School opportunities for the development of European citizenship: The perspective of students

School civic education has been identified as pivotal in fostering young people’s civic and political sense (Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Torney-Purta, 2002). Experiences in school can provide opportunities for participation and reflection in a supportive and challenging environment, which has been shown to lead to positive development of political attitudes (Ferreira et al., 2012). However, there is the need to explore further the characteristics of experiences in school that are relevant for the development of young people’s political attitudes related to the European context and on their perceptions of themselves as capable European citizens. Although schools are a crucial context of civic capacity-building and involvement, there are evidences that adequate civic education is hindered by inequalities in the opportunities for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008). Special attention should be given to the different school tracks offered in educational systems, which in Italy seem to maintain a vertical hierarchy of prestige and quality (Triventi, 2014). The choice of these tracks in secondary education can be rooted in social background and ultimately reproduces social inequality (Contini & Scagni, 2011; Romito, 2014). It is thus important to understand what structural barriers and uneven opportunities to experience European citizenship are found in educational institutions and how young people might experience them as exposing a discrepancy between ideal and real-world democracy (Watts & Flanagan, 2007). In order to investigate young people’s understanding of their sociopolitical development as European citizens and of the educational opportunities they feel are crucial in this process in function of the type of school that is attended, we conducted a qualitative exploratory study with upper secondary school students from different tracks. The study involved 10 focus group discussions with a total of 101 students in 5 secondary schools in Emilia Romagna and Lazio regions. The data was collected within the European-funded H2020 research project CATCH-EyoU. The schools were chosen to represent different tracks, in order to consider diverse educational contexts in terms of resources and quality. Students were asked to talk about their ideas and experiences of civic and political participation, their interest and views on EU matters, the role played by the school in promoting these experiences. The data was analyzed through thematic content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The results present students’ ambivalent attitudes toward the EU political context, their understanding of the possibilities and limitations to enact European citizenship and the aspects they identify within their educational institutions that foster opportunities for sociopolitical development. Differences and specificities of perspective among students from different school tracks are discussed. The findings highlight the multiple responsibility of schools not only to impart civic knowledge about EU, but to also provide a general environment that is open for dialogue between different views and that invites critical reflection and participation by students. The results have implications for the development of citizenship education programs

Youth civic and political (dis)engagement: representations, patterns and contexts

The desire and capacity of youth to engage with the civic and political sphere has been put in doubt by competing approaches in the study of youth citizen participation. In this research we aim to: 1) examine the social representations of youth civic and political participation in the current psychological literature; 2) explore the patterns of (dis)engagement in the civic and political sphere among Italian youth; 3) examine the patterns of (dis)engagement of late adolescents, in particular, and the influence of proximal ecological contexts on the assumption of different orientations; 4) explore how youngsters interpret active citizenship and their role as social agents, and how they perceive their schools’ climate, opportunities and limitations for meaningful involvement. Based on a mixed methods approach, the project analyzed: psychological academic discourse through a bibliographic content analysis; patterns of (dis)engagement and contextual correlates through a person-centered approach, using a survey; and young people’s perspective and experiences through focus group discussions. The results highlight the structural organization of social representations about youth participation in psychology, which result in competing normative assumptions about what kind of participation is studied (conventional vs. critical) and what role youngsters have in their civic development (recipients vs. agents). Moreover, the patterns of (dis)engagement identified also a large proportion of latently involved youth, while on every level of activity was distinguished by those who were satisfied with politics and those who were not. Also, the findings found important influences of proximal contexts for the orientations that adolescents assumed. Finally, youngsters displayed comprehensive and critical views of active citizenship and thought of their role as social agents with frustration. School characteristics, and especially, opportunities for reflective discussion and meaningful involvement were found to be crucial for the perception of having an empowering role. The results are discussed in view of their implications

Perceived School Characteristics Fostering Civic Engagement Among Adolescents in Italy

It has been widely argued that effective citizenship education should focus on more than mere teaching of civic knowledge, but should provide a wider range of opportunities for the experience of participation and development of skills, efficacy and interest instrumental to active citizenship. Opportunities for critical reflection such as open classroom discussions, fairness at school, institutional efficacy and student participation at school activities have been linked to the development of civic and political attitudes. The capacity of school education to provide opportunities for critical reflection on students\u2019 participative experiences, however, has not been explored empirically sufficiently. This paper aims to identify the contribution of different school characteristics to the development of civic and political attitudes and their impact on students\u2019 level of participation in civic activities through a mixed methods study. Questionnaire data collected in two waves with 685 adolescents from Italy were analyzed through structural equation modeling to test the effects of school characteristics at Time 1 (democratic climate, student participation and critical reflection) on civic participation at Time 2, mediated by institutional trust, civic efficacy and political interest. In order to explore the quantitative findings and examine further students\u2019 perceptions of the school aspects that support their civic involvement, focus group discussions were conducted with students from secondary schools with different tracks.The results highlight the importance of opportunities for active involvement in school and critical reflection in fostering political interest, efficacy and civic participation. Democratic school climate was found to impact institutional trust and civic efficacy, but not participation. Students\u2019 accounts of schools\u2019 citizenship education activities highlight further the need for a participative environment that rises above information transmission by inviting critical reflection and giving value to students\u2019 active involvement in the institution

Longitudinal predictors of perceived climate change importance and worry among Italian youths : a machine learning approach

The current study aimed to investigate the longitudinal predictors of perceived importance of climate change and personal worry among Italian youths. Specifically, we used machine learning techniques to examine the predictive importance of a wide range of socio-demographic factors, political perceptions, attitudes on a national and European level (identity, attitudes, tolerance, support for democracy, authoritarianism, nationalism, political trust), efficacy beliefs, social well-being, political interest, and different forms of participation on perceived importance of climate change and personal worry. In this longitudinal study, we collected data using a questionnaire in two waves at a one-year interval—in 2016 and 2017. Participants were 1288 Italian young adults (61.3% were female; 38.7% were male) whose mean age was 19.18 (SD = 3.29) ranging between 15 and 30 years. Breiman’s random forest algorithm performed better than Friedman’s gradient boosting machines algorithm. The random forest algorithm revealed that age, tolerance toward migrants, and tolerance toward refugees were the most important predictors of perceived importance of climate change and personal worry. Other important predictors were national/European identity, political interest, internal political efficacy, nationalism, social well-being, self-efficacy, authoritarianism, anti-democratic attitudes, EU warmth, and online and civic participation

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN A CHANGING WORLD: DOES IT CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP?

One of the challenges faced by contemporary societies concerns building a more inclusive society. This objective is particularly compelling in the current historical period characterized by growing social and cultural heterogeneity in European countries and an increase of prejudice and discrimination to-ward immigrants. Global citizenship (GC) can support inclusive attitudes and immigrants\u2019 acceptance. The aim of the study was to test the role of different forms of associative experiences and civic and po-litical participation in promoting GC in the younger generations. Data were collected between October 2016 and January 2017 using paper and online questionnaires. The sample consisted of 1,732 partici-pants (60.7% females; Mage = 19.73). The questionnaire measured demographics, mobility experiences, membership in organizations, latent and manifest political participation. Based on UNESCO conceptual model (2015), GC was operationalized as follows: openness and tolerance toward migrants and refu-gees, trust in people, democratic and civic values, knowledge and political awareness, personal and collective capacity to act politically. Results showed that members of volunteer organizations scored higher in all the dimensions of GC included in the study, compared to nonmembers, while the impact of other kinds of organizational membership and participation on GC was limited. Volunteer organiza-tions proved to be a very important context for the development of GC in young generation

The good European citizen: Person-centred analysis of citizenship norms and their correlates in young people from eight European countries

Within the academic debate about good citizenship, several authors have emphasized different possible notions – such as adhesion to more traditional-elitist, solidarity-based or participative norms (Denters, Gabriel, & Torcal, 2007). Recently, scholars have proposed the use of person- centred approaches to analyze typologies of good citizenship conceptions (Hooghe, Oser & Marien, 2016; Reichert, 2016). The existing studies have not addressed until now the European political context or investigated ideas of good citizenship related to a supranational level. The present study examines by means of latent profile analysis young people’s patterns of adhesion to different notions about what is a good European citizen and investigates how the different groups are characterized by socio-demographic characteristics, levels of participation and perceptions of belonging or political alienation related to the European context. The study is part of the Catch-EyoU project and uses the pilot questionnaire data with a sample of 994 respondents from two age groups –adolescents (16-19 years old, 52.7%) and young adults (20-26 years old, 47.3%)– collected in eight European countries. The results identified five different profiles that distinguished between youth who held a mixed conception of the good European citizen (where different normative ideas coexist), groups that emphasized a particular view and a pattern of low adhesion to all theorized conceptions. While most respondents give high importance on both traditional and more participative norms, the findings confirm the existence of comparatively more passive views and of a critically oriented group differentiated by more negative perception of the European context

La comunità durante il lockdown: Report preliminare di ricerca

L'obiettivo della ricerca era di comprendere l’impatto che la pandemia Covid-19 e le misure di contenimento hanno avuto sulle dinamiche psicosociali della vita nelle comunità, con una attenzione sugli effetti dell'emergenza su stili di vita, coesione, comportamenti pro-sociali e prospettiva sul futuro. Volevamo ottenere dati non soltanto sugli impatti negativi che richiedono l’attivazione di azioni e progetti ad hoc, ma anche sulle risorse e le capacità che le persone e le comunità hanno mostrato (anchedurante la pandemia. La ricerca è stata realizzata nel periodo aprile-maggio 2020. La raccolta dei dati è avvenuta utilizzando un questionario on-line, distribuito mediante la piattaforma Qualtrics.Il campione è costituto da 1470 partecipanti, in maggioranza donne

Citizenship’s tangled web: associations, gaps and tensions in formulations of European youth active citizenship across disciplines

How does academic literature across various disciplines conceptualize and empirically address active citizenship? What are the potential benefits and dangers of dominant epistemological and ideological perspectives on ‘good citizenship’? Our paper engages with these questions by drawing on literature across 12 disciplines. We used textual analysis software TLAB to quantify and visualize co-occurrences, word associations and thematic clusters in the abstracts of 770 texts gathered by eight country teams and original in-depth qualitative analyses of ideological positions and discourses taken up in a selection of key texts across the corpus. Our paper elaborates the findings: that many of the key themes surrounding young people and citizenship in the literature share little or no connection with European citizenship; that there is a significant gap in the literature on young European citizens; and that studies connected to internal, status-based factors connected to citizenship are far more prevalent than those examining external, practice-based factors or dissidence and dissent. Our conclusions examine the potential normative implications of the disjuncture between dominant conceptions and critical accounts of youth active citizenship

Adolescents’ Patterns of Citizenship Orientations and Correlated Contextual Variables: Results From a Two-Wave Study in Five European Countries

Studies on youth participation tend to characterize youth as either active and trustful or as passive and alienated. This cross-national and longitudinal study examines patterns of citizenship orientations characterized by both manifest and latent involvement differentiated by one\u2019s position toward institutional politics (trustful or distrustful) among 1914 adolescents from five European countries (53.5% female; MAGE =16.27). Demographic and proximal contextual correlates associated with different orientations at a one-year interval were also assessed. Latent profile analysis identified four groups of citizenship orientations among adolescents: engaged trustful, engaged distrustful, unengaged trustful, unengaged distrustful. Differences of membership likelihood were found for background characteristics (gender and family income), school characteristics (track, democratic climate, student participation and its perceived quality), family and peer norms of participation

Predictors of prosocial behavior during the COVID-19 national lockdown in Italy: Testing the role of psychological sense of community and other community assets

There is growing support for viewing communities as a multilevel construct in which the interdependence between individuals and community systems contributes to the promotion of individual responsibilities in thinking and enacting changes to respond to people’s and community’s needs. However, there is currently scant evidence regarding the influence of psychological sense of community and the role of community assets on prosocial behavior during the COVID-19 national lockdown. The main aim of the current study was to test a conceptual model of community assets as predictors of prosocial behavior during Italy’s COVID-19 national lockdown. A sample of 3,964 Italian adults was involved in the current study. We collected data using an online questionnaire, between April 12 and May 21, 2020, during the nationwide lockdown restrictions. To collect data, we employed convenience and virtual snowball sampling strategies (i.e., email, social networks, and online channels). Using structural equation modeling, we found that prosocial behavior was predicted by sense of community responsibility but not by sense of community. Moreover, sense of community and sense of community responsibility were predicted by community members’ perception of its assets, in particular collective resilience and adequate information. Finally, trust in the institutional response to the pandemic predicted community members’ perception of collective resilience and receiving adequate information through the community. The present study suggests that community qualities, positively perceived by community members, are crucial in promoting prosocial behaviors and producing collective goods during a pandemic