Youth and citizenship: looking at perceptions of citizenship among young people
Roberta Ryan
Elton Consulting
Contact Email:   robertaelton.com.au

The paper will present the results of a quantitative survey which will investigate different aspects of the perceptions of citizenship that young people hold. The project will be carried out using Marshall’s typology of the three spheres of citizenship, civil, political and social citizenship, and will also incorporate questions that look at the impact of globalisation and ‘economic rationalism’/neoliberalism on such perceptions, and seek to identify barriers to inclusion and participation. This long overdue research is a departure from the usual political science research into citizenship which concentrates on political and civic literacy. Rather, this study concentrates on asking young people how they perceive civil, political and social citizenship and seeks to identify any correlating factors. Similar research carried out in the UK recently has revealed that due to methodological problems much of the research in this area has been misunderstood, and, that the changing perceptions of citizenship that are held by generations X and Y pose a significant challenge to the current expectations about political and social organisation and philosophy.

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