Participation

Non-Participation

Voice

Young people are able and encouraged to express personal opinions and thoughts and these shape the joint work that is done.

Young people are used to express the ideas and opinions of adults. Their opinion is secondary.

Choice

Young people have the opportunity to participate in many different ways and can choose which of these is best for them.

Young people are not asked to participate but are told.

Transparency

Structures for young people’s participation are explicit and open for review. Young people’s participation role is clear, as is adults’.

Structures for young people’s participation are implicit and not discussed. young people’s participation role is unclear, and adults’ role is denied.

Information

Young people know both the why and the what of their participation.

Young people are simply told what to do.

Youth Civic Engagement Type

How to Understand Engagement

Who are Citizens?

Who are Young People?

Civic Education

Providing a “back to the basics” education, emphasizing founding documents and history of US.

Individuals educated on politics and government.

Individuals who have not received sufficient education on politics and government.

Providing Service to Others

Helping their communities and those in need.

Community caregivers.

Becoming community caregivers.

Social/Community Change

Participating in political and social action.

Change agents.

Potential problems solvers.

Individual Development

Participating in extracurricular activities.

Individuals with a developed civic identity.

Individuals in the process of developing a civic identity.

Inputs

Activity

Outputs

Outcomes (by different levels of analysis)

Youth worker

Young people

Program context and policy

Philosophy of civic youth work practice

Practice approaches and methods

Group work

Team building

Critical questioning

Joint decision making

Building shared understanding

Changes in youth worker skills

Changes in young person

Changes in program

Changes in youth work philosophy

Changes in practice methods and approaches

- Individuals (e.g., young people taking on citizen role)
- Group (e.g. improved ability to work as a team, handle conflicts, implement social action)
- Theory (e.g. ongoing refinement of civic youth development theory)
- Program (e.g., increase support for democratic and CYW)
- Strategy for organization development (e.g., increased commitment to democratic ways of working with young people)
- Youth worker (e.g. increased skill in co-creating, co-sustaining social action, strengthening  belief in civic youth work).
- Civic youth work practice (e.g., increased clarity of why to do this work, what the work entails, and how to do it)

Classical and/or typical youth work                          

Civic youth work                                    

                          Philosophy                      
                                    

Youth centered and youth involved                                       
                                    

Young people are citizens now!                                       
                                    

                               Purpose                                  
                                    

Supports personal and social development                              

Invite and support young people’s civic and political development, and community and social change                          

Value nexus
                                    

Accepting and valuing young people                                    

Cocreating, community change, social justice                                    

                      Method                                   

Informal and nonformal learning, experiential education, conversation, relationship building                                    

Experiential and community-based learning, democratic group work, youth participatory action research and evaluation, critical education                          

                               Skills
                                    

Animating, facilitating

Cocreating, cosustaining, reflecting on the effectiveness of social action, reading the external sociopolitical environment.                              

Classic Group Work

Social-Action Group Work

Ethos

Collaborative, individual, and group development.

Group development for group action.

Craft Orientation

Working together for individual and group benefit (mutual aid).

Working together to respond to a meaningful public issue.

Knowledge

Group theory and stages of group development, facilitating group.

Developing members’ citizen knowledge and skills for engaging an issue publicly.

Skills

How to form a group, organize a group, facilitate a meeting, build group agendas.

Selecting, planning, doing, assessing, deciding on next steps, and evaluating what was done.

Practices

Group building, fostering individual and group development.

Issue research, planning civic and political action, ally building, evaluating and planning again, celebrating.