Beyond Victims and Villains: Young People's Acts of Citizenship during Covid-19

During the Covid-19 crisis, stereotypical images of young people as selfish troublemakers or passive victims appeared in the media and scholarly publications. These persistent views disregard many young people's authentic experiences and civic contributions. In this article, we challenge these perceptions by highlighting young people's acts of citizenship during the pandemic lockdowns that took place during 2020 in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite being internationally praised for its compliant Covid-19 response, citizens were prepared to challenges the pandemic restrictions in order to have their voices heard. Young people were often at the forefront of these protests, wanting to actively participate in matters that concerned them by joining Black Lives Matter marches or campaigning to lower the voting age. At the same time, young people engaged in more personal and invisible acts of citizenship within their families and school communities. In this article, we share evidence from our empirical study into young people's social and political engagement during the Covid-19 lockdowns in Aotearoa New Zealand. Implications of this study for citizenship education are discussed.

Journalists’ Misjudgement of Audience Opinion

Prior studies have reported a right-leaning bias in the media’s reporting of how the public thinks of political issues, raising the question: Why, and to what extent, is this the case? One reason in particular has been discussed in this regard: Journalists judge public opinion to be more right leaning than it actually is (Beckers et al. 2021; Lewis et al. 2004). This paper therefore studies to what extent journalists misjudge audience opinion. The analyses are based on large-scale representative surveys of journalists (1993/2005) and the voting-age population (1994/2005) in Germany. Results show that German journalists (mis-)judge audience opinion to be more right-leaning than the audience sees itself. The results also show that journalists judge audience opinion to be to the right of their own stances, and that journalists in federal states with a right-leaning government and in West Germany judge audience opinion to be even further to the right. Audience feedback does not push journalists’ judgements of their audience towards the right, however. These results are discussed vis-à-vis research showing that there is a consistent bias in the depiction of opinions expressed by ordinary citizens, and research documenting that political elites overestimate public support for right-wing policies.

The Queer Agenda: Exploring the Political Participation of LGBTIQ+ Youth

<p>Youth participation literature is yet to fully explore the ways in which young marginalised LGBTIQ+ identifying youth engage in the political sphere. While there is a significant amount of existing literature about youth and their participation habits, research has not quite begun to explore the intersection of youth and LGBTIQ+ marginalisation, and identification, in relation to political participation. This research seeks to address these knowledge gaps, and explore the ways in which high school aged LGBTIQ+ youth in the Wellington region participate in politics. To do so, it organized a survey among Wellington high school students (N=91). The empirical data showed that most of the participants did not view their LGBTIQ+ identity as being political. It also found that the majority of respondents felt as though they have greater political efficacy and ability to make a change as LGBTIQ+ peoples than they do as young citizens under the voting age. Furthermore, the analyses revealed that the extent to which youth feel as though they belong to the queer community positively affects the extent to which they are involved in the LGBTIQ+ community. This research has served to challenge normative assumptions of political participation, and thus broaden understandings of how minority groups perform their citizenship, and engage in politics.</p>

The Queer Agenda: Exploring the Political Participation of LGBTIQ+ Youth

<p>Youth participation literature is yet to fully explore the ways in which young marginalised LGBTIQ+ identifying youth engage in the political sphere. While there is a significant amount of existing literature about youth and their participation habits, research has not quite begun to explore the intersection of youth and LGBTIQ+ marginalisation, and identification, in relation to political participation. This research seeks to address these knowledge gaps, and explore the ways in which high school aged LGBTIQ+ youth in the Wellington region participate in politics. To do so, it organized a survey among Wellington high school students (N=91). The empirical data showed that most of the participants did not view their LGBTIQ+ identity as being political. It also found that the majority of respondents felt as though they have greater political efficacy and ability to make a change as LGBTIQ+ peoples than they do as young citizens under the voting age. Furthermore, the analyses revealed that the extent to which youth feel as though they belong to the queer community positively affects the extent to which they are involved in the LGBTIQ+ community. This research has served to challenge normative assumptions of political participation, and thus broaden understandings of how minority groups perform their citizenship, and engage in politics.</p>

Politically Motivated Avoidance in Social Networks: A Study of Facebook and the 2020 Presidential Election

This study considers politically motivated unfriending/unfollowing on Facebook in the lead up to the 2020 Presidential election. As social media has grown more central to public discourse, it has been suggested that these types of avoidance behaviors might contribute to the formation of partisan echo chambers, whereby users may limit their exposure to competing viewpoints and corrective information by eliminating the network ties that transmit it. Building on prior research, this study explores the relationship between politically motivated avoidance and user perceptions of social media’s credibility as a source of political information. A pre-election survey of voting age adults in the state of Florida is analyzed to identify both the frequency and predictors of politically motivated avoidance. The results suggest that avoidance is a function of both individual political characteristics and user perceptions of information credibility. The findings are considered in the context of previous literature, and important avenues for future research are discussed.

Adolescents Provide more Complex Reasons for Lowering the Voting Age than Adults

Debates about lowering the voting age often center on whether 16 and 17-year-olds possess sufficient cognitive capacity and political knowledge to participate in politics. Little empirical research has examined age differences in adolescents’ and adults’ complexity of reasoning about political issues. We surveyed N = 778 adults (Mage = 38.5, SD = 12.5) and N = 397 16 and 17-year-olds concerning judgements and justifications about whether the US should change the minimum voting age. Justifications for changing the voting age were coded for integrative (i.e., integrating multiple perspectives to form a judgment about changing the voting age), elaborative (i.e., providing multiple reasons to support the same judgement about changing the voting age), and dialectic (i.e., recognizing multiple differing perspectives on changing the voting age) complexity of reasoning. Bayesian regressions indicated that adolescents provided greater integrative and elaborative complexity in their reasoning to change the voting age than adults. Adolescents and adults did not meaningfully differ in their dialectic complexity. Findings are consistent with past research indicating that adolescents possess the cognitive capacity and political knowledge to vote in US elections.

Reconsidering the Minimum Voting Age in the United States

Several U.S. states have proposed bills to lower the minimum local and national voting age to 16 years. Legislators and the public often reference political philosophy, attitudes about the capabilities of teenagers, or past precedent as evidence to support or oppose changing the voting age. Dissenters to changing the voting age are primarily concerned with whether 16- and 17-year-olds have sufficient political maturity to vote, including adequate political knowledge, cognitive capacity, independence, interest, and life experience. We review past research that suggests 16- and 17-year-olds possess the political maturity to vote. Concerns about youths’ ability to vote are generally not supported by developmental science, suggesting that negative stereotypes about teenagers may be a large barrier to changing the voting age.

Eurosphere or Anglosphere? Canadian Public Opinion on Brexit and the Future of Transatlantic Relations

Close relations with Europe, especially but not only with the United Kingdom, have long been a consensual tenet of Canadian foreign policy, which has supported European integration since the 1970s. The UK's withdrawal from the European Union threatens to upset this consensus. While Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has consistently cast Brexit in a negative light, Conservative leaders Andrew Scheer and Erin O'Toole have commented positively on the UK's leaving the EU. Did their polarized views resonate in the population? To answer this question, this article analyzes the results of an original survey of voting-age Canadians. Findings show a strong degree of correspondence between positions expressed in party discourse and preferences in the Canadian population. This raises the possibility that the difference between two models of transatlantic relations, which we call Eurosphere and Anglosphere, could emerge as a new fault line in Canadian foreign policy.