Civic Learning in Changing Democracies: Challenges for Citizenship and Civic Education

The times, they are a changing in long established European and North American democracies. Alarming numbers of young citizens seem to have turned their backs on government and conventional politics. It appears that contemporary politics in most societies increasingly fail to capture the interest and attention of young citizens, who are generally skeptical of politicians and party affiliation, and increasingly unlikely to vote. A study of voting turnout by age in 15 European democracies conducted by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance in Sweden concluded that youth voting decline is a serious and widespread problem for contemporary democracies looking to the new generation of citizens for participation, legitimacy and support (IDEA, 1999). Some scholars have concluded that there is a distinctive Millennial Generation (roughly composed of those turning 21 around the turn of the century), and that this cohort is profoundly apolitical, as highlighted by a rejection of traditional citizen roles centered around civic duties such as voting. For example, 71 percent of British Millennials believe that voting makes no difference. The numbers of British youth who aspire to enter public service are dwarfed by nearly a fifty-to-one preference for entrepreneurial business careers (Pirie and Worcester, 1998). A follow-up survey in Britain in 1999 compared the Millennials to the general population and found that 40 percent of 18-24 year olds in Britain were not even registered to vote, compared with just 8 percent of the general population (Pirie and Worcester, 2000). O'Toole (2004) observes that a media stereotype of the youth engagement crisis in Britain has evolved around the factoid that more young people voted on the reality TV show Big Brother than in the 2001 general election. Even before it had reached the level of media myth, the severity of youth voting decline in Britain prompted the government to commission what has become known as the Crick Report (1998), which called for compulsory civics education in the secondary schools. The underlying question for Britain-and for this essay-is what should such education look like? A first step toward an answer is to understand the nature of the problem. A general survey on the status of young people in Europe revealed a remarkable convergence of trends reported by researchers in 15 European Union member states and three nations outside the EU (Instituto di Ricerca, Milan, 2001). A bulletin on the report posted by one of the participating research institutes sounded …