Youth Sector Discussion on Youth Civic and Political Engagement: AYAC Summary
Dr Dean Farquhar | AYAC | National Youth Engagement Lead
Nellie Wotherspoon | AYAC | Project Officer
Background on the NYPN
The National Youth Practitioners’ Network (NYPN) was established by AYAC last year to provide practitioners with additional opportunities to collaborate, share ideas and build sector capacity at a national level. The NYPN meets quarterly. It holds workshops with practitioners around models of practice and emerging issues in the sector, as well as roundtables that bring together academics, policy experts, practitioners and young people to discuss important social issues. This short briefing paper presents some key points from the NYPN’s recent youth sector discussion on youth civic and political engagement.
Event Context
Last year, ACARA reported that Australian students recorded the lowest civics results since testing began over 20 years ago, renewing debate on young people’s readiness for democratic participation. Historically, this debate has served to further unhelpful, deficit-laden narratives of youth apathy. These narratives obscure the extent and diversity of youth civic and political engagement. A more nuanced view recognises that young people care a great deal about their communities and political issues, while acknowledging that some require support to link their concerns to more formal political processes. The youth sector discussion sought to encourage reflection on how practitioners can promote this more nuanced view when explaining their work on broadening and deepening youth civic and political engagement to stakeholders. Short summaries of the contributions made by speakers can be found below.
Professor Pip Collin on Youth Civic and Political Engagement
To contextualise the recent round of civics test results, AYAC invited Professor Pip Collin to share some insights from the growing body of research on youth civic and political engagement. Pip began by pointing out that political participation does not start and end at the ballot box, and if we are to understand young people’s participatory practices, we must expand our view of politics to encompass a diverse range of formal and informal modes of participation. When we expand our view of politics, Pip argued, we find that young people are participating in some of the most important and interesting forms of civic and political engagement. A failure to take this more expansive view, Pip continued, has been a shortcoming of some of the recent press coverage of civics test scores.
Pip outlined how some of the consternation arising from the headlines on civics test scores overlooks important nuances in the data compiled by ACARA. This data shows that young people value deepening understanding of Australian history, participating in activities that benefit the local community, and taking part in initiatives to protect the environment. The sidelining of these findings, Pip continued, contributes to a reproduction of deficit-based accounts that are more reflective of a lack of capacity to listen to young people than they are of prevailing youth participatory habits and priorities.
For Pip, the lesser reported ACARA findings provide insights into changing ideas about citizenship in societies like Australia. To explain this shift in thinking about citizenship, Pip contrasted the following views:
The Traditional View of Citizenship – Citizens gain political knowledge, which leads them to favour an established ideology that is channelled through political institutions and parties.
The Contemporary View of Citizenship – Citizens develop political knowledge, but they are less aligned to established ideologies, institutions and parties. A form of life politics emphasising freedom of choice becomes more prominent and encourages more conditional political allegiances.
Viewed from this perspective, it can be argued that falling civics test scores in part reflect the limits of civics education - and the efforts made by established political institutions and parties to respond to the changing expectations of young constituents. Supporting this view, Pip detailed the diverse ways young people are signalling their interest and investment in civic and political matters.
Pip explained that youth participation mirrors young people’s experiences of living through a series of interconnected socio-economic, political and ecological challenges. As Pip put it, young people are often living at intersections of these challenges and understand the relationships that exist between them. It is therefore unsurprising that young leaders and youth-led organisations have made especially powerful contributions to advocacy and activism around climate, mental health and the cost of living. Pip suggested that the problem is not that young people are not interested in how these issues could be addressed OR are not taking action on important issues, but that when they do, they are often left disheartened by a lack of responsiveness within the political system – a feeling that is compounded by a move towards the criminalisation of protest and suppression of dissent on the part of key decision-makers.
Pip then raised some important points on the need to attend more closely to localised, everyday forms of youth participation. According to Pip, considering these often-overlooked forms of participation is vital to piecing together a more complete understanding of young people’s interests and preferences, which can compliment formal civics education and aid us in supporting young people to understand and connect with more formal political processes. Pip proceeded to draw attention to evidence showing that young people are just as likely or more likely to volunteer as older people. Pip then mentioned how the What Matters research project, which has captured the voices of over 50,000 young Australians, shows the importance of family and community to connecting young people to a range of ‘big picture issues’, including climate, social justice, mental health, social media and Australia’s role in world affairs. When adequately supported and provided with appropriate platforms – young people will link their lived experiences to wider social issues and political processes.
To round off her contribution, Pip signalled the important role that the youth sector plays in extending and deepening youth civic and political engagement. Pip noted how the youth sector complements civics education provided through schools by offering more informal, less hierarchical learning opportunities that provide greater scope for young people to shape the terms of their engagement and pursue their interests. Moreover, with their focus on dialogue and working in partnership with young people, youth sector organisations are well placed to further conversations around how we structure systems to be more receptive and responsive to young people. Supporting these points, Pip provided some examples of meaningful work being done in the sector, opening up a space for practitioners to discuss how their work furthers youth civic and political engagement.
AYAC’s 5 Key Takeaways from the Sector Discussion
The youth sector encompasses a range of professions, specialisms and approaches. Often these differences are poorly understood outside the sector. Unfortunately, it is still not unusual for youth workers to be confused with social workers, obscuring the distinctive contributions made by each profession. Acknowledging the diversity within the sector, our discussions revealed some useful points of agreement on good practice among those working to further youth civic and political engagement through their practice:
Youth-Centred, Rights-Focused Engagement – We recognise that supporting young people claim their rights means furthering their active participation in civic and political life. Through our work, we meet young people where they are at and work in partnership with them to build those meaningful relationships that catalyse their participation.
Inclusive Youth Engagement – We work with culturally sensitive approaches that create inclusive, welcoming spaces for all young people. This supports them to develop their confidence and feel their way into discussions and initiatives around civic and political engagement.
Reflective, Child Safe Youth Engagement – We take a proactive approach to child safety through robust organisational policies and processes. A focus on reflective practice helps ensure we check our biases and are providing environments in which all young people can feel safe and flourish.
Our discussion further revealed some shared challenges:
Ethical, Consistent Stakeholder Communication - We acknowledge that we must communicate with stakeholders in a values-aligned way that allows us to do our best work with the young people. This requires setting boundaries and a certain amount of give and take that can be challenging. We can support each other by discussing concerns and seeking advice.
Busting Unhelpful Binaries – The dominant language around how we frame our work can be unhelpful. An apparent ‘Young Leaders’ and ‘Youth at Risk’ binary can obscure the diversity and complexity of young people’s lives. We must work intentionally to create spaces to enable storytelling that better captures this diversity and complexity.
AYAC Summary
Many of the points raised in this youth sector discussion reflect sentiments that AYAC and others have been voicing for years. Young people are interested in, and take action on, a range of issues because these impact on them and those they care about. The question is not - how do we engage apathetic young people? Rather it is - how do we build capacity in our own practice, sector and institutions to support young people to connect their existing and often varied experiences and interests to more formal forms of political engagement? We believe that the youth sector, with its distinctive collection of value-driven approaches, is uniquely placed to bolster the efforts of others in answering this question.