Youth Participation and Exclusion: Towards Equal Treatment in Public Space, Education and the Workplace

Abstract

In this chapter we address some of the overall research questions of the book by examining significant barriers to young people’s participation, and pointing towards solutions that would recapture young citizen’s engagement with and participation in their political systems. In the policy and research literatures, the incidence of youth inclusion and exclusion in democratic life has often been linked to that of youth inclusion and exclusion in economic life (Jones, 2005; Devlin et al., 2008; Leahy and Burgess, 2012). Following a policy conference summing up the links between youth exclusion at economic, social and civic levels and looking towards solutions, Colley et al. (2005: 3) note, however, that [d]espite more than a decade of policy attention to the problem of social exclusion, polarisation between the life-chances of different groups of young people is increasing. It is spatially concentrated in some regions and neighbourhoods, linked to social class. It is also racialised, gendered and related to other inequalities such as disability. Some young people in Europe feel unable to influence mainstream political processes, and withdraw from conventional political participation. A decade on, we write this book at a time of increased economic uncertainty across Europe.