Prior studies revealed that low levels of youth political activity are not necessarily indicative of complete disengagement from societal affairs but could be accompanied by interest and latent ...involvement stemming from a standby or monitorial attitude. However, no prior study has investigated patterns of citizenship orientations including both manifest and latent engagement defined by one’s position towards institutional politics, according to different forms of participation. A questionnaire was filled out by 1,732 late adolescents and young adults in Italy (15–30 years old, M = 19.73, 60.7% female). Cluster analysis identified six profiles of citizenship orientations across different types of participatory activities (political, activist, political online and civic): active trustful, active distrustful, standby trustful, standby distrustful, unengaged trustful and unengaged distrustful. The results showed that each level of engagement—active, standby and unengaged—could be further differentiated between trustful and distrustful based on their attitude towards institutions and the electoral process.
The topic of youth participation in the public sphere has received increasing attention within recent psychological research. The literature remains somewhat fragmented between different ...conceptualizations varying in their specificity or broadness. The present study aims to map the current state of debate in psychology regarding youth civic and political participation and to identify the prevalent themes that characterize the research in the discipline from 1990 to 2016. A semantic content analysis with the software T-Lab was performed on a corpus of 1,777 publications retrieved from the PsycInfo database. The results highlight the increasing number of academic contributions on the topic, confirming the growing importance of the issue within psychology. The study sheds light on the spheres of participation, in which the discipline has attempted to make a contribution, namely: traditional and online political context, institutional civic education, adolescent development, and rights-based activism. Moreover, the findings reveal the existing opposing priorities of research that focus either on the explanation of specific forms of involvement or on the formation of future citizens. Within the thematic attention to young people's civic and political development, there seem to be two general approaches that see youth in divergent ways: as citizens whose civic capacities are to be fostered or as targets for top-down training interventions. This systematic thematic review calls attention to the disparate ways in which youth participation is being addressed in psychology and highlights the need for greater theoretical integration in the field of study.
Studies on youth participation tend to characterize youth as either active and trustful or as passive and alienated. This cross-national and longitudinal study examines patterns of citizenship ...orientations characterized by both manifest and latent involvement differentiated by one’s position toward institutional politics (trustful or distrustful) among 1,914 adolescents from five European countries (53.5% female; Mage = 16.27). Demographic and proximal contextual correlates associated with different orientations at a 1-year interval were also assessed. Latent profile analysis identified four groups of citizenship orientations among adolescents: engaged trustful, engaged distrustful, unengaged trustful, and unengaged distrustful. Differences of membership likelihood were found for background characteristics (gender and family income), school characteristics (track, democratic climate, student participation, and its perceived quality), family, and peer norms of participation.
A substantial amount of literature has revealed gender gaps in political participation. However, little is known about such gaps when using more comprehensive measures of civic and political ...participation including online participation. In the present study, we recruited a sample (n = 1792) of young people living in Italy. Controlling for age, majority/minority status, socioeconomic status, respondents’ educational attainment, and parents’ educational attainment, we found that female participants reported higher scores on online and civic participation, while male participants were more likely to report political and activist participation. The effect size for these gender differences was small. In addition, we did not find any gender differences in voting behavior in the last European parliamentary elections, national parliamentary elections, and local elections. These findings highlight the need to move toward a more comprehensive and detailed picture of gender gaps in political engagement and participation including different types of participation.
Most research on the gender gap in participation has been dominated by studies relying on survey data from adult participants and involving samples from North America. More evidence is needed to investigate gender differences in participation among young people even distinguishing different types of participation.
This paper adds to the literature by examining gender differences in different types of participation among young people.
Results showed that young female participants reported higher scores on online and civic participation, while male participants were more likely to report political and activist participation.
Growing evidence shows that exposure to nature and psychological engagement with nature improve health and wellbeing and promote greater proenvironmental engagement. The unprecedented situation ...created by COVID-related lockdowns seems to have brought both potential distress with household confinements and greater research on experiences in nature. University students may have been particularly impacted as the quality of their home arrangements can vary substantially. The aim of the study was to examine how psychological engagement with nature (nature connectedness and noticing nature), time spent in nature, and household conditions relate to psychological wellbeing and proenvironmental behavior among university students. An online survey was administered to a sample of 566 university students from Italy and Ireland. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed to investigate the relationships between variables. The results indicate that time spent in nature and psychological engagement with nature in terms of nature connectedness and noticing nature were associated with increased wellbeing and pro-nature-conservation behavior, controlling for demographic covariates. Moreover, the perception of chaos in one's household was related to decreased wellbeing during the prolonged COVID-19 emergency. The findings highlight the need to invest in accessible natural places for students and to focus campus sustainability practices on encouraging nature connectedness to promote wellbeing and proenvironmental engagement.
It has been widely argued that effective citizenship education should focus on more than mere teaching of civic knowledge, but should provide a wider range of opportunities for the experience of ...participation and development of skills, efficacy and interest instrumental to active citizenship. Opportunities for critical reflection such as open classroom discussions, fairness at school, institutional efficacy and student participation at school activities have been linked to the development of civic and political attitudes. The capacity of school education to provide opportunities for critical reflection on students’ participative experiences, however, has not been explored empirically sufficiently. This paper aims to identify the contribution of different school characteristics to the development of civic and political attitudes and their impact on students’ level of participation in civic activities through a mixed methods study. Questionnaire data collected in two waves with 685 adolescents from Italy were analyzed through structural equation modeling to test the effects of school characteristics at Time 1 (democratic climate, student participation and critical reflection) on civic participation at Time 2, mediated by institutional trust, civic efficacy and political interest. In order to explore the quantitative findings and examine further students’ perceptions of the school aspects that support their civic involvement, focus group discussions were conducted with students from secondary schools with different tracks.The results highlight the importance of opportunities for active involvement in school and critical reflection in fostering political interest, efficacy and civic participation. Democratic school climate was found to impact institutional trust and civic efficacy, but not participation. Students’ accounts of schools’ citizenship education activities highlight further the need for a participative environment that rises above information transmission by inviting critical reflection and giving value to students’ active involvement in the institution.
The current study aimed to investigate the longitudinal predictors of perceived importance of climate change and personal worry among Italian youths. Specifically, we used machine learning techniques ...to examine the predictive importance of a wide range of socio-demographic factors, political perceptions, attitudes on a national and European level (identity, attitudes, tolerance, support for democracy, authoritarianism, nationalism, political trust), efficacy beliefs, social well-being, political interest, and different forms of participation on perceived importance of climate change and personal worry. In this longitudinal study, we collected data using a questionnaire in two waves at a one-year interval—in 2016 and 2017. Participants were 1288 Italian young adults (61.3% were female; 38.7% were male) whose mean age was 19.18 (SD = 3.29) ranging between 15 and 30 years. Breiman’s random forest algorithm performed better than Friedman’s gradient boosting machines algorithm. The random forest algorithm revealed that age, tolerance toward migrants, and tolerance toward refugees were the most important predictors of perceived importance of climate change and personal worry. Other important predictors were national/European identity, political interest, internal political efficacy, nationalism, social well-being, self-efficacy, authoritarianism, anti-democratic attitudes, EU warmth, and online and civic participation.
Democratic school climate, critical reflection, and student participation at school have been linked to the development of civic and political attitudes. The study aims to identify the contribution ...of these characteristics to the development of civic and political attitudes and their impact on students' participation (civic, political, activist, and lifestyle/online). Questionnaire data were collected in two waves with 1589 students from four European countries (Italy, Sweden, Germany, and the Czech Republic). Structural equation modelling tested the effects of school characteristics on different types of participation, mediated by institutional trust, political efficacy, and political interest. The results highlight the importance of opportunities for active involvement and critical reflection in fostering interest, efficacy, and all forms of participation activities. Democratic school climate was found to positively impact institutional trust and efficacy, but not participation. The findings highlight the need for a school environment that invites critical reflection and gives value to students' participation.
This study examined the social representations of SARS-CoV-2 virus in Italy. We used the technique of free word association involving 1572 adults living in Italy. An open coding procedure and content ...analysis lead to the identification of 13 key topics representing the categorisation of concepts that emerged from the elicited words. The most common categories were spread of the virus, negative feelings, life during quarantine, and health consequences of the virus. Multidimensional scaling of co-occurrences of categories revealed these categories were grouped into four thematic areas. In addition, we found that the frequency of the categories of words was associated with gender, age, well-being, and mental health symptoms. By revealing complex and differentiated social representations, results from the present study provide a comprehensive insight on Italian people's perception of COVID-19 outbreak in the Spring of 2020. This early study of social representations forms a useful basis for later studies, in order to understand how collective understandings and framings of risk have evolved across the duration of the pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused abrupt and profound changes to teaching and learning. The present study seeks to understand adolescents’ experiences of the emergency adoption of online school learning ...(OSL) during the first national lockdown in Italy. Sixty-four students in their final two years of high school were interviewed and content analysis was performed. The findings describe students’ views of the changes related to OSL according to structural, individual and relational dimensions. Schools’ lack of organization, overwhelming demands, as well as experience of difficulties in concentration, stress and inhibited relationships with teachers and classmates were among the challenges evidenced in the transition. OSL, however, has also made it possible to experience a new flexibility and autonomy in the organization of learning. The study stresses the importance of fostering adaptation of teacher-student relationships and collaborative learning in order to improve schools’ preparedness for digital transitions in and out of emergencies.
PDF
