Chapter 1: Locating Youth Civic Engagement

SUMMARY

There is a moral panic in the US about youth civic engagement because data show decreasing rates of involvement in organized groups and with voting. There are multiple interpretations of what this means for democracy and about young people. One major reading is that interest in civic life is decreasing and this is seen to be related to increasingly self-involvement through electronic media and the proliferation of small, informal groups for social, recreational, spiritual and other interests. We differ by reading the data to say that young people are not less interested in public issues now than in the past and that their current limited involvement is due to the limited availability of certain types of organized opportunities, especially those which invite their full, authentic, meaningful, and consequential involvement. One such type is the youth civic engagement initiatives examined in this text.

KEYWORDS:

• Moral panic
• political apathy
• citizenship
• youth civic engagement
• democratic theory
• lived citizen
• youth work
• civic education