolescents in 27 countries understand support and practice human rights. Journal of Social Issues, 64(4), 857–660.Google Scholar
Tufekci, Z. (2014). The medium and the movement: Digital tools, social movement politics, and the end of the Free Rider Problem: The End of the Free Rider Problem. Policy and Internet, 6(2), 202–208.Google Scholar
Verick, S. (2009). Who is hit hardest during a financial crisis? The vulnerability of young men and women to unemployment in an economic downturn. IZA Discussion Papers. Bonn: International Labour Organization.Google Scholar
Wahlström, M., Kocyba, P., De Vydt, M., de Moor, J., Wouters, R., Wennerhag, M., van Stekelenburg, J., Uba, K., Saunders, C., Rucht, D., Mikecz, D., Zamponi, L., Lorenzini, J., Kołczyńska, M., Haunss, S., Giugni, M., Gaidyte, T., Doherty, B. and Buzogany, A. (2019). Protest for a future: Composition, mobilization and motives of the participants in Fridays For Future climate protests on 15 March, 2019 in 13 European Cities. Keele: Keele University e-Prints.Google Scholar
Westheimer, J. and Kahne, J. (2003). Reconnecting education to democracy. Phi Delta Kappan online, www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0309wes.htm.Google Scholar
Wieviorka, M., (2012). Du concept de sujet à celui de subjectivation/dé-subjectivation, Paris, Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (Working Papers Series; 16), accessed at https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00717835/document.Google Scholar
Wood, M. and Flinders, M. (2014). Rethinking depoliticisation: Beyond the governmental. Policy and Politics, 42(2), 151–170.Google Scholar
Zembylas, M. and Bekerman, Z. (2013). Integrated education in conflicted societies; is there a need for new theoretical language? European Educational Research Journal, 12(3), 403–415.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×