Social capital and informal political participation among youth: a multiple correspondence analysis

This contribution aims at broadening and refining the results of previous studies on a possible link between social capital and informal political participation of European youth. More specifically, we will explore the dimensions of social capital and their variation as well as their relations to informal political participation among Brussel youth. This will in turn help us put into perspective the mixed results of previous studies in which social capital and political participation were operationalised by unidimensional indexes. Indeed, before drawing any conclusions on the generalisability of the impact of social capital on informal political participation to youngsters, one should first investigate possible variation in different types of preferred informal political activities in order to have a better understanding of youth’s political integration. Furthermore, one should use a broader conceptualisation of social capital in order to be able to examine more in-depth the forms and dimensions that social capital can take among youth with multiple background and relate them to informal political activities. Our contribution is based on a multiple correspondence analysis of survey data from 3,121 youngsters in Brussels and aims at filling this gap with three research issues. First, we will investigate the forms of social capital among a highly culturally diversified youth. Second, we will study the different profiles of youngsters with regard to their social capital. Lastly, we will have a look at the diverse types of informal political participation undertaken by the different social capital profiles.