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Chapter 15 - ‘Can I Trust My Future?’

Youth Civic Engagement, Civic Identity and Dystopias

from Part III - For the People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2022

By
Benjamin Bowman ,
Thalia Magioglou  and
Helen Haste
Edited by
Ashley Weinberg
Ashley Weinberg
Affiliation:
University of Salford
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Summary

Democracies provide civic education in order to support young people as they emerge as responsible, well-informed and effective citizens. In this chapter, we critically assess the idea of civic efficacy as it pertains to young people in an era characterised by ongoing economic, political, social and environmental crises, as well as uncertainty, precarity and inequality. Civic education proposes an optimistic, progressive perspective at a time when young people may well be pessimistic about their future prospects and sceptical about the likelihood of positive political change. In this chapter, the authors explore ways in which young people make sense of the future through dystopic and pessimistic imaginaries. Drawing on comparative fieldwork in the UK and Greece to illustrate the concepts, we examine how the social construct of imaginaries can inform our concept of the role young people play in contemporary democracies in crisis. We argue that civic education, and democracy more widely, can empower young people during times of crisis through a new civic approach that accommodates critical – and sceptical – thinking among young people, and supports a wider repertoire of young people’s civic and political action.

Keywords

Young peoplecivic educationcitizenshipdemocracypsychologyNew Civics
Type
Chapter
Information
Psychology of Democracy
Of the People, By the People, For the People
 , pp. 332 - 353
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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