Young People and Politics in Australia: an Introduction
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Young People and Politics in Australia: an Introduction Jacqueline Laughland-Booÿ 1 & Zareh Ghazarian 2 Received: 11 February 2020 / Revised: 23 June 2020 / Accepted: 25 June 2020 / Published online: 22 October 2020 # Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Now, more than ever, young people require a political voice. While our next generation may understand the issues that are impacting their communities, their country and their planet, it is important that they know how to effect positive change. This means ensuring that young people have the tools required to articulate their political ideas and the capacity to engage meaningfully in the democratic processes to allow their voices to be heard. Young people’s contribution to politics is not just ideal; it is necessary for both the benefit of their civic agency and the incorporation of a vital political perspective. Understanding the mechanisms of engagement, identifying barriers and exploring evidence-based recommendations is important to improve young people’s involvement in politics and democracy. This Special Edition in the Journal of Applied Youth Studies speaks to the topic of youth political engagement. It presents selected papers from a workshop titled: ‘The Informed Voter: Improving the Literacy of Young Australians’. This workshop was funded by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and was held in August 2019 at the Australian Catholic University in Sydney. The purpose of this workshop was to assemble researchers and practitioners from a variety of fields, to examine issues relating to the political engagement of young Australians. Presenters included academics from disciplines such as politics, sociology and youth studies as well as educators and electoral commission representatives. The keynote presentation was delivered by Australian psephologist and political commentator Antony Green. Our own interest in this topic relates to how politics is taught to school-aged students. While undertaking research into the political views of young people, many of our participants were telling us their political knowledge was poor and that they were unsure about their capacity to participate meaningfully at an election (Laughland-Booÿ et al. 2018). They were also saying that they believed more could have been done by schools to bolster their political confidence and strengthen their understanding of democracy.
* Jacqueline Laughland-Booÿ [email protected]
1
Australian Catholic University, Brisbane, Australia
2
Monash University , Melbourne, Australia
190
Journal of Applied Youth Studies (2020) 3:189–192
Teaching young people about politics and government has been a focus of successive Australian national governments since the 1990s. In 2008, the need for Australian school students to be become “active and informed citizens” was reaffirmed at a meeting of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. This group adopted the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians which lays out
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