This paper intends to explore whether and how the quality of participation experiences is associated with political efficacy and the disposition of migrant and non-migrant young people to becoming involved. The sample includes 1010 young people of Portuguese, Angolan and Brazilian origin, aged between 15 and 29 years old. The results reveal that the quality of participation experiences is related to political efficacy and dispositions to becoming involved, but different groups seem to react differently to different forms of political action.

Approaches to youth engagement typically focus on withdrawal from conventional politics and participatory transformation. In this paper, we argue that such approaches fall short in grasping how groups with blended styles of relationship with politics assess their political ownership. This became apparent when, in the context of European elections, the rise of extreme right wing in Europe and intensification of austerity in Portugal, we discussed the circumstances framing youth’s relationship with politics with 40 youngsters outside regular school. Quantitative data from regular-school students on the same topic were used to trigger focus groups and later used by participants to interview their peers. Participants displayed ‘ordinary’ approaches to engagement, attributing an unexpected relevance to vote. Socioeducational disadvantages and self-blaming perspectives were actively contested, and the gap between youth and politics is to be filled by a normative equipment, with the school indicated as a fundamental, structured and unbiased locus of political education.

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Civic and political participation are the vehicles through which citizens of democratic societies engage in the public sphere, identify and address matters of public concern, and monitor governments' activities. While the civic and the political are often regarded as two sides of the same coin, that assertion deserves questioning in times of an expanding voluntary sector and shrinking participation in institutional and electoral politics. Based on an ethnographic study in a large volunteer organization in the north of Portugal, we discuss the complexities of participation, namely whether it is possible to be civic without being political. In this article, we show how an emphasis in caring for the other and promoting volunteers' personal development coexists with indifference regarding political issues, and how high levels of motivation and engagement concur with resolving (or smothering) conflict through a strong investment in affective bonds, rather than open discussion. Finally, we examine the role of religion in creating collective identity and simultaneously legitimizing a depoliticized approach to social intervention, thus exploring the paradoxes and limitations that may lay in wishing to change the world without engaging in politics.

The institution of the European Union has had important implications on educational policies throughout Europe, with a growing emphasis on 'Citizenship Education' since the mid-1990s. This can be interpreted as a response to phenomena such as the rise of ethnocentrism and xenophobia and of political disaffection of both older and younger citizens. Departing from Weiler's notion of educational reform as compensatory legitimation, this article analyses the case of migrant youth in Portugal, which is particularly interesting for two reasons. The first is that migrant policies in Portugal have been extremely well evaluated by international agencies, in terms of their potential for the inclusion of migrants. The second is the fact that the migrant groups considered here, Angolans and Brazilians, both have Portuguese as their first language, hence not facing a 'classical' barrier to social inclusion. The research presents Portuguese data collected under the European project, Processes Influencing Democratic Ownership and Participation (PIDOP), and confronts the vision of policy makers, national and migrant youths, their parents, and their teachers. On the whole, results suggest that there is a huge gap between educational policy and the real life of schools that partly explains the (dis)empowerment of both migrant and national youth. However, in looking at this process, we must also recognise the complex role of generational factors, cultural capital, and political structures (both in the home and host contexts) in explaining youth civic and political engagement and participation.