This will be a series of blog posts that I am writing to assist me in the work of developing my book. Basically, I want to engage in a critical analysis, as it pertains to my interest in civics and citizenship education, of some of the key scholars in a range of different fields. I will be aiming to describe their arguments, the relevance of those arguments to my work, and any differing points of view related to the work in question.
This section, on Scott Warren’s book, Generation Citizen, will be relevant to Chapter Two: Apathetic or activist? Young people, citizenship and the public sphere.
One of the recurring themes in any discussion about civics and citizenship education is the apathy or activism of young people. Young people are often categorised as disinterested or disengaged or even disenfranchised from their democratic rights and the organisation of the state that is meant to practice them. There is some evidence about this: certainly there has been a slight increase, in Australia and around the world, in the number of young people questioning the value of democracy. And there is, of course, Putnam’s much cited work about the decline in membership of civic organisations and political parties across the United States – something that is certainly reflected in the decline of membership in unions, for example, in Australia. While not all of that is related solely to young people (here defined as those between 12 and 25, for the sake of my argument), it does suggest that other are some questions that need to be asked.
Of course, there have been alternative arguments put forward about this phenomenon as well. Some have suggested that any such failings shouldn’t really be laid at the feet of young people but rather it is the fault of the education system, or even society more generally for failing them in their education. Others have suggested that young people are active, just like previous generations, but they are active in different ways, mostly due to the rise in the use of social media. As you might imagine, there are counter arguments against these points of view, too. Declining participation predates, for the most part, the rise of the internet and social media. And surely online engagement would engender more offline action, too? (Which is an argument made by some, and disputed by others).
Regardless, I find the discussion to be something of a side issue; really, we should be discussing what a good civics and citizenship education looks like for young people, whether or not they are engaging more or less than their parents. And, of course, that line of argument is a minefield, too, as many can agree on the importance of civics and citizenship education, it’s that much harder to determine what such an education should look like. However, there are some interesting cases out there. One such example is Generation Citizen, something that I would classify as a youth participatory action research project/ advocacy training program for low socio-economic youth in the United States. It’s the work of Scott Warren, a political activist, and is based on his beliefs about democracy, the role of young people and civic engagement. I must say, there’s a lot in there that resonated with me, and I found numerous similarities with Justice Citizens, at least in the structure and development of his program. However, I’m not sure that I agree with the fundamental assertions that he makes in the course of his book, which is both an argument for increased participation by young people in the political and civic life of their countries (it’s very US-centric, which is surprising, considering the breadth of Warren’s international experience) and also a description of how schools might support and assist that engagement (through the Generation Citizen program).
Warren begins by acknowledging that young people in the US are disillusioned with politics. He refers back to the hope that characterised Obama’s election in 2008, and how it appears to have been lost. He argues that the feelings of hope have been lost, and instead replaced by fear. In addition, people feel that their voices do not matter, which contributes to feelings of political stagnation, which corresponds with a loss of faith in democracy. Warren also acknowledges a deepening divide between political sides, and the fact that this leaders to an inability to talk to people with different points of view. Finally, he also points out that there are significant challenges that the current political system still struggles to deal with: debt, climate change, inequality, guns and so on.
In this context, he argues, it makes sense that young people are making the decision to disengage from democracy. The democracy they know is too abstract, too distant, too ineffective for young people to have any faith in it meeting their needs and desires.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that young people don’t care. Instead, Warren suggests that young people do care, deeply, about the world around us. Millennials are the first generation in a century that are predicted to fare worse than their parents in economic and lifestyle factors. There are not enough jobs, and climate change is a reality. In this context, young people do take action. They protest. They start social movements. They become entrepreneurial to try to develop solutions to the problems they see.
But – and this is Warren’s big argument – these things are not enough. In the US (and, I guess, by inference, the rest of the democratic world) is that government still reigns supreme, and if young people are going to produce lasting social and environmental change, then they need to operate the levers of government so that change becomes sustainable. The problem they are facing, as described above, is that government is not working as well as it should. The solution, Warren posits, is not that young people should retreat from government, but rather they should become involved more in small p political matters, with the aim of engendering change higher and further up the political process. There’s a lot to like here – Warren is quick to criticise service learning models as failing to engender change. There is something of Westhemer and Kahne’s (2004) model of radical citizenship education or justice oriented education in the fact that there is a requirement for systemic change, rather than just charity or fund-raising, as worthwhile as they may be, in and of themselves. There is also something of the union organising model, in Warren’s call to build power to effect that change; he recognises the need for collective rather than individual action.