The everyday civic engagement of social work students

ABSTRACT

Processes like globalization and digitalization are changing the way people civically engage, but policies and organizations that aim to cultivate or promote civic engagement have not yet acknowledged these new forms of participation. Social work is a profession that aims to foster civic engagement as a way to strengthen social cohesion. In this article, the civic engagement of social work students is examined. As young people they use contemporary means of engagement, and as students they are preparing for a professional future in which they will foster civic engagement. With the help of participant observations, we gathered data that shows where students’ civic engagement takes place, how they engage, and how they perceive this engagement. We found that students mainly engage through informal and short-term online communication on social media applications like Instagram and TikTok. However, instead of perceiving those actions as civic engagement, they see them as leisure activities or even a waste of time. The insights from this article can help to develop and improve social work education and social work strategies to foster the civic engagement of citizens now and in the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work students
• civic engagement
• social media
• Social work
• digital skills

Introduction

Social work as a profession aims to promote and foster social cohesion. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW, 2014) includes the following in its global definition of social work: ‘The profession strives to alleviate poverty, liberate the vulnerable and oppressed, and promote social inclusion and social cohesion.¹’ Civic engagement and the ability for people to civically participate is one of the conditions of social cohesion (Kearns & Forrest, 2000). Social work aims to connect people, institutions, and society, and challenge mismatches between people and institutions. Furthermore, ‘the social mandate of social work both as a profession and in academia is meant to look after reasonable social cohesion and to safeguard the overall realization of social citizenship’ (Satka, 2014, p. 200). Social work creates opportunities for people to civically engage and participate in society which may strengthen social cohesion.

One group that may experience a mismatch between their interests and those of institutions is youth. Pritzker and Richards-Schuster (2016) argue that there is a need for more research about the field of social work and the civic engagement of youth. They call for social work to include youth as agents of their own lives instead of regarding them as citizens who need to be regulated. Similarly, McGregor et al. (2020) claim that many marginalized young people feel ‘alienated from civic and political life’ (p. 963). They encourage a critical perspective on social work strategies that promotes youth civic engagement. This article aims to draw attention to civic engagement within the profession of social work and include young people’s voices in the debate on current civic engagement.

Recent studies in several Western countries suggest that young people have become increasingly disengaged from formal politics (Barrett & Pachi, 2019; Cho et al., 2020; Li, 2020). This may be a result of a democratic mismatch between institutional understandings of and expectations about how to civically engage, and the perspectives and forms of political participation of youth themselves (Collin, 2015). Young people are less invested in traditional acts such as voting but exhibit greater personal political and civic engagement through means such as digital networking, self-expression, protests, petitions, and volunteerism (Cho et al., 2020; Harris, 2010; Pérez Aronsson, 2020; Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2017).

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defines civic engagement as ‘individual or collective actions in which people participate to improve the well-being of communities or society in general’ (Cho et al., 2020, p. 6). From a traditional perspective, these are actions such as voting, taking up (voluntary) political functions, contacting official governmental organizations, or attending community meetings or demonstrations. However, there is ‘a robust debate as to whether this perspective might be too narrow in terms of what is considered “civic engagement”, especially in the digital era and from a youth perspective’ (Cho et al., 2020, p. 6) and authors argue that this ‘narrow perspective’ does not consider the ways youth civically engage (Bennett, 2012; Collin, 2015; Harris, 2010). Youth tend to engage in different ways and places than adults, but they do not necessarily engage less with politics and communities. Furthermore, they should not be interpreted as an apathetic generation with no interest beyond their own lives (Cho et al., 2020). Youth does civically engage and are indeed members of political or activist communities but in less traditional forms and places, and show for instance more digital civic engagement (Bennett, 2012; Collin, 2015; Harris, 2010). This digital civic engagement, sometimes called ‘clicktivism’, can be set aside as not ‘legitimate’ civic engagement (Halupka, 2017; Pérez Aronsson, 2020). Therefore, it seems meaningful for social workers who aim to promote social cohesion and challenge mismatches between people and institutions, to understand and grasp the current forms of digital civic engagement.

We choose to look at civic engagement through the eyes of social work students. Not only do these students represent young people, but they are preparing for a professional future in which they will be expected to contribute to building a more inclusive and cohesive society. The views and experiences of social work students provide indications of contemporary and possible future perspectives on civic engagement. This study offers possible improvements for the social work profession and may help social work educators adapt to a more contemporary and future-oriented perspective on civic engagement and social work.

This article is a response to the following research question: In which ways do social work students express and validate their civic engagement? We use the word ‘express’ to mean what students say, read, follow, write, or post, and the word ‘validate’ to capture the way they perceive their expressions of civic engagement. The concept of civic engagement will be discussed in the next section.

Theoretical framework

Civic engagement, social cohesion and social work

Like most concepts, civic engagement has multiple definitions. Barrett and Pachi (2019) define it as ‘the engagement of an individual with the concerns, interests and common good of a community’ (p. 3). Similarly, Adler and Goggin (2005) describe civic engagement as ‘how an active citizen participates in the life of a community in order to improve conditions for others or to help shape the community’s future’ (p. 239). Thus, civic engagement is about participating and engaging with communities and the greater good for communities.

The indicators of what is perceived as community engagement are part of the debate within studies on (youth) civic engagement. Adler and Goggin (2005) list 19 core indicators of engagement: these include active membership in a group or association, participation in a fundraising run/walk/ride, other fundraising for charity, displaying political buttons, signs, or stickers, volunteering for candidate or political organizations, contacting officials, or contacting the print media. However, Harris (2010) suggests that many of these indicators are more traditional and are problematic in understanding the engagement and participation of young people: ‘Many young people’s modes of imagining, forging, and engaging in the community, which are very much a product of growing up in times of super-diversity, globalization, and individualization, sit uneasily with mainstream notions of civic life’ (p. 574).

In line with this, recent studies on digital youth civic engagement describe how young people around the world are turning to new, digitally-mediated forms of civic engagement. Generally, those new forms of engagement are more difficult to measure and may be less straightforward to analyze (Cho et al., 2020). Indicators that reflect the contemporary civic engagement of youth should be less bounded to physical places, less static in terms of long memberships, and less focused on traditional politics (Harris, 2010). For this article, we understand civic engagement broadly as Harris (2010) suggests. This means participating and engaging with society can also include gathering, reading, sharing, or following topics or pages online that are linked to a greater good for society.

Policies or plans to foster or promote social cohesion are built on notions and assumptions about how people civically engage and how people should civically engage (Harris, 2010). For example, if social workers want to foster social cohesion and promote connections between people, they will base their approach on their ideas of how people tend to civically engage. McGregor et al. (2020) argue that integrating civic engagement practice in social work education would help deepen the theories on civic engagement and enhance the contribution young people can make with regard to their particular skills. By deepening theories, social work education could encourage more effective ways of strengthening social cohesion. Young people’s experiences and skills can contribute to the strategies social workers use. To promote social cohesion, it is needed to understand current ways of civic engagement.

Digital social work is an emerging field of specialization that develops solutions to social problems with the support of technology (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2021). Social media is one of the digital tools that can be used by social workers to engage, connect or aware service users. However, scholars disagree on whether social media excludes or polarizes people and societies, or if it does the opposite (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2021; Nordbrandt, 2021). Nevertheless, social workers are being confronted with this digitalization. Various Social Work institutions encourage social workers to develop digital skills to use them in finding solutions for various social challenges and promotes cohesion and justice online (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2020, 2021). For example, this experimental study shows how social workers manage to strengthen ties within a service user group through the use of Facebook (Castillo de Mesa et al. (2021). However, in a more recent study, they show how the digital participation of social work organizations in Spain created more self-promotion and closure, instead of connections (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2022).

Civic engagement and social media

One fundamental difference between younger and older adults’ civic participation is where they engage. Young people generally participate more in the digital context (Cho et al., 2020; López Peláez et al., 2020; Zeng & Abidin, 2021). Indeed, new digital spaces, like social media groups, are vital places to include in research that is aiming to centralize youth’s voices (Pérez Aronsson, 2020). Young people are digital natives (p. 827) and live in both real and digital worlds. Therefore, they are expected to have better digital skills compared to the rest of the population (López Peláez et al., 2020, p. 827)

This digital context influences the shape of civic engagement. Bucher and Helmond (2017) wrote: ‘The concept of affordance is generally used to describe what material artefacts such as media technologies allow people to do’ (p. 3). The affordances of social media applications affect what people can actually do on those applications. At the same time, applications respond to the needs or wishes of their users. Zeng and Abidin (2021) describe how political participation on TikTok (social media application to share short videos) is mutually shaped by the creativity of youth and the affordances TikTok offers. Naezer (2018) explains how youth actively and deliberately choose between different social media applications, based on the affordances it has. The affordances are never just technical but rather come into being through the interaction between technology and user. Since digital civic engagement takes place in specific applications with specific affordances, digital civic engagement is co-constructed by youth and social media affordances as well (Zeng & Abidin, 2021).

Research shows how social media provides new opportunities for engagement and (political) participation (Cho et al., 2020; Zeng & Abidin, 2021). Digital activism, or ‘clicktivism’, can consist of activities such as online ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ a social media post on a socially relevant topic, or changing a profile picture to express ones’ standpoint in a societally relevant theme. Although Halupka (2017) describes how society, and particularly youth, embraces this ‘clicktivism’ as a form of political participation, this participation is routinely ‘dismissed as frivolous’ (Pérez Aronsson, 2020, p. 7). Stornaiuolo and Thomas (2017) wrote how in education research, policy, and popular discourse young people are all too often positioned as unformed, at risk, or apathetic. These researchers state that clicktivism ‘often goes unheralded, invisible until it is viewed as disruptive of schooling or society’ (Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2017, p. 338) and clicktivism is criticized as ‘not being a legitimate engagement’ because it lacks organizational capacity and connective action” (Halupka, 2017, p. 131). Rather than stating that digital engagement by youth is ‘not legitimate engagement’, in this study we explore what kind of civic engagement youth do and how they themselves validate this.

For this study, we address civic engagement broadly. We explore the everyday ways in which students experience and express their civic engagement. More conventional ways of participating and engaging—like membership in a union, voting, or other participation in formal politics—were not our primary focus. Instead, we included actions such as expressing concerns about society or actions with the aim of changing society or communities for the better (according to the participant’s view). Actions could include participating in (online) communities that have some sort of goal for the greater good, political participation like voting, or posting videos about political or societal concerns.

Youth engagement seems to be focused on action (Collin, 2015), and this more pragmatic form of civic engagement is integrated into their daily lives. Collin (2015) argues that today’s youth are not an apolitical generation; they still care for democratic processes, but they are disillusioned and alienated with political systems. We draw inspiration from earlier research (Cho et al., 2020; Collin, 2015; Harris, 2010) and focus this study on how students perceive their civic engagement, the spaces for participation or engagement, and how they civically engage.

Methods

This article is part of a larger qualitative research on social cohesion and diversity in social work and among social work students in the Netherlands. Data for this article was collected from March 2020 through January 2022 using an ethnographic approach to address the research question: In which ways do social work students express and validate their civic engagement? Ethnography allowed to study the research participants behaviors and views in their actual social contexts (Boeije, 2010), in this case students and classes of a social work bachelor program at a university of applied sciences in a medium-sized city in the Netherlands, in which the first author is also a researcher and lecturer (see ethics). Specifically, in the context of the COVID pandemic lockdowns, the data collection was partly online, thus also encompassing the online contexts of students’ civic engagement in the form of online ethnography (Naezer, 2018). As part of the ethnography, offline and online participant observations and offline and online (informal) interviews were the main methods of data collection.

Research participants

The age of participating students was between 18 and 25 years old; two-third of the studied students was female and one-third male which is similar to the general student population in this study. A quarter of the students had a migration background, meaning they themselves or their parent(s) have migrated from abroad to the Netherlands. This percentage of students with a migration background in this study is similar to the (young) Dutch population as a whole (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2022). The population studied in this fieldwork—young students enrolled in a study program—as well as the ethnographic approach, led us to adopt a casual and informal communication style as this comes close to their ‘natural’ way of interacting with each other (Boeije, 2010). The first author adapted to that style of communicating during the participant observations and interviews as much as possible.

Participant observation

Observations were conducted by the first author in the first and third years of the 4-year social work bachelor program. The first year is divided into two modules: a module on ‘the individual’ and a module called ‘the community’. Half of the observational data in this study was collected during classes that are part of the community module since this module included courses that address societal-level aspects of working as a social worker. Furthermore, data was collected during classes in the third year of the program, in which students choose one of the three specialization profiles: youth; care; or society and wellbeing. The classes of the society and wellbeing profile were selected for this study, since this profile relates most to the question of civic engagement and social work and the role of the social worker in society. In addition, coaching classes where students from all three profiles take professional development classes together, were also used for participant observations.

Teachers of the community module and the society profile were approached by first author to ask whether participant observation in their courses and classes was possible. It was made clear that first author would be there as a researcher, and not as evaluator of the course or teacher. Strictly, only courses were selected in which first author was not involved as a teacher or as an assessor and all names would be pseudonymized. This was made clear to the teachers and later also to the students. The first author approached 8 teachers by e-mail and 7 teachers agreed for the participant observation to take place in their course. One teacher never responded. In total, 17 classes have been studied, with an average of 25 students. Due to the COVID pandemic lockdowns 13 of these classes were online, and 4 offline. Since weekly classes of the same course have been studied, the same students participated multiple times in the study. In total, an average of 100 students participated in the observations.

Besides having informed consent from the teachers of the courses, at every meeting the first author also introduced herself and the research to the students and asked for (oral) consent to observe during the class. It was made clear that all data would be used pseudomized and that the researcher would not in any way be involved in the observed courses as assessor of the students, now or in future courses. When students were separated in smaller groups during the class to work on assignments, first author asked again for consent to join one of the groups (either online in break out rooms or offline). This is similar for the breaks: first author joined some students and their informal interactions during breaks and after the class (only for the offline classes). It was always made clear to students that first author was present as an observer/researcher (for example through being visible in the classroom or in teams with the name ‘researcher’) and students could always object to participating in the research, for example through any actions and words by them, to be left out of the observations, although none did so.

While in the formal classes first author was only an observer, in the smaller groups and in breaks, first author also participated in the discussions and conversations that students had amongst each other. She asked them to elaborate on themes related to students’ experiences with civic engagement, such as politics, participating in different communities, or online engagement. For example, when students were discussing the way people talk about politics online, first author asked them for concrete examples or to show the social media applications they used for online engagement. After two of these participant observations, students mentioned to first author that they actually enjoyed talking about these topics with each other.

Notes were made on the laptop, both during the classes and smaller groups. These observational data offered a view into the actual practices of civic engagement in the social life of the classroom and in the interactions between students and between students and teacher. In smaller group settings, students were also approached by first author for a follow-up interview at a later moment.

Interviews

In addition to the observational data, it was chosen to also conduct interviews to gain a better understanding of students’ own perspectives on their civic engagement. During the first pandemic-related lockdown, in March 2020 the first author held weekly informal interviews and chat conversations on WhatsApp (social media application to communicate with text messages) with eight students for 7 weeks, on an average of 1–2 times a week, since face-to-face interviews were then not possible. Also, the weekly conversations rather than a single in-depth interview allowed for a style of communication that was close to student’s daily life conversations with peers. Students were included by way of a general e-mail by the teacher of the classes for students who would be interested in participating in an interview, as well as by first author herself who asked students to participate in informal smaller group settings. Eight students responded to these calls.

In those informal interviews, we focused on how the students managed to stay in touch with each other and with the group during the lockdowns of the university when they only had digital tools. We asked for example what role social media played in their contact and how they would describe that contact. Examples of interview questions were: What websites do you follow? What does your Instagram (social media application to share photos and short videos) account look like? What do you think are important issues in current society? What worries you in society? To what communities do you belong?

While the WhatsApp conversations were valuable for asking about day-to-day activities and engagement of students, it was less valuable for deeper reflections on their civic engagement, so first author also conducted a final semi-structured interview with all of these 8 students. In addition, with 3 other students from the selected classes also a semi-structured interview was conducted, making 10 interviews in total. These lasted 0.5–1 hour each and focused on specific examples of engagement they mentioned during class (for example voting or participating in online political groups). The interviews were done online via video call. The students gave consent for doing an interview.

Lastly, when certain Instagram groups or TikTok communities were mentioned during classes or interviews first author observed online to get a general impression of youth communities and movements online. Examples are online discussions about the Black Lives Matter movement, social media accounts with specific political messages targeting youth or social media trends such as ‘go vote’ dances.

Chronological outline of the ethnographic fieldwork

• March—June 2020: Informal interviews on WhatsApp during the second lockdown of the university − 8 students, 7 weeks, 1–2 times a week.

• June 2020: Final semi-structured interviews − 8 students, 0.5–1 hour each.

• March and April 2021: Observations during first-year classes that addressed society in relation to social work. 12 classes − 18 hours − 25 students per class.

• April 2021: Semi-structured interviews − 3 students, 0.5–1 hour each.

• December 2021 and January 2022: Observations during third-year classes that addressed society in relation to social work. 5 classes − 9 hours −25 students per class.

• During the first and third-year class observation: Participatory observations during (offline) breaks or (online or offline) assignments with sub-groups of students − 2 to 3 students per sub-group—approximately 8 moments—in total, 0.5–1 hour per observation.

Analysis

As described in the theory, we used a broad definition of civic engagement to unravel the everyday engagement of students. For the analysis, we included all data that showed engagement with communities for the greater good, such as when students expressed concerns about society or discussed acts meant to change society or a community. The notes of observational data was written down in as much detail as possible; data from the WhatsApp conversations was copied into a word document; and the semi-structured interviews were transcribed verbatim. All data was then analyzed by open and axial coding (Boeije, 2010), with the help of the analyzing software program AtlasTi. The data was open-coded, and in the axial phase coding, we linked themes to the codes. Examples of codes were segregation, connection, politics, participation, bubbles, polarization, and age. Examples of themes were concern for a greater good, belonging, conflicts, and validation. In this analysis, we paid specific attention to the context in which data was collected for this study: it was one of societal upheaval with major societal events such as discussions about measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, national elections, riots, war, and increasing social polarization.

Ethics

The first author conducted the participant observations of students. She is also a lecturer in the social work department. All the students and teachers who directly or indirectly participated in the research were informed about this study, gave written or oral consent, and could withdraw at any moment or be left out of the observations. Only classes were selected in which the first author was not involved or did not involve students whom she would assess, now or in the future. All data has been pseudonymized. This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of Social Sciences of Radboud University Nijmegen (ECSW-LT-2021-12 January 82022).

Findings

In order to present the civic engagement of the students involved in this study, we have ordered the findings into five sections that correspond with the themes of the analysis. The first section describes several societal topics the students engage with. The next section shows how their civic engagement, especially online, influences the way the students perceive their civic engagement. In the final three sections, we present how the specifics of the online environment shape civic engagement: affordances of social media; belonging online; and conflicts. We illustrate the analysis by using different quotes from the different observations and interviews. We selected quotes that illustrate the specific experiences of the students. In addition, we made an equal selection between first and third years, different classes and men and women to make sure the different, and unique perspectives are represented.

Societal topics of engagement

The students of this study expressed personal and general societal concerns they have on different topics. Their engagement on specific topics can overlap with their personal interest or be formed by their professional experiences. To illustrate, this student refers to problems in the housing market as a personal and societal concern: ‘For me, this creates a feeling of stress. What if I want a house later? And what about status holders who are looking for a house?’ (third-year student, woman). During this class, she shared a link to a news website with an article about the housing market. Her first thoughts or concerns sound personal, but she combined them with insights based on her experiences during internships and with public opinions from society in general.

The students were engaged with societal topics that went beyond matters directly relevant to their own lives. For instance, some students expressed concern about racism (including those who did not experience racism themselves) or other students posted ‘go vote’ videos. They expressed engagement with current affairs topics like the elections or the Black Lives Matter movement. They were engaged with topics that bothered them personally (for example, gender inequality or housing problems) and with topics they learned about through their professional and educational experiences (for example, the social position of status holders).

In our fieldwork, classes on social issues and class discussions were a place where students expressed their engagement. During the fieldwork, there were national elections. Students showed engagement with the topic and the classes about politics. During the national elections, classes on politics received a lot of positive feedback from the majority of the group. They participated actively and said how much they ‘liked’ discussing this topic. This feedback was striking since students had struggled to participate actively in other classes, especially because classes were taught online as a result of COVID-19 measures. Their positive feedback showed that students were engaged with the topic of politics. For instance, during class, students discussed which party to vote for:

I know they will say I am racist for voting for Wilders,² but he is the only one who talks about the factory workers … Not that I agree with his views, but I think he is going to make a change or at least pay a bit more attention to it (first-year student, man).

This student also explained how he and his friend had spent a lot of time arguing about politics and which party to vote for. However, as soon as the elections were over, he and his friend ‘did not feel like’ discussing politics anymore.

Multiple students mentioned discrimination or racism as a societal problem or discussed personal experiences with discrimination. They mentioned the internet as an important place where they learned about racism and how the internet is affecting the topic itself. Students mentioned seeing a ‘divide on social media’ or stated that ‘old people discriminate much more.’ One student described her experiences with discussing racism online: ‘I used to spend a lot of time arguing with racists on social media, but it is just taking too much energy from myself and it’s not changing anything, so I stopped doing that’ (first-year student, woman). The students described the internet as a place where they are likely to be confronted with (opinions on) racism and discrimination. They described it as the place where they read and learn about the topic, and how the internet is affecting the topic itself. However, some students also referred to societal concerns as beyond their powers or influence: ‘I think it’s also partly that we get a little bit immune to it as we’re exposed to all the suffering around the world. I think this also means that we sometimes have to filter for ourselves’ (third-year student, man). These quotes not only show that students have societal concerns, but also that they struggle whether to deal with them as a person or professional.

Civic engagement and social media

In the previous section, several social topics considered relevant by the students were shown. We also showed how students would be discussing those topics with friends, in the classroom, and in the context of assignments from their course. This research seems to imply that most of their engagement occurs online, especially in applications like Instagram and TikTok. The next sections will continue this analysis of online civic engagement.

None of the students of this study mentioned membership of political parties, doing volunteering work or other more traditional forms of civic engagement (apart from voting in the national elections). However, when they discuss society, societal concerns, politics, or the news, they mention social media. For instance, this group of students were discussing politics during a class assignment: ‘I saw a lot of TikToks (videos on TikTok) about how left-leaning people are sheep’ (first-year student, woman). Or another first-year female student mentioned using the Instagram account ‘Check your vote’ to decide for whom to vote.

Although this civic engagement happens online, the students only perceived offline voting as civic engagement. They describe their online activities as ‘leisurely’ and ‘fun’, regardless of the (serious) topics or information they read about on those platforms. They refer to applications such as Instagram as: ‘really for fun. I would describe Insta (short term for Instagram) and Snapchat (social media application to share short videos) more as for fun’ (first-year student, woman). When we asked students about traditional civic engagement such as voting, they replied seriously. This student described voting as important: ‘If you don’t vote, you can’t complain afterwards if you don’t like it’ (first-year student, man). But when we asked about their activity on social media, most of the students acted surprised or giggled. They freely shared their social media accounts but started off by saying they felt ashamed of how much time they spent online (some called their average screen hours ‘too much’ or remarked ‘That’s really bad’). When students referred to their active participation on social media platforms, like posting or sharing posts, they often made remarks like ‘We make a lot of stupid and useless Snapchats (videos made with social media application snapchat)’ (first-year student, woman) or another student: ‘I’m sure you think it’s stupid’ (first-year student, woman). None of the students referred to their own posts on social media as a form of participation or engagement in society, even though the quotes show their political, societal or other forms of engagement.

Affordances of social media

As shown in the previous section, students use various social media platforms to read about societal topics, but they do not perceive those activities as a form of civic engagement, but rather as leisure. What is specific to this online civic engagement that makes these students perceive it as leisure? In this paragraph, two Instagram accounts that were mentioned most by students as accounts they follow will be described.

The Politieke Jongeren account refers to mainstream media but does so in its own style. The account belongs to a man³ in his early twenties who wanted to create a political community for young people (Miedema, 2021), and it now has 146,000 followers. Another popular Instagram account—Lekkerblijvenlikken⁴ (roughly translated as ‘Keep on licking’)—was set up by two young women who call themselves design activists. They posted their humorous cartoons and drawings on Instagram to challenge gender inequality. They also offer their designs and cartoons for sale.

These two Instagram accounts are not linked to a traditional political party, but they do communicate specific political views (for example, by encouraging voting for women or by selectively (re)posting messages from other media). The accounts are accessible to everyone on Instagram, and the posts, memes, and cartoons can be shared freely. Instagram draws attention to the posts on these accounts by highlighting new posts of these kinds of accounts on its users’ feeds.

Posts on these Instagram accounts generally afford short and frequently humorous contributions: the founders abbreviate messages from traditional media, show comments and responses of other youth to the message itself, and use humorous additions like memes or drawings. For example, Politieke Jongeren (Shrestha, 2023) posted two photos: one showed Greta Thunberg being arrested at an environmental strike, and the other showed Andrew Tate being arrested for human trafficking and rape. The photos were captioned as follows: ‘Being arrested in the fight against climate crisis vs being arrested for human trafficking and rape☺. Who is the real top G⁵? .’

The affordances of Instagram shape how students participate. Applications like Instagram and TikTok afford short-term messages, that disappear after a short time. ‘Stories’ is for instance the most used function of Instagram: users can post videos to their account, but the videos disappear automatically after 24 hours. Similarly, Instagram and TikTok have become popular by affording short (15 seconds) videos (often of people dancing), cartoons and the use of humor and short statements. To illustrate, students used these media to express short-term, casual engagement with politics. During the national elections, for instance, many students made and posted ‘go vote’ videos on TikTok or in 24-hour Instagram stories. For example, a student filmed herself dancing in the street and added text saying ‘go vote’ that moved across the screen.

This form of communicating with photos and brief comments lets readers convey their message in just a few seconds. For example, a female third-year student shared the following post from the Lekkerblijvenlikken account (Cynthia & Esther, 2022) to illustrate the Instagram accounts she follows to learn more about gender inequality:

Translation cartoon: ‘And how do you think you will arrange the daycare for your kids?’ with ‘job interview’ written on the paper lying on the table. During class, this student commented about how gender roles in society are stereotypical and how this Instagram account reverses those gender roles. Her engagement with gender equality is expressed in her choice to follow and engage with this account.

For students, this way of reading about various topics is integrated into their daily online activities. Participation on such sites and applications can range from watching and reading to liking or disliking posts or sharing them on- or offline. The students in our study mostly mentioned ‘seeing’ or ‘reading’ posts. They appear in their daily Instagram feeds because the student has chosen to follow certain accounts which is one of the affordances of Instagram.

Belonging online

Our fieldwork also shows how students experience some online participation as belonging to groups. To illustrate, during an informal conversation with a small group of students, they discussed societal topics they come across on their social media accounts. One student described a discussion on an Instagram account called Politieke Jongeren (Political Youth), which targets left-leaning youth: ‘The social media group I am part of was really mad about the Christians who attacked journalists.⁶ And I understand, but I am Christian too. I feel ashamed’ (first-year student, woman). This student felt a sense of belonging to this online group based on shared political views. At the same time, she also belongs to the Christian community. Those two groups—left-leaning youth and Christians—had opposing perspectives on how to deal with the COVID measures at that time. The student’s civic engagement began with choosing to follow a specific Instagram account and informing herself about society by reading the posts. Eventually, this engagement made her consider where to belong and how to position herself in this conflict.

As the quote above shows, students describe this as a ‘group I am part of.’ Such groups are not bound to a specific physical place but to certain values or interests. Most students mentioned multiple groups they belong to on the internet: these might include groups for shoe lovers, musical artists, political views, gender views, climate views, or any other hobby or interest. It is part of their civic engagement, but they also mention the limitations of seeing posts and belonging to social media groups. Multiple students described those online groups as ‘bubbles’: ‘I think everyone lives in a bubble and so it becomes a matter of bubble to bubble. And so not so much from his/her bubble to reality…’ (third-year student, man). With this statement, this student described how he thinks the online reality (of ‘bubbles’) can become disconnected from the offline reality or might even polarize society.

The groups, or bubbles, in which students participate affect what they read, watch, like, and so their perception of ‘reality’. Bubbles can contain homogeneous or heterogeneous viewpoints and students can participate in different bubbles, with or without conflict. Similarly, a student described how making a TikTok video in which she criticized young people breaking COVID-19 rules made her aware of the bubble she was part of: ‘I thought everybody was thinking the same as me about those people who broke the COVID rules, but I got thousands of comments [about that video] and half of it was hate … . that moment ruined my bubble’ (first-year student, woman). This quote suggests that the sense of a group or community is underpinned by the sense that a group shares values: ‘I thought everyone was thinking the same as me.’

Contemporary communities (or bubbles) can be based on one interest, such as shoes, and members do not necessarily share the same values. For example, communities built on a shared interest like shoes or music can suddenly be confronted with political or ethical issues. This could explain conflicts on social media as well as surprise about the conflict. The student who made the TikTok video was shocked by the number of hate comments (over 10,000) it received. Her comment that this ‘ruined my bubble’ illustrates her expectation that the bubble had shared values. Clearly, participation in groups with different and often colliding values and opinions is a daily reality for students. At the same time, the students of this study participate in various (sometimes even opposing) groups. This might make them feel uncomfortable (as these quotes showed ‘ruined my bubble’ or ‘I feel ashamed’) but also confronted them with diverse perspectives.

Conflicts

The affordances and specificities of social media affect the way conflicts arise. A lot of students mentioned conflicts online, between or within bubbles. They described that the way people connect and communicate with each other also makes it easier to create conflicts: ‘It’s now much more open who you vote for, but somehow also a bit harsh on social media’ (first-year student, woman). She refers in this quote about family and friends openly communicating on social media for which (sometimes controversial) political party they would vote for and the reactions to that. The affordances of specific social media applications—such as building communities based on one interest or hobby—also create communities that are highly diverse in other respect, such as in political ideals and values. The way students participate in and engage with the communities in different online bubbles shows the complex reality of present digital civic participation. Students reflect on their position within those discussions or conflicts by reading and watching or actively participating and contributing to discussions or conflicts by making or sharing videos or comments. In that sense, the bubbles students of this study participate in, seem to confront them with various perspectives and create reflections for them about their civic engagement, what they think is important for society, and whether they want to act or add to a greater good.

Discussion and conclusion

This article aims to contribute to studies on youth civic engagement. Like the studies conducted by Harris et al (2007, 2010) ours found that social work students do not fit the stereotype of being a self-interested or apathetic generation with no interest in matters beyond their own lives (Harris et al., 2007). We found many examples of youth being engaged in communities, taking actions to improve communities or their society.

Social activism ‘often goes unheralded’ when it is more informal, such as dancing to promote voting on TikTok (Stornaiuolo & Thomas, 2017, p. 338). Indeed, TikTok and Instagram are important platforms for the students of this study to engage with society, but TikTok is vastly understudied, particularly as a site for political expression, making youths’ activities less visible (Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik, 2019). This study underlines the importance of recognizing the places and the ways today’s youth civically engage to prevent incorrect assumptions about their engagement.

The results of this study demonstrate how even students themselves do not perceive their engagement as such. This might result from the way social media is portrayed in society. For example, the biggest news site in the Netherlands published an article about how a teacher was worried because of the ‘Tik-Tokization’ of politics (NOS Nieuws, 2022a). In another article, politicians were criticized for using TikTok since ‘those users are 15 or 16 and can’t even vote’ and TikTok was described as ‘not a place for serious politicians’ (RTL Nieuws, 2020). The current characterization of TikTok illustrates the contrast between formal and informal civic engagement and how online civic engagement of those platforms is perceived. This might be one reason students refer to their online participation as ‘useless.’ It also addresses the underlying assumptions that affect the validation of civic engagement, which reflects underlying power dynamics. As Harris et al. (2007) notes, to understand how youth engage in society: ‘It may be necessary to bracket adult-centric views of what engagement means and explore the everyday ways in which young people experience and express their place in society’ (p. 22). Recognizing youths’ digital skills and experiences can help reframe social media skills as relevant.

Understanding youth engagement in current civic life is essential for social workers who try to reach and support youth. Social workers who understand youth engagement have the opportunity to challenge incorrect assumptions about youth and their civic engagement and challenge current policies for promoting civic engagement. Social workers could also support youth in the challenges they are facing online. For example, the ‘bubbles’ students of this study mentioned could be a challenge, especially when it comes to tolerance for diversity. Even though the students of this study seemed to be aware of the possible effect of isolated bubbles, and were participating in different bubbles, research shows how being confronted with a diversity of views contrary to their own could also create feelings of unease and does not necessarily imply tolerance to diversity (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2020). Some ‘internet bubbles’ or ‘echo chambers’ merely reinforce one perspective. In addition, using social media, also by social workers, does not always imply more connections (Castillo de Mesa et al., 2022).

Because the data for this study was collected amongst social work students, the generalizability of our findings may be limited. Although social work students as a group is diverse in terms of cultural background and gender, they have a generally homogenous educational background. Further research could compare the results of this study to the civic engagement of youth with different educational backgrounds. However, the digital skills and experiences of social work students can improve digital social work, which can be an effective tool for strengthening social cohesion or supporting civic engagement. Social work could actively, and more efficiently, engage and connect people online, serve information, prevent polarization or conflicts, and play an activistic role in societal issues (see also Castillo de Mesa et al., 2021). In order to do that, social work education should integrate digital skills and knowledge, and challenge the perspective on youth social media platforms as leisure or a waste of time.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The definition was approved by the IFSW General Meeting and the IASSW General Assembly in July 2014.

2. Geert Wilders leads the Dutch right-wing, anti-Islam, and anti-immigration Party of Freedom (PVV).

3. @politieke_jongeren created by Nugah Shrestha.

4. @lekkerblijvenlikken created by Cynthia & Esther (2022).

5. Tate is the founder of Hustler’s University (HU), an online platform where you can take courses for $50 a month to become successful and rich, or as he calls it, a ‘Top G.’ He is known for his controversial sexist statements (NOS Nieuws, 01-09-2022, 07:09).

6. Church visitors attacked journalists while they were working to report on church exemptions to COVID-19 measures that prohibited coming together in groups (NOS Nieuws, 28-03-2021, 11:23).