Young people and citizenship education: the impact of studying GCSE Citizenship Studies on young people’s democratic engagement and participation

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Henn, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1063-3544, Nunes, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3712-9425 and Sloam, J, 2025. Young people and citizenship education: the impact of studying GCSE Citizenship Studies on young people’s democratic engagement and participation. Association for Citizenship Teaching.

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Abstract

Over the past few decades, democratic systems have been challenged by declining participation in elections, by political volatility, by an increase in populism and by the deliberate spreading of disinformation. Although youth participation in politics has fallen, young people remain interested in politics and are relatively active in non-electoral forms of civic and political engagement. The danger is that young people have become disconnected from formal politics, which is particularly the case for those from lower socio-economic groups.
The strong connection between education and democracy is well established in the academic literature – the more years a person spends in education and the greater knowledge they have of democracy and politics, the more likely we are to have sophisticated and active citizenry. But how can we reach out to all young people? One answer is effective citizenship education, which should be delivered hand-in-hand with political reforms, such as Votes at 16. Together, enhancement of citizenship education and better participatory opportunities for young people have the potential to rejuvenate British democracy.
In light of the ongoing (at the time of writing in Spring 2025) Curriculum Review, our aim in this report is to investigate the impact of citizenship education on the democratic engagement of young people in England, to independently evaluate its effect and how it might be refined and enhanced going forward. We surveyed 889 young people, aged 16 to 19, with a broad mix of men and women, those identifying as coming from a minoritised ethnic group or working-class background, and a boosted sample of those taking the GCSE in Citizenship Studies.

Item Type:	Research report for external body
Creators:	Henn, M., Nunes, A. and Sloam, J.
Publisher:	Association for Citizenship Teaching
Date:	June 2025
Identifiers:	Number Type 2462939 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	03 Jul 2025 13:25
Last Modified:	03 Jul 2025 13:25
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53874