focusing on the analysis of young people’s participation in social movements and subcultures. She is also interested in the effects of precariousness on youth conditions and on young people’s individual and collective reaction to precariousness.
Markus Quandt is a senior researcher and team leader at GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany. His research is based on quantitative surveys in cross-country comparative settings. Substantive interests are in political and social participation, as collective goods problems in individualising and rapidly changing societies. Methodological interests concern the comparability and validity of survey-based measures of attitudes and values. He is affiliated to the group conducting the European Values Study.
Anne-Lene Sand is a postdoctoral researcher at the Design School Kolding, Department for Design for Play. She holds an MSc in educational anthropology and a PhD in education. For the past nine years her research has been centred on young people’s self-organised and semi-organised urban practices, using a variety of sensory and visual methods in order to uncover the perspective of young people.
E. Kay M. Tisdall is Professor of Childhood Policy at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is part of the Childhood and Youth Studies Research Group at the Moray House School of Education and Sport. She has developed a collaborative programme on children and young people’s participation, both domestically and with cross-national partners. She is author of a range of policy and academic publications, and has editing experience of both books and special journal issues, including Global Studies of Childhood and International Journal of Human Rights.
The editors would like to thank the VELUX FOUNDATIONS for providing funding for the work of the European Network of Multi-Disciplinary Research in Youth and Participation that has led to this edited book. Also thanks to all the members of the network for engaging in important explorations of the concept, practice and future of youth participation in Europe and for taking part in the intricate and time-demanding process of writing this book. We are grateful to have all your contributions in the book. Thanks to Policy Press for believing in the relevance of the publication even while it was in the making. Finally, a profound thanks to all the young people across Europe who have voiced their experiences with engaging in participatory processes. Without you this book would have no merit.
Revisiting young people’s participation: an introduction
Maria Bruselius-Jensen, E. Kay M. Tisdall and Ilaria Pitti
Over 30 years after the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was ratified by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1989, young people’s active citizenship and participation rights have gained increased attention in both academia, policy and practice (Westwood et al, 2014; Gal and Duramy, 2015; McMellon and Tisdall, 2020). In particular, young people’s civic participation is promoted at local, national and regional levels through such organisations as the European Union, UNICEF and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Young people’s participation has become a major rights issue and one gaining increasing policy and practice importance.
While the UNCRC addresses the human rights of children under the age of 18, attention to participation also extends to older young people. Political institutions, research and society are concerned about young people’s societal engagement, carried by fears that new generations of European youth are unengaged and disinterested in politics and have lost trust in democratic institutions (Loncle et al, 2012), and that this will lead to a crisis in democracy. Such a deficit perspective has been counteracted by recent research, which demonstrates that young people are often not uninvolved but they use forms and means other than formal participation to engage in society and to influence politics (Quintelier, 2007; Pohl et al, 2020). Whether constructing youth participation as in crisis or changing, institutions from social work to education are investing in supporting, facilitating and educating young people to be engaged societally as the ‘citizens of tomorrow’ (Walther et al, 2020).
Young people of recent generations have grown up not only with the right to be consulted, but also with multiple initiatives to support their democratic education and facilitate their engagement (Taru et al, 2014). Key actors such as municipalities, institutions and NGOs advocate giving ‘voice’ to young people and consulting them on matters that concern their lives (Kjellander et al, 2016). However, professionals can be unsure about how to include young people in change and decision making, while institutional structures may create barriers as well as opportunities (Tisdall et al, 2014). With participation activities proliferating, the book is timely in assessing the ways in which young people experience such activities, their transformative potential both personally and for society, and the ways in which adults and organisations do or do not support such participation.
This book comes at a time of considerable upheaval and change for young people in Europe. The 2008 global financial crisis has led to a rise of youth unemployment in many European countries, while the challenges fostered by massive migrations and climate change are putting pressure on political and economic systems. This complexity is further exacerbated by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. While young people have so far been relatively spared from serious illness, the long-term effects of this new crisis on the European economies and labour markets are likely to hit them harder, primarily in terms of accessing stable jobs and social security. The pandemic crisis could foster another global economic crisis. In turn, this could lead national governments to adopt austerity measures similar to those enacted in response to the 2008 global financial crisis, limiting education, youth work and other social services that could support young people.
The current scenario results in uncertainty for young people, but it also creates spaces for experimentation and innovation through participation.
This book showcases original research evidence and analysis, arising from a network of European social science researchers from childhood and youth studies. It revisits how, under what conditions and for what purpose young people1 – in different contexts – participate in making decisions and foster changes on issues that concern them and their communities. It does so by drawing on research undertaken after the 2008 financial crisis but before the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapters are aligned by a shared focus on the interplay between the concepts of youth, participation and inequality. The book provides an opportunity to update these three long-standing and central concepts for young people’s participation, and to critically consider them in the current environment. Thus, the book both contributes new insights for contemporary young people’s participation and strengthens the core concepts for participatory research and practice. The following sections further explore the concepts of participation, youth and inequality and their application in this book.
Participation
To promote young people’s participation,
