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Introduction: The Need to Investigate the Civic Experiences of American Young People

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Young People's Civic Identity in the Digital Age

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics ((PSYPP))

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Abstract

This chapter begins with the academic and personal motivation for the project, and sets the context for the study upon which this book is based. In contemporary society, the meaning of citizenship and what it means to be civically engaged is shaped by individuals’ experiences of citizenship. However, for decades, research on the meaning of citizenship has been based in theoretical understandings of adults’ conceptualizations and experiences of citizenship, and there is limited empirical research examining citizenship as it is experienced and conceptualized by young people before they reach adulthood. Today, young people are experiencing the world in a more digitally mediated manner than previous generations, and scholars have described changes in citizenship alongside how technology is involved in civic engagement (Bennett, Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age. In W. L. Bennett (Ed.), Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 1–24, 2008; Schudson, The Good Citizen: A History of American Civic Life, The Free Press, New York, 1998). The author presents an overview of the study and an outline of the book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Previous research demonstrates that Facebook and similar sites keep us trapped in a bubble of our own worldview (Bakshy, Messing, & Adamic, 2015). This challenge will be explored further in Chapter 2.

  2. 2.

    As you can observe in Table 1.1, the gender split in the study does not mirror that of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I found that both male and female participants shared similar civic experiences and concerns. For instance, Jackie (female) and Kenai (male) shared their frustration that adults had discouraged them from engaging politically, and Bibiana (female) and Joseph (male) both experience a tension between a sense of belonging in the United States and a legal status of citizenship. As Chapters 3, 4, and 5 will address, the civic experiences among the participants in this study related more to how adults treat them as “just kids,” and the messages circulating in public discourse, particularly around immigration. The experiences that were discussed in this study were experienced by all genders, and therefore the uneven gender distribution did not impact the results of the study. However, given the current growth of feminist societies in schools (Kim & Ringrose, 2018) and growing collectivized feminism in public life (Retallack, Ringrose, & Lawrence, 2016), further research should be done to investigate gender identity and its relationship to civic identity.

  3. 3.

    NVivo is a computer assisted data analysis software. This tool helped me to store, code, and analyze the interview transcripts.

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    Julianne K. Viola

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Viola, J.K. (2020). Introduction: The Need to Investigate the Civic Experiences of American Young People. In: Young People's Civic Identity in the Digital Age. Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37405-1_1

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