Youth, activism, and social movements

Abstract

There has been considerable debate over the extent and role of young people's political participation. Whether considering popular hand-wringing over concerns about declines in young people's institutional political participation or dismissals of young people's use of online activism, many frame youth engagement through a "youth deficit" model that assumes that adults need to politically socialize young people. However, others argue that young people are politically active and actively involved in their own political socialization, which is evident when examining youth participation in protest, participatory politics, and other forms of noninstitutionalized political participation. Moreover, social movement scholars have long documented the importance of youth to major social movements.In this article, we bring far flung literatures about youth activism together to review work on campus activism; young people's political socialization, their involvement in social movement organizations, their choice of tactics; and the context in which youth activism takes place. This context includes the growth of movement societies, the rise of fan activism, and pervasive Internet use. We argue that social movement scholars have already created important concepts (e.g., biographical availability) and questions (e.g., biographical consequences of activism) from studying young people and urge additional future research.

“One Size Doesn't Fit All”: Connecting Views of Activism With Youth Activist Identification*

“…Further, youth participation is important for the long-term vitality of SMOs (Earl, Maher and Elliott 2017), and understanding youth activist identity formation may be key to understanding activism in the future as youth engage in more individualistic and non-institutional forms of political behavior often outside of organizations (Earl, Copeland andBimber 2017, Fisher 2012). Indeed, if one wanted to forecast the healthiest conditions for future social movements, it would be an environment in which young people are encouraged to see themselves as activists and they carry dispositions for engagement forward, sustaining a commitment to engagement into their adult years.…”

Social media and policing: A review of recent research

“…Social media also encourages the development of “networked publics” (Boyd, ) and forms of “connective action” (Bennett & Segerberg, ), permitting spatially dispersed users to shape the flow and substance of communication about politically consequential issues (Bimber, ; Loader & Mercea, ). Accompanying the possibility that it may revitalize civic engagement among marginalized groups (Bennett, ; Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Carpini, ), social media transforms the nature of political participation, encouraging new patterns of “hashtag activism” that, rather than hierarchical, institutionalized, or collectivist, are decentralized, individually motivated, and ad hoc (Earl, Maher, & Elliott, ; Yang, ).…”

Political Participation and Institutional Trust of Young Adults in Ukraine: Matching Economic and Political Conditions with European Social Survey Fieldwork Periods, 2004–2012

“…Concept of political participation is operationalized through both institutionalized or conventional (electoral) and non-institutionalized or non-conventional (nonelectoral) forms of participation (Teorell et al 2007, Marien et al 2010, Hooghe, & Kern 2015. In research on youth political participation conducted in US and Western Europe, there is a trend of young people rejecting electoral politics and disengaging from public life (Melo & Stockemer 2014;Delli Carpini 2000;Earl et al 2017). The literature classifi es explanations for this tendency into individual social background and structural factors.…”

“…Some argue that youth political participation is changing rather than declining. According to Earl et al (2017) young people are politically active and involved in their own political socialization as evident when examining noninstitutionalized political participation, e.g. protest and other forms of participatory politics.…”