Youth And Politics In Times Of Increasing Inequalities

Young people are very often the driving forces of political participation that aims to change societies and political systems. Rather than being depoliticized, young people in different national contexts are giving rise to alternative politics. Drawing on original survey data collected in 2018, this edited volume provides a detailed analysis of youth participation in nine European countries by focusing on socialization processes, different modes of participation and the mobilization of youth politics. "This volume is an indispensable guide to understanding young European’s experience and engagement of politics, the inequalities that shape young people’s political engagement and are sometimes replicated through them, and young people’s commitment to saving the environment and spreading democratic ideals. Based on compelling and extensive research across nine nations, this volume makes important advances in key debates on youth politics and provides critical empirical insights into which young people engage, influences on young people’s politics, how young people engage, why some young people don’t engage, and trends across nations. The volume succeeds in the herculean task of focusing on specific national contexts while also rendering a comprehensive picture of youth politics and inequality in Europe today." —Jennifer Earl, Professor of Sociology, University of Arizona, USA "Forecasts by social scientists of young people’s increasingly apathetic stance towards political participation appear to have been misplaced. This text, drawing data and analysis across and between nine European countries, captures the changing nature of political ‘activism’ by young people. It indicates how this is strongly nuanced by factors such as social class and gender identity. It also highlights important distinctions between young people’s approaches towards more traditional (electoral) and more contemporary (non-institutional) forms of participation. Critically, it illuminates the many ways in which youth political participation has evolved and transformed in recent years. Wider social circumstances and experiences are identified as highly significant in preparing young people for, and influencing their levels of participation in, both protest-oriented action and electoral politics." —Howard Williamson, Professor of European Youth Policy, University of South Wales, UK "This book is an incredible guide to understanding the role and sources of inequalities on young people’s political involvement. Country specific chapters allow the authors to integrate a large number of the key and most pressing issues regarding young people’s relationship to politics in a single volume. Topics range from social mobility and the influence of socioeconomic (parental) resources and class; young people’s practice in the social sphere; the intersection of gender with other sources of inequalities; online participation and its relationship with social inequalities; the impact of harsh economic conditions; the mobilization potential of the environmental cause; to the role of political organizations. Integrating all these pressing dimensions in a common framework and accompanying it with extensive novel empirical evidence is a great achievement and the result is a must read piece for researchers and practitioners aiming to understand the challenges young people face in developing their relationship to politics." —Gema García-Albacete, Associate Professor of Political Science, University Carlos III Madrid, Spain

This book provides insight into the diverse ways young people from around the world are regenerating politics in innovative and multifaceted ways. The authors, who include academics and activists, challenge claims that young people are apolitical, apathetic and living up to the ‘me generation’ stereotype. Contributions cover a rich body of case examples of traditional and new forms of youth politics in response to situated injustices and political and socio-economic crises. Significant and optimistic, the collection presents strong evidence from across the globe that these developments are not isolated incidences, but are in fact part of a systemic, large-scale transformation leading to a regeneration of the political landscape by young people. The book is aimed at students and scholars in the fields of politics, sociology, policy studies and youth and childhood studies.

Essays in this collection describe changing patterns of youth political participation in America, look at reasons behind inequalities in participation among various social groups, and outline reforms that might stimulate greater youth participation, drawing on lessons learned from programs in Canada and the UK. Topics include electoral turnout, youth participation in the 2008 elections, the Internet and youth political participation, and civic engagement and the disadvantaged.

This book explores how children, young people and families cope with situations of socio-economic poverty and precarity in diverse international contexts and looks at the evidence of the harms and inequalities caused by these processes.

This book investigates the reasons behind the 2017 youthquake – which saw the highest rate of youth turnout in a quarter of a century, and an unprecedented gap in youth support for Labour over the Conservative Party – from both a comparative and a theoretical perspective. It compares youth turnout and party allegiance over time and traces changes in youth political participation in the UK since the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis – from austerity, to the 2016 EU referendum, to the rise of Corbyn – up until the election in June 2017 General Election. The book identifies the rise of cosmopolitan values and left-leaning attitudes amongst Young Millennials - particularly students and young women. The situation in the UK is also contrasted with developments in youth participation in other established democracies, including the youthquakes inspired by Obama in the US (2008) and Trudeau in Canada (2015). James Sloam is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. He is co-convenor of the UK Political Studies Association (PSA) specialist group on young people’s politics. His work focuses on youth politics in Europe and the United States, inequalities in political participation, and the role of education in democratic engagement. Matt Henn is Professor of Social Research at Nottingham Trent University, UK. He is the Research Coordinator for Politics and International Relations and Coordinator of Postgraduate Research in the School of Social Sciences. He has published widely on the subject of young people and politics over the last two decades. .

In an age when for the first time the next generation are facing worse prospects than those of their parents, Youth Prospects is an original contribution to understanding young people's needs based on comparison between England and Germany. Based on a comparison of contemporary labor markets in England and Germany, this book explores the impact of factors such as mass migration, rising nationalism, right-wing movements, and ever-accelerating technological change for young people and provides a pragmatic blueprint for the transition systems, skills, and resources that young people require for a prosperous future.

Internationally, there is a growing argument amongst policy makers and academics that broadening spectrums of young adults are ‘at-risk’ of various types of material, social, physical, and cultural insecurity. In this way, the traditional identification of transitions from youth to adulthood, marked by points of permanence such as stable employment, are beginning to fray. Through various academic, popular, and policy literatures, young people today are imagined as being both ‘threatened’ by social inequality as well as a ‘threat’ against which our notions of security and social cohesion are constructed. This edited collection includes empirical and theoretical work concerning the relationships between youth/young adults, public policy, and educational research, with its primary focus being new forms of public policy in Canada that, we argue, are emblematic of international policy instruments examining the policy and economic participation of young people. Examining key sites of youth participation, including post-secondary institutions, community-based programs, and work/employment programs, the included case studies examine how young people navigate and learn from everyday experiences of marginalization and violence while at the same time illuminating how these experiences are organized and reproduced through the very institutions that are meant to shape young people’s engagement in society.

The dilemma of democracy arises from two contrasting trends. More people in the established democracies are participating in civil society activity, contacting government officials, protesting, and using online activism and other creative forms of participation. At the same time, the importance of social status as an influence on political activity is increasing. The democratic principle of the equality of voice is eroding. The politically rich are getting richer-and the politically needy have less voice. This book assembles an unprecedented set of international public opinion surveys to identify the individual, institutional, and political factors that produce these trends. New forms of activity place greater demands on participants, raising the importance of social status skills and resources. Civil society activity further widens the participation gap. New norms of citizenship shift how people participate. And generational change and new online forms of activism accentuate this process. Effective and representative government requires a participatory citizenry and equal voice, and participation trends are undermining these outcomes. The Participation Gap both documents the growing participation gap in contemporary democracies and suggests ways that we can better achieve their theoretical ideal of a participatory citizenry and equal voice.