Mind the gap between young people: Studying the many crises of contemporary youth citizenship

Abstract

The ideal of citizenship and its role in upholding modern democratic communities are under enormous pressure in today, cross-cutting traditional levels of policymaking from the local, to the national and international levels. This is especially apparent when we look at youth citizenship. On the one hand, a series of climate strikes largely initiated by young people, aims to bring forth a new mode of citizenship and democratic politics placing longer-term, global environmental concerns at their core. On the other, focus on secular education or the Covid-19 crisis, seem to have set their sights at reinforcing the geography/space/identity nexus of traditional societal images and the political structures of nation states. These values are generally assumed to be supported by older generations but also find considerable followers among young people if pro-migration and anti-vaccine protests are anything to go by. While these examples seem to be at odds with one another, they also begin to offer us some insight into the gaps within contemporary youth citizenship and may serve as the latest ‘reference points’ to potentially ‘better’ educating our (future) citizens. In order to explore their potential gap between modes, notions and practices of contemporary youth citizenship, we adopt an international perspective and are interested in their relevance to broader themes, such as contemporary democracy, citizenship education and political participation. Specifically, this panel brings together empirical and theoretical contributions related, but not exclusive to the following issues in contemporary youth citizenship: - Ideals and practices of contemporary citizenship and democracy with a focus on youth; - Themes and practices of inclusion and exclusion – and the geography/space/identity nexus of contemporary democracy and youth citizenship; - The identity, rights and political participation of younger generations of non- citizens and citizens; - Modes of citizenship and civic education with a focus on desired ideals and practices of citizenship and democracy of tomorrow.

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