A new 16-page policy report investigating the ‘polycrisis’ of youth political participation in the UK has just been launched by PIRP researchers Dr Kaat Smets, Professor James Sloam, and Aine Bennett, in collaboration with the Partnership for Young London and the Pan London Children in Care Council (CiC). Specifically, the report offers policy recommendations so that young people’s democratic needs can be better met.
The output details valuable insight into the perceptions of care leavers and young Londoners from marginalised groups about political participation. Through a series of focus groups conducted before and after the June 2024 UK election, PIRP researchers investigated the specific barriers young people face in engaging with the electoral process.
Dr Kaat Smets explained: “Although we had originally intended to investigate the practicalities of voting, through engaging with young people in focus groups, we uncovered that young people are instead questioning why they may want to vote in the first place.”
With the potential introduction of votes at 16 during this Parliament, the policy report offers valuable insights into perceptions of a democratic deficit among young people more generally and those from marginalised backgrounds specifically. It was clear that young people generally do not believe that their challenges are being addressed by politicians nor political parties.
Professor James Sloam said: “Overall, we identified three key issues related to young people’s current disillusionment with the electoral process: “1. Lack of a youth offer; 2. Politicians do not engage with young people in a meaningful way; and 3. A deficit in civic and political education”.
Ultimately, this report offers recommendations to centre young people’s unique needs in order to embed best practice for policymakers. These revolve around more in-person and direct engagement with young people, improved civic education inside and outside the classroom; more meaningful engagement and co-creation of policy through more diverse branches of youth councils, political parties, etc.
“Young peoples’ voices need to be heard, and this report provides a platform to rejuvenate democracy from a youth-centred approach”, Aine Bennett explained.
The full report is available here: https://hollodec.github.io/images/ssia_p2p.pdf
This research was funded as part of Royal Holloway’s Social Science Impact Accelerator, under the project name “Young People and Electoral Turnout: Understanding and Improving Youth Participation amongst Disadvantaged Groups”. The researchers would like to thank their collaborative partners, Partnership for Young London and the Pan London CiC for their support. [More information on partners / the project can be found: https://hollodec.github.io/images/ssia_p2p.pdf]
