Participation Through Political Education. A mixed methods study assessing the utility of an inclusive democratic promotion framework for enhancing youth engagement interventions.

Abstract

As the debates around the apparent shifts in traditional forms of participation and the ‘fading allure’ of liberal democracies continue, the youth cohort have come to typify the decline in quality within established democracies and have been central targets of interventions and initiatives to re-engage. Focus has centred around traditional barriers at the state- citizen level, with less attention on the role conceptualisation and measurement have on the efficacy of interventions and in explaining the causes of decline. This work suggests conceptual narrowing -owing to the dominance of liberal electoral model in discourse and practice - contributes to youth exclusion from democratic life, interreacting with other drivers of decline. Building on a narrative of exclusion, the project emphasises young people as experts in defining the problems and solutions to their future democratic engagement. Participation here, begins at conception, and in doing so, the work seeks not to re-engage the electorate in elections, but instead to re-engage democracy with the demos. The findings suggest that a more conceptually inclusive approach allows civic engagement to evolve to the needs of the emerging democrats, providing opportunities for renewal and change in established democratic systems. Utilising lessons from external democracy promotion efforts, the work generates design principles to improve the efficacy of policy interventions that target youth engagement. Applying these principles to a re-design of England’s flagship policy of compulsory Citizenship Education, it utilises co-production to create a fully resourced intervention curriculum. The impact is assessed through pre and post surveys with mini lab style experimental components. With increased levels of political interest, knowledge acquisition and crucially, internal efficacy, the immediate impact of 6 hours of learning based on these principles succeeded where the wider policy has largely failed. More broadly, it contributes to the literature that promotes inclusion through Citizenship Education via prioritising conceptual learning, experiential approaches, and the importance of specialist training for practitioners.