Dissent and youth citizenship

Abstract

This chapter reviews key debates on the question of youth dissent, drawing on both geographical and wider social science literatures. It shows that the question has been central to youth research in many disciplines, but that the starting point has too often been a problematizing of dissent rather than its explorations an inalienable aspect of any politics. Focusing particularly on the recent research that has analyzed the d s ursive construction of youth dissent and has foregrounded the capacities of young people to engage actively as participants in political processes, it considers whether changes in citizenship education and toward greater participation have created sufficient space for the articulation and exercise of dissent. The chapter argues that challenges posed by young people to the state and to existing relations of power that uphold a range of injustices are still too often regarded with skepticism or even criminalized. Drawing on the work of critical education researchers and on agonistic approaches to politics (Mouffe, C., On the political. London: Routled e, 2005; Rancie’re, J., Dissensus:On politics and aesthetics. London: Continuum, 2010) the author considers t e implications of paying greater attention to conflicts between young people and to the difficult questions that arise from the diversity of forms and aims of dissent.