Session 4: Citizenship Narratives and Participation

5th Global Conference

Friday 6th November – Sunday 8th November 2009
Salzburg, Austria

More than Participation: A Grounded Theory on Youth Engagement
Matteo Artoni
Department of Education, University of Bologna, Italy

The concept of citizenship should not be meant only as a set of rights, but, above all, as something whose effectiveness is intersubjective. Pivotal characteristic of the citizen is the action; without action, subject doesn’t live her/his citizenship, as with action we can mean participation, but also presence, social responsibility and other citizenship-related concepts.

In this paper we shall describe a Grounded Theory on youth presence in political and social contexts. Theorizing the transition from being not-engaged to being engaged, the results of this research highlight the facilitating factors and personal motivations that lead subjects to become active in social contexts, using resources and capabilities to reach objectives related both to the subjective and intersubjective sphere. The political involvement of youth people in political contexts represents a process that leads them to become “more present”, that is to say being active and concerned about certain social dynamics. The boundary between being not-engaged and being engaged is much more blurred than it appears, revealing different intermediate categories such as disengagement, disinterest and exclusion from political decision-making processes.

Based on these results it is possible to design practices that would inform citizenship education, with the aim of facilitating the transition from being not-engaged to being engaged in young people, in order to make them experience themselves as active citizens.