Countering Discourses of "Apathy" That Marginalize Youth Political Participation and Activism

• In Event: Student and Scholar Activism: Reciprocal Mentoring for Social Justice

Abstract

This paper focuses on the understanding, or lack thereof, of children and youth political participation and how traditional political institutions have failed to include youth in their spheres of influence or affect. Policy makers are claiming that children and youth are becoming increasingly apathetic towards “state-based” politics and political entities (Harris, Wyn, & Younes, 2010). These claims are being conflated with apathy towards all political participation and are used as evidence to ignore children and youth in the political arena. While research has shown that there is a decline in youth political participation at the state level, an inherent fallacy in conflating this with general apathy arises in examining the reasons behind this – there is a case of misunderstanding on the part of researchers, academics, and policy-makers into why children and youth seem apathetic towards politics.

This presentation argues that a contributing factor to children and youth “apathy” towards politics and political participation is that political institutions are geared towards the political structure; children and youth are simply being left out of the process. In reality, children and youth with the support of mentors are participating in the political process (O’Toole, et. al, 2003). This joined effort of youth and mentors is creating alternative political participation that is a deviation from the traditional political practices of electoral voting and community engagement (Harris, Wyn & Younes, 2010; Cammaerts, Brute, Banaji, Harrison & Anstead, 2013).

Within this context this effort is preformed within three distinct political participation; 1) the act of moving away from the traditional political engagement and perceiving change as an outside act of the government periphery (Traft, 2006), 2) the act of protesting and demanding change of political injustice such as poverty, censorship, gender inequality and others (Giroux, 2011), and 3) the act of creating alternative political activities to highlight their struggle against injustice (Conway, J. (2003). These three political activities are not mutually exclusive as some youth might participate in one or another, or in all. This analysis is based on the examination of the narratives of Palestinian youth and a 7-year longitudinal study in which the youth transformed the traditional concept of political participation.

Author

• Janette Habashi, University of Oklahoma