In democratic societies, social and political participation as well as social engagement are seen as important actions to strengthen democracy and social cohesion and are supported accordingly (Meyers, Weis et al., 2015). Especially in the adolescent phase, young people increasingly ask questions about politics, engagement, and their participation in many areas of life. Young people’s social and political participation is closely related to learning processes in non-formal and informal contexts, to value development and identity construction in adolescence.
In our projects, we explore questions such as how forms of participation by young people change or which educational processes are promoted by social and political engagement among young people.