The Impact of the Citizenship Activity ’Jeunes & Politiek’ On the Level of Internal and External Political Efficacy of Brussel’s Diverse Youth

There is a growing interest and numerous initiatives of citizenship learning activities in advanced democracies. Such activities have been shown to affect the level of political interest and trust of the pupils through both direct and indirect effects (Niemi and Junn, 1998; Claes & Hooghe, 2017). However, little is known about effects on political efficacy depending on the type of citizenship learning activity. This paper aims to test the variation of internal and external efficacy of young people between the start and the end of a citizenship learning activity, as well as distinguishing its different phases. In order to do so, this paper relies on data gathering in the framework of the project ‘Jeunes & Politiek’. The project involved 1191 students from 24 secondary schools in Brussels (quota sample based on the schools’ socio-economic background). In the perspective of the Brussels regional elections of May 2019, these students and first-time voters were invited to (1) inform themselves, (2) discuss with politicians and (3) express an opinion publicly about an assigned specific issue. An experimental design with a panel survey was set up to measure the effect of the ‘Jeunes & Politiek’ activities after each phase of the learning activities (4 waves in total). The data gathered in the framework of the experimental design will allow to analyze the differentiated effect of citizenship learning activities on youth’s political attitudes.