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Digital and social media have arguably altered the civic landscape, creating not only opportunities for civic voice and engagement but also distinct challenges. How do youth who are civically active think about activism and their own civic activities in this landscape? How does their sense of themselves as civic actors – the strength and salience of their civic identities – shape decisions to “speak up” online? In this chapter, we draw on data from interviews with civically active youth to explore connections between their civic identities and uptake of opportunities for voice online. Drawing on data from a follow-up study conducted two years after initial interviews, we also examine reported changes in online expression over time. We find that many – though not all – youth in our study appear to have strong civic identities, as indicated by their self-identification as “activists” and the centrality of voice to their conceptions of activism. We also observe connections between activist identification and online civic expression over time. Youths’ narratives about what informs their online voice decisions further suggest the relevance of forces that have influenced persistence in civic participation (such as life transitions, work, and family demands) in addition to pressures unique to the digital context (including online conflict and surveillance). This qualitative study suggests that strong civic identities may support uptake of, and persistence with, online civic expression and tolerance of related challenges. In the discussion, we consider implications for youth civic development and for the vitality and diversity of the digital civic sphere.

Most new media research focuses on behavior as a measure of engagement, while the psychological state of being occupied with its content has received little attention. This study examined news engagement beyond pure action observation by exploring young people’s psychological experiences with the news.

The study carried out a digital native’s survey on 212 people (18–28 years). The focus of the survey was on understanding individuals’ engagement with online news using affective and cognitive components. The authors compared the influence of each type of engagement on youth consumption of and attitudes toward online news.

The results of the hierarchical regression analysis showed that affective engagement can be a stronger predictor of online news consumption than cognitive engagement. While affective engagement significantly predicts positive attitudes toward online news, cognitive engagement had no significant effect.

These findings suggest that “engaging the heart” is more influential than “engaging the mind” in drawing young people to the news in today’s information environment. The study thus contributes to the understanding of the cognitive and emotional focus on news content and their importance in shaping young people’s expectations of online news. The findings from this study could have broader implications for future trends in online news consumption.

Leadership development through a civic engagement activity in a local FFA chapter is explored. Through a case study design, researchers illuminate a project that encouraged youth leadership development through the creation and execution of a civic engagement project in their own local community. Holistically, FFA members viewed the project as a resounding success. Leadership development was experienced at many levels - individual, chapter, and community. FFA members felt particularly engaged when seen as partners with the community. This was accomplished through developing networks and participating in the planning, decision making, and execution of the project. The primary barrier cited was a lack of engagement from all chapter members. Implications include the important role civic engagement plays in youth leadership development, employing civic engagement projects to assist in developing higher level leadership skills, and the need for further research partnerships between career and technical student organizational members and local community citizens.

Purpose – This paper explores how the interactive dynamics of peer education models within independent youth media outlets facilitate and impede youth engagement in media activism and social change work, more broadly defined.Design/methodological approach – Ethnographic and participatory action research methods are used with the youth media hub, Youth Media Action (YMA), to examine the possibilities and challenges that peer media educators confront in cultivating a noncommercial space for the collective production of oppositional media. YMA specifically seeks to involve youth from marginalized communities.Findings – The results suggest that peer-to-peer education models do act as vehicles for political engagement as youth experience shared ownership, cultivate solidarity, and acquire community organizing skills through the collective production of oppositional media. At the same time, challenges can surface when peer educators juggle multiple roles and participating community youth groups espouse differing organizational values and pedagogical sensibilities.Research limitations/implications – This study offers a potential pathway for further research on how peer education and collective media making models influence youth citizenship and social change work.Originality/value – The focus on the organizational and social dynamics of peer education models is useful in understanding youth citizenship and digital access as a collective experience for youth living in disenfranchised communities that seek out these spaces for not only media making but also community building.

Purpose – Prior research suggests that high school experiences shape young adult political behaviors, particularly among immigrant youth. The U.S. social studies classroom, focused on democratic citizenship education, proves an interesting socializing institution.Methods – Through qualitative inquiry, we interviewed Latino immigrant young adults and their former teachers regarding their high school social studies experiences and evolving political and civic engagement.Findings – Armed with experience bridging the worlds of the school and home, immigrant students respond and relate to the content and pedagogy of the social studies classroom in such a way that they (1) participate in civic discourse and (2) nurture a disposition toward leadership through teachers’ civic expectations of them and instructional emphasis on critical thinking skills.Social implications – The ability to engage in civic discourse and a disposition toward leadership are both necessary to foster America's democratic ideals, and to take on leadership roles during adulthood. With focused effort on the unique perspective of immigrant youth, high school social studies teachers can nurture in these students the ability to become leaders in young adulthood, broadening the potential leadership pool.Originality – This study highlights how the social studies curriculum may be particularly salient to Latino immigrant youth as they transition from adolescence to young adulthood and develop their political and civic identities.

This three-wave longitudinal study explored the relation between discrimination-related stress and behavioral engagement among urban African-American and Latino adolescents, and the moderating effect of school-based social support.

A sample of 270 African-American and Hispanic/Latino adolescents attending urban public high schools completed three annual surveys starting with 10th grade.

Growth curve analysis revealed that discrimination-related stress was associated with decreased behavioral engagement over time.

School-based social support moderated this effect in that discrimination-related stress had less of an impact on behavioral engagement as level of school-based social support increased.

School-based supportive relationships serve as a protective factor for urban African-American and Latino youth, helping them remain engaged in school as they deal with the negative effects of discrimination-related stress.

The findings reveal that the development of positive, supportive relationships in school seems to be a malleable variable that interventionists and educational advocates can focus on in an effort to bolster academic achievement among academically stigmatized youth.

Given the different manifestations of the unemployment crisis, the main purpose of this study was to identify what characteristics influence the participation of youth in key self-employment business options.

The study has used both probability and nonprobability sampling techniques. Purposive sampling methods were used to identify target study areas (districts and Kebeles) while the systematic random sampling method was used to locate sample respondents. A total of 424 sample respondents were interviewed through interview scheduled questionnaires. Statistical data analysis was carried out using STATA 14 software.

Agriculture, local value-added business activities, food-related services, petty trade and local transportation were common business choices where unemployed youths were engaged in. The findings of the study also showed that sex, loan size, loan repayment period and training gap were predictors of youth engagement in various self-employment career choices.

Increasing loan size has a positive and significant influence on youth engagement in all self-employment business choices and has reminded us the need to revise or lift up loan size celling to assist youths in engaging in productive sectors. Similarly, the favourable correlation between female youths and value-added activities necessitates a well-designed female-specific intervention.

An understanding of the key determinants of youth preference to engage in specific self-employment career choices enables practitioners to intervene where necessary in supporting youth self-employment engagement. A combination of skill training, relaxed loan size and relaxed repayment is likely to gain sustainable business, which would benefit the local economy by transforming small businesses to a higher level and creating more job opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences gained by participants of youth leadership development (YLD) programs that introduce multi-stakeholder processes as part of its training within the last five years. Moreover, the study delves into how participants are able to apply leadership and multi-stakeholder processes in their everyday lives and in their communities.

A perception survey of 41 respondents was conducted to examine leadership concepts identified and youth leadership practices in different social reform contexts.

Diverse challenges in terms of multi-stakeholder mobilization were evident in youth leaders’ engagement in communities. In spite of this, the YLD programs’ emphasis on multi-stakeholder process is very much embedded in the current youth leaders’ practice.

The study contributes to the conduct of YLD programs, as well as on stakeholder engagement. Moreover, it contributes to advancing public leadership theory and practice by demonstrating how it extends to youth leadership experiences.

Multiple dimensions of YLD, especially in the realm of multi-stakeholder engagement, are discussed that may contribute to YLD programs.

To the best of knowledge, the authors provide the first study that investigates the contribution of the Bridging Leadership Framework that utilizes a multi-stakeholder approach in a YLD program using empirical data.

Existing literature affirms that almost half of the young generation has remained unemployed worldwide. On the contrary civic engagement can be a powerful tool in combating this problem. However, the influencing factors that encourage the active participation of young adults yet to be identified. The purpose of this paper is to fill the research gap by creating and validating a research model by including three motives social presence commitment and online offline civic engagement.

The study took a quantitative approach to conduct a cross-sectional study. In total, 214 data were collected from the member of a Facebook group of Bangladesh named Foodbank, a restaurant review page through the online questionnaire. After that structural equation modelling techniques have been used to analyse the data, test the model validity and hypothesis.

The result shows that both commitment and social presence influence offline and online civic engagement. Excitement motives have a higher effect than information and convenience motive. Besides, 8 out of 10 hypotheses have shown significant results, with only the convenience motive not having any positive influence and effect on social presence and commitment.

Almost 47.6 out of 158.5 million are young people who are incapable of contributing fully to national development due to a lack of civic engagement. The outcome of this study will be useful for the Government of Bangladesh, as well as for non-governmental organisations and decision-making authorities to form assessments and develop policy on how to engage the young generation in civic activities to achieve further socio-economic development in the country.

This study contributes to existing literature with newly developed relationships between social presence-civic engagement and commitment-civic engagement. These unique relationships have been empirically tested and resulted insignificant. The study also identifies that it is vital to engage young people more in social works and increase their participation in offline and online activities.