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Impatience with politics in Germany, disenchantment with political commitment and individualization are labels frequently attached to the political involvement of young people. Empirical analyses, however, show a rather more complex picture. A basic willingness to become politically involved and to express political opinions is apparent. Indeed, many young people make use of numerous and varied opportunities to express themselves politically, although usually no more than occasionally. Not surprisingly, participation in traditional associations has fallen in some cases. On the other hand, affinity and commitment to ‘New Social Movements’(NSMs) remain fairly consistent. Participation patterns among young people differ according to gender, education level and place of origin: federal states of former West Germany (the ‘old’ states) or the former German Democratic Republic (the ‘new’ states). One focus of the article is on the differences between West and East Germany. The results are then discussed within a European context.

The paper looks at young people's sense of being European in a number of European regions: Madrid and Bilbao, Vienna and Vorarlberg, Manchester and Edinburgh, Chemnitz and Bielefeld, Prague and Bratislava. We considered the ways in which 'exposure' to Europe through travel and speaking languages as well as cognitive mobilisation through discussing politics made young people aged 18-24 more European. However, the most important factor in differentiating ideas of Europe was the region itself with people in Central European regions (Austria, Germany, Czech and Slovak Republics) having much stronger European identification than those in peripheral regions (Spain and the UK). These ideas are explored using both quantitative and qualitative data from the regions and the explanations advanced are framed in terms of a theory of 'entitativity' or people's identification with something beyond themselves.

The unfolding of the ecological disaster has led authors to reconsider the position of the human subject and his/her relationship with the earth. One entry point is the concept of ecological citizenship, which emphasizes responsibility, community, and care. However, the discourse of ecological citizenship often reduces the human subject to a critical consumer-citizen and citizenship education to the production of such a subject. The position outlined in this paper provides a more fundamental critique of consumption as a way of being in and relating to the world. In particular, it foregrounds objectification, commodification, and its impacts on human and nonhuman subjectivity and the possibility of care within a multi-species community. The paper brings animal-sensitive work in environmental education research and political theory into dialogue with a more general critique of culture and pedagogy in consumer society. From this perspective, ecological citizenship education seeks to liberate human and nonhuman beings from predetermined behavioral results and functions, and opens the time and space for the subjectification of human and nonhuman citizens within the complex dynamics of a multi-species community. With this proposition, the paper contributes to an ecocentric understanding of ecological citizenship education that builds on the continuity of life and subjective experience.

Despite growing evidence of many environmental and other problems being caused by industrialized meat production, the issue of meat consumption is still generally seen as a private affair that has nothing to do with politics or education. This article problematizes meat consumption and discusses transformative learning theory in the light of the authors' experiences with denialism in critical meat education. It reveals the potential of a crossfertilization through which transformative learning theory gains complexity and critical meat education benefits from a more coherent theoretical and practical frame.

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The Anthropocene has come to signify human dominance over the more-than-human world with all its negative consequences for this planet's human and nonhuman inhabitants. As young people have started to express their feelings of concern and frustration with the inertia of the political elites, youth research, too, is called upon to reconsider and broaden its perspective. In particular, we argue, that the Anthropocene challenges anthropocentrism, dualisms, and traditional notions of agency in youth research, and must be critiqued through multi-disciplinary investigation. A transgression of the mainstream paradigm in youth research through the perspective of Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAS) could provide much needed analyses of a broad range of issues at the intersection of youth and ecological concerns. This article will therefore outline Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAS) as a multi-disciplinary tool, and apply it to two examples: the biosocial system of the Elwha River waterscape, and the #Fridays for Future strikes that are both motivated by environmental concerns. Finally, it discusses the possible contributions of a CAS approach in youth research to a better understanding of agency and change in ecologically turbulent times.

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