Active Citizenship And Young People

16 Portugal: highly qualified young people on 'economic emigration' -- PART V Integration and comparison of results -- 17 Soviet influences on citizenship - comparisons between three types of countries -- 18 Concluding comments: can we produce resilient citizens for volatile times? Contexts, strategies and future research -- Appendix 1: survey instrument -- Notes about authors -- Index

The essays in this collection represent a major contribution to our understanding of youth and transitions to key areas of adult citizenship, including employment, independent living arrangements and political participation. The education of children and young people in 'citizenship' usually emphasizes either rights or responsibilities, through the concept of 'active citizenship'. The central concern of the book is to address the tensions and contradictions between the teaching of active citizenship and the real life difficulties many young people face in the practical transition to being adult citizens in modern life.

This volume engages with the contested concept of ‘active citizenship’. It analyses the use and understanding of active citizenship in youth civic and political initiatives in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK. Using ethnographic data and insights from the cross-European project CATCH-EyoU, the contributors to this collection illuminate the experiences of young people taking action for social change. It does so at a unique moment when a resurgent populist political right is deploying racial prejudice and neoliberal protectionism in both established media and new digital media to fuel xenophobic nationalism. The book asks a range of questions, including: What is life like for active young citizens with an interest in the civic and political spheres? What practices, relationships and motivations characterise their participatory movements, organisations, initiatives and groups? The chapters use case studies to analyse how friendship and emotion, social media, diversity-work, racism, precarity and burnout feed into motivating and developing or curtailing sustained pro-democratic activism. Youth Active Citizenship in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including politics, sociology, education and cultural studies.

This volume engages with the contested concept of ‘active citizenship’. It analyses the use and understanding of active citizenship in youth civic and political initiatives in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the UK. Using ethnographic data and insights from the cross-European project CATCH-EyoU, the contributors to this collection illuminate the experiences of young people taking action for social change. It does so at a unique moment when a resurgent populist political right is deploying racial prejudice and neoliberal protectionism in both established media and new digital media to fuel xenophobic nationalism. The book asks a range of questions, including: What is life like for active young citizens with an interest in the civic and political spheres? What practices, relationships and motivations characterise their participatory movements, organisations, initiatives and groups? The chapters use case studies to analyse how friendship and emotion, social media, diversity-work, racism, precarity and burnout feed into motivating and developing or curtailing sustained pro-democratic activism. Youth Active Citizenship in Europe will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including politics, sociology, education and cultural studies.

Situated within the context of "post-soviet times", this book explores young people’s citizenship activities and values in three distinct environments: post-soviet union countries, post-soviet union satellites, and countries that were independent of the soviet-union. Its purpose is to investigate the influence of these contexts on the ways young people see their citizenship in what are now emerging democracies. The future of nations depends to a large extent on whether citizens will continue to support existing values and will engage in activities to support those values. Using a framework designed by Kennedy (2006) and further developed by Zalewska, Krzywosz-Rynkiewicz (2011) the study examined the citizenship values of 3794 students aged 11-14-18 from 11 European countries. The main themes of this book include exploring similarities and differences in citizenship activities within countries and across countries; advancing explanations for these similarities and differences; highlighting the importance of contexts that influence citizenship activities and values; and assessing the extent to which democratic values are reflected in young people’s citizenship activities.

This open access book sheds light on a range of complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship. Adult education has been increasingly recognized as a means to engage and re-engage young adults and facilitate their life chances and social inclusion thus contributing to an active citizenship within their societal contexts. This collection of chapters dealing with issues of social inclusion of young people represents the first book to explicitly approach the complex interdependencies between adult education, young adults in vulnerable situations and active citizenship from the European perspective. Social exclusion, disengagement and disaffection of young adults have been among the most significant concerns faced by EU member states over the last decade. It has been increasingly recognised by a range of stakeholders that there is a growing number of young people suffering from the various effects of the unstable social, economic and political situations affecting Europe and its neighbouring countries. Young adults who experience different degrees of vulnerability are especially at risk of being excluded and marginalised. Engaging young adults through adult education has been strongly related to addressing the specific needs and requirements that would facilitate their participation in social, economic and civic/political life in their country contexts. Fostering the active citizenship of young people, both directly and indirectly, is an area where many AE programmes overlap, and this has become a core approach to integration. This book considers social, economic and political dimensions of active citizenship, encompassing the development of social competences and social capital, civic and political participation and the skills related to the economy and labour market. The cross-national consideration of the notions of vulnerability, inclusion and active citizenship underpins the complexity of translating these concepts into the national contexts of adult education programmes.

* Raise awareness * Start a club * Use the media * Make a difference * Get involved * Choose an issue * Build a team * Have fun! Make a difference in your hometown and around the world! Inspired by the vision, spirit, and activities of thousands of kids working to improve the lives of others, Take Action! shows how you, too, can change the world. Authors Marc Kielburger and Craig Kielburger are the founders of Leaders Today, an organization dedicated to helping young people realize their fullest potential and become socially involved. Their remarkable work has been profiled on Oprah and on many national news shows, as well as in magazines and newspapers across the U.S. and Canada. Now, with Take Action!, they provide easy-to-follow guidelines for making a difference in the lives of people all over the globe. By following the valuable tips, strategies, and examples in this book, you'll get organized and start tackling important issues in your community, your school, your country, and around the world. From writing letters and public speaking to planning fundraisers, preparing petitions, and working with the media, Take Action! covers all the basics of how to become socially involved-and have fun at the same time! You'll discover how you and your friends can join the fight for children's rights, get involved in environmental issues, help those suffering from hunger and poverty, and much more. You'll also meet other extraordinary young people like yourself who turned their thoughts and passion into action and have made a tremendous impact on these issues. There are no limits to what you can accomplish. You can be a leader and help others today-all you have to do is Take Action!

This book explores alternative models of civics and citizenship education. Specifically, it uses Justice Citizens, a participatory research and film-making project, as a tool to examine young people’s ideas about active citizenship and participation in public spaces. It introduces a framework that seeks to explore the diverse and apparently contradictory nature of young people’s active citizenship. The framework draws on complexity theory combined with critical pedagogy and democratic education to formulate an approach to developing active citizenship among young people. This approach extends theories of both critical pedagogy and education for citizenship, and by doing so seeks to explain the variegated nature of young people’s engagement with civil society. This book contains a valuable repository of ideas and resources for application for teachers to use in schools and classrooms. Academics engaged in initial teacher education, at both primary and secondary levels, will find the framework of use when describing the importance and new approaches to civics and citizenship education within the current school and policy environments.