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Abstract
Background: Youth participation (or lack thereof) has been a subject of continued concern over the past 20 years. This decline has prompted huge interest in understanding how young people practice citizenship and in identifying measures that can help increase participation and interest.
Purpose: The aim of this article is to examine how young people's citizenship practices change over the course of their adolescence, and to consider the implications for researching citizenship and citizenship education. Citizenship education has been identified as an important vehicle for shaping citizenship, but it is not the only variable shaping young people's practices and outcomes. In order to maximise the potential of citizenship education, it is therefore important to understand the ways in which age and lifestage can influence how young citizens engage with citizenship.
Sources of evidence: This article is based on analysis of the longitudinal survey data from the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Survey in England (CELS), which ran from 2001 to 2009.
Main findings: Trend analysis of the CELS data revealed notable increases in the cohort's participation in civic and political activities, marked changes in their attitudes, and an increase in levels of interest in and awareness of politics. This analysis also highlighted a ‘dip’ in some of the cohort's citizenship practices as they progressed through Key Stage 4 of their compulsory secondary education (i.e. when the cohort were aged 14–16).
Conclusions: Adolescence is a formative period in citizenship and educational development and young people's citizenship practices change markedly during this period. Age/life-stage is not the only variable shaping young people's citizenship practices but it has a clear impact, and can affect how young people engage with citizenship and, by extension, citizenship education.
Acknowledgement
This study was funded by the Department for Education, and some of the graphs that have been used here are reproduced with the kind permission of the Department.
Notes
1. The Citizenship curriculum was subsequently revised in 2007 as part of wide-ranging reforms to the National Curriculum. The revised curriculum is available online (QCA 2007).
2. For more information about the research aims and methods of this study, see www.nfer.ac.uk/cels
3. In terms of age of students and year groups, the following classification applies in schools in England. Year 7 students: age 11–12; Year 9: age 13–14; Year 11: age 15–16; Year 13: age 17–18.
4. This final wave also included a top-up of students from Year 12 cross-sectional survey in 2008, who were the same age and year group as the participants from the longitudinal cohort. Around 80% of the 2009 survey respondents were from the original sample of Year 7 students (longitudinal survey) and the remainder were collected from the top-up sample.
5. In anticipation of this, the project team endeavoured to contact CELS participants through their home and/or email addresses. On completion of the Year 11 survey, respondents were asked to provide personal contact details so that we could contact them outside of school for the final survey. These contacts were then followed up in 2009, when the Year 13 survey was being administered. However, the project team were only successful incollecting data from a small proportion of the participants using these methods. The remainder (and the majority) were collected via schools.
6. Factor analysis is a statistical technique, which summarises sets of related items into composite variables. Possible scores range from 0 to 100, and for the purposes of this evaluation, scores in the 35 to 65 range are described in the text as moderate/fairly, those below that range as low and those above it as high.
7. The 2008 CELS survey of schools indicated that almost all schools in England have school/student councils, and as a result, it is highly likely that this group is not self-selecting (Keating et al. 2009).
8. Factor analysis scores range from 0 to 100. For the purposes of this study, scores in the 35–65 range are described in the text as moderate/fairly, those below that range as low and those above it as high.
9. At the time of writing, the authors have no way of knowing what proportion of the CELS cohort translated their intentions into votes. However, this question will befollowed up in 2011, when CELS will complete a further survey with the cohort. The 2011survey has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and results will be available in 2012.
10. When asked if ‘people should obey a law, even if it violates human rights’, the proportion who disagreed or strongly disagreed with this statement increased from 22% in Year 7 to almost 60% in Year 13.
11. Support for sexist attitudes was relatively low among the cohort from the beginning ofthe study, but declined even further over time. Factor analysis suggests that in Year 7, the mean score was 28 (out of 100) and by Year 13, the mean was 17.
12. As noted above, the data were weighted to limit the impact of sample attrition on the possible responses; as a result, the dips that were identified cannot be attributed to changes in the sample.
13. While 44% of the cohort indicated that they felt part of their school ‘quite a lot’ in Year 9, the proportion of respondents who felt this way in Year 11 fell to 30%. By Year 13, however, the proportion had risen again to 46%.
14. Base: All students surveyed. Year 7, n = 18,583; Year 9, n = 13,643; Year 11, n = 11,103; Year 13, n = 1325. Source: Citizenship Education Longitudinal Survey, NFER. No data is available for Year 7 because these students completed a shorter version of the survey questionnaire.
15. Base: All students surveyed. Year 7, n = 18,583; Year 9, n = 13,643; Year 11, n = 11,103; Year 13, n = 1325. Source: Citizenship Education Longitudinal Survey, NFER.