Bitesize Research: Political Understanding Of Young People

By Jaya Carrier

Welcome back everyone - I hope you’re all having a good week so far and that you had a nice half term break! As a school aiming for global, well-informed citizens and leaders, this week, I was interested to look at the Institute of Education’s recent report on political engagement in young people. 

Objectives: To understand emerging key themes and differences in the political understanding of young people

Summary: 

• The report identifies that between the ages of 11 and 16, political interest declines, particularly for students from lower income backgrounds. The family income appeared not to make a difference to students’ political interest before the age of 11.

• Fewer students from lower income backgrounds said they would vote in a future election aged 15. 

• The report identifies a growing gender gap in political interest between the ages of 16 and 30 - girls are much less likely to be interested in politics at 16, and their political interest grows at a slower rate than boys between ages 16 and 30.

• Girls taking vocational qualifications also had significantly less political interest than their counterparts taking other qualifications, whereas boys had better political interest irrespective of the kinds of qualifications they were taking.

• The authors believe that early adolescence is really important in terms of ensuring strong political engagement. 

• The authors conclude that more civic learning opportunities (such as in the French educational system) need to take place, particularly at post-16 level. 

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• Does this research matter to my work? How does it impact what I do in PD or in conversations with my tutees?

• How does this sit with our vision of creating informed, internationally-minded/global citizens?

• How do I support the understanding of important concepts like community, citizenship, advocacy?

• How can we better engage girls and PP students in politics?

• How can we encourage our students to engage with socio political initiatives (e.g. Youth Parliament) to foster an interest in social change and politics? 

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!